Concept plan for the K Street Transitway showing a proposed typical block. Image by DDOT.

The K Street Transitway will speed buses and bikes down the middle of a mile-long stretch of downtown DC by 2024, according to information presented by the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) at a November 14 pop-up.

The transitway — essentially bus and bike lanes on K Street between 12th and 21st Streets Northwest — is still being designed. Exact block-by-block details don’t exist yet. But DDOT has started to make decisions about what the transitway will look like, and how it will operate.

Their newest plans show two bus lanes running down the middle of K Street, flanked by landscaped medians on either side, and curb-protected bike lanes beyond that. Outside the bike lane curbs, two car lanes run in each direction. The car lanes nearest the sidewalk on either side might be used for through travel, loading/unloading, or turn lanes, but won’t be parking.

Image by DDOT.

Median bikeway, bi-directional bus stops

This new design differs from previous concepts in at least two key ways: It includes bike lanes in the median along with the busway, and bus stops will serve both directions at a single location, rather than putting stops for opposite directions on diagonal corners from each other.

Putting the bike lanes in the middle of the street rather than next to the sidewalk is a controversial move. It forces people on bikes to ride next to faster moving vehicle traffic rather than slower moving pedestrians, and it makes it harder to access mid-block destinations.

But the trade off is there are vastly fewer conflcts with cars and trucks. According to DDOT spokesperson Laren Stephens, “we believe that center-running lanes are safer due to the high volume of right-turning vehicles at intersections, garages, and alleys.”

Likewise, the median bikeway eliminates conflicts with freight and ride-hail loading, which would have users crossing over any sidewalk-adjacent bike lane to reach the sidewalk.

No streetcar, but it’s streetcar-ready

For years the K Street Transitway has been planned as a light rail transitway, to serve a Georgetown extension of the H Street streetcar. That’s still a good idea, but for now DDOT’s budget doesn’t include extending the streetcar.

This plan does, however, leave room for the streetcar to be added later on. Says Stephens, “The Transitway will be designed so as not to preclude a future streetcar extension. DDOT is designing bus platforms that can accommodate future streetcar stations, turning radii that can accommodate rail vehicles, and relocation of underground utilities. By redesigning the street with a center-running transitway, streetcar would already have dedicated right-of-way for any future extension.”

Many details still to come

The concept plan here is far from finished, and although DDOT’s assumption as of today is that the transitway will look roughly like this, the next step will be to develop a bus operations plan and a computer traffic model, to simulate how this layout works when its filled with multimodal traffic.

Following that analysis, other details will emerge, or existing details may be reconsidered. Where will there be pick-up-drop-off zones versus turn lanes? Will the busway need passing lanes anywhere? Do the bus stops actually work more efficiently on diagonal corners after all?

Those questions should have answers when DDOT finishes the transitway design in 2021. If all goes according to plan, it will open for buses and bikes in 2024.

For the 110 WMATA and DC Circulator buses per hour that converge on these blocks, that can’t come soon enough.

Image by DDOT.