Every time Sara Wilkinson leaves her house to walk somewhere, she said she fears for her life.
She lives near the intersection of Taylor Street and South Dakota Avenue in Northeast D.C., and for years, her son attended a school along the busy corridor.
It was about a half-mile away, but Wilkinson intentionally took a longer route because standing or walking along South Dakota Avenue meant having to be on high alert.
“I was terrified every moment that someone was going to lose control and careen into the sidewalk and kill us,” Wilkinson said.
Now, as D.C.’s Department of Transportation (DDOT) studies possible safety improvements to a nearly three-mile stretch of the road, Wilkinson and her neighbors are urging leaders to take action.
An online petition calling for safety upgrades has received over 900 signatures since it launched on July 7.
Not everyone, though, supports the changes. A separate online petition launched in July and opposes bike lanes and other changes along South Dakota Avenue.
“We cannot imagine SDA-NE, a major thoroughfare for residents and commuters, being reduced to one lane of through traffic going north to south,” that petition reads.
The road, specifically the parts between Bladensburg and Riggs roads in Northeast, has been on DDOT’s radar. Starting with a walk-in May 2023, the agency has heard complaints that drivers speed and run red lights, that there needs to be a dedicated turn lane, and it’s hard to reach nearby schools and parks.
Ward 5 Council member Zachary Parker secured funding in the fiscal 2024 budget to have the agency develop a road diet, but community members fear that while a study is funded, it will be more complicated to get a project paid for.
With the study funding, DDOT is planning to consider ways it can address what residents say are common issues — driver behavior and the impacts it’s having on people who live in one of the homes or apartment complexes right off the road.
“Rush hour traffic is but a few hours a day, and the rest of the hours of the day, South Dakota Avenue is a wide lane, multilane highway in the middle of a residential neighborhood, which creates all the unsafe traffic conditions,” Brooke Bernold said.
There are seven speed cameras and a red-light camera along the stretch of the road being studied, according to DDOT documents, and there have been over 1,000 crashes from 2018 to 2023.
Most of the crashes, according to DDOT, are rear-end incidents, though sideswipe and left-turn crashes make up 21% and 20% of crashes, respectively.
Bus service is also scheduled to increase along South Dakota Avenue, prompting calls for changes to be made quickly.
“We have a lot of big avenues, like South Dakota Avenue, that encourage speeding, and that bleeds over into everywhere else,” said Jessica Hart, whose 5-year-old daughter was killed while on her bike in a crosswalk in nearby Brookland three years ago. “It encourages speeding and distracted driving and failure to stop and yield.”
As part of a road diet, according to DDOT documents for the project study, the four lanes of traffic could be reduced to either three or two lanes, and a center lane enabling drivers in both directions to make left turns could be added.
The approach usually results in extra space, which could be used for bike lanes and/or parking.
Road diets can “help reduce traffic accidents because they help reduce the flow of cars and their speed,” Bernold said.
Critics of that approach argue removing a lane of through traffic would create congestion.
“We know this will only make traffic significantly worse, add to delays, significantly increase traffic ‘spilling’ into our side streets to avoid ‘backups,’ increase carbon emissions from idling cars backed up in traffic, and may increase car, pedestrian, property, and cyclist accidents,” the opposing petition said.
DDOT is still planning to hold public meetings this fall and winter.
Asked for comment on the petition and calls for urgency, a DDOT spokesman said the agency is still engaging the public and “remains dedicated to collaborating with community members, stakeholders, and local officials to develop solutions that meet everyone’s needs and encourages continued public engagement as we move forward with this important initiative.”
Meanwhile, Wilkinson said, “This is our neighborhood, and we should feel safe in it.”
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