The issue of weekend closing of 7th Street SE adjacent to the Eastern Market

There was a meeting last night about this, convened by Councilmember Tommy Wells of Ward 6. (Currently the street is closed on weekends as a result of an Executive Order by Mayor Fenty, and he shows no desire to revoke the order. However, various camps in the community question either the decision or the lack of community input into the decision.)

It was a civil meeting, not widely attended (more than 50 people, maybe not 100 people). The sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor, but some merchants were opposed and some residents.

1. The merchant opposition has to do with the perception that people need to be able to come up to the market with a car to pick up items they've purchased, because they are too heavy to carry. (And the discussion in part focused on creating short term pick up zones.)

One of the things that bothers me about this discussion, although I understand and appreciate the sentiment, is that it only recognizes the value of automobile owners as customers. 40% of DC households, such as mine, don't have cars. Creating a pick up zone is for the convenience of automobile owners. That's fine, it's an important segment of the market. But where is the planning for the segment of the market that doesn't own a car.

For a couple years I have advocated for a shared delivery service, renta-bicycles, etc., and this seems to fall on deaf ears. At least I don't think I have ever heard it acknowledged or considered...

At Ikea stores in Denmark, you can borrow a bicycle and trailer to take your purchases home. Velorbis photo.


UPS delivery bike by Workcycles, Amsterdam.

2. Another thing that most of the pro-car camp fails to acknowledge is that for the past few years, there hadn't been metered parking on Saturdays, so most of the spaces on the block of 7th Street SE from C Street to North Carolina had been used by people parking all day. The spaces for the most part didn't turn over.

3. A lot of the discussion took for granted the centrality of automobile ownership, the desire to park in front of your house, the increased demand for parking in the area, as Eastern Market becomes more of a destination.

4. Many people stated that they feel much more comfortable with the street closed on weekends, especially if they have children or dogs, because before it was more dangerous, with cars rushing through, and all of the parked vehicles, especially adjacent to the Farmers Line Shed, blocking visibility.

5. But other people worried that making Eastern Market more of a festival could make it harder for the food sales, both outside by regional farmers, and inside by the merchant-vendors, to succeed.

6. Some businesses ("brick and mortar") on the east side of the street have been fighting the street closure, saying that it negatively impacts their business.

Now I don't think I have ever met a business proprietor who doesn't believe that parking is the biggest issue for them, impacting their business. But often this is an excuse or a misreading of concerns expressed by customers. A lot of times, businesses aren't doing enough to promote their business, to make their merchandising exciting.

A perfect example is the lack of merchandising by Market Row businesses, a failure to capitalize on the vitality of the street, and to connect their business to the sidewalk and street, to lure customers in. For example, The Forecast is a clothing and gift store. They have some very nice items (we have bought gifts there, and Suzanne has bought clothes from them), but you would never know it, looking at the outside of their building.

Forecast, 7th Street SE.

Part of the problem with the Forecast building is that it was designed to ward off the street, rather than connect to it. The store windows are hidden behind a projection of the facade. This is typical of buildings built in Capitol Hill in the 1980s. (And categorically, the buildings are failures for the retail stores within.) It's also a problem with the Georgetown Park mall in Georgetown, which for the stores on the interior of the mall, pedestrians have to leave the excitement of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown for the artificial light and deadness of the bowels of that shopping center.

This store on 11th Street NW in Columbia Heights, Franklin's, a street not known as a retail destination, does a far better job in trying to reach out to customers who might be walking by, to leverage the little pedestrian activity there is, to draw customers inside.


7. In a side conversation with Councilmember Wells, I discovered that he has become far more informed about the nitty and the gritty of transportation/mobility issues and politics. It's a very good sign. At the end, unlocking our bikes, the three bicyclists (including Councilmember Wells), traded tips on riding at night and the best place to get lights -- Councilmember Wells is a fan of adaptively reusing items sold at Fragers Hardware, located on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, as they tend to be less expensive than the gear sold at bike stores...