I can't believe this is really happening: the decking over of Connecticut Avenue at Dupont Circle, Washington DC

Reddit photo of Connecticut Avenue NW getting decked over between Dupont Circle and Q Street NW.

Decades ago, a trench under Dupont Circle was dug out to reduce streetcar congestion.  After the streetcar system shut down, it became one of the city's underground bypasses, like the similar trenching of North Capitol Street from NoMA to Rhode Island Avenue.

For years people suggested the trench get "decked" to add street space to Dupont Circle, making it more congenial.

This is the kind of urban design improvement that many cities have been undertaking for awhile.  

After a flurry of streetscape urban design interventions that were reasonably creative starting in the late 1990s and including a new streetscape form for 8th Street SE in Barracks Row/Capitol Hill and the restoration of Thomas Circle, which had been cut through with more road lanes years before ("At Last, It's a Pleasure To Go Around in Circle," Washington Post), besides doing new streetscape projects, the city hasn't been particularly bold.

Thomas Circle, 1993.  Photo: Historic American Engineering Record.

Thomas Circle, after.  Flickr photo by BeyondDC.

Connecticut Avenue underpass between Dupont Circle and Q Street NW.

An early rendering of what the newly created deck space can look like.

Although there are a couple of exceptions, the removal of a parking and through lane on the 3400 block of Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park in 2024--actually a big deal in the face of plenty of opposition over lost parking spaces ("DC neighbors fight to transform Connecticut Ave. service lane into Cleveland Park promenade," WTOP-AM), and continued bikeway and trail expansions including the Metropolitan Branch Trail.

So maybe they are bold, just very very slowly.  Although there have been setbacks with bicycle lanes on Upper Connecticut Avenue NW and in other places.  

Saved.

While the Washington Area Bicyclists Association was successful in fighting off the Trump Administration's attempt to remove part of the 15th Street cycletrack in the Federal District ("Judge Bars Imminent Removal of D.C. Bike Lanes," New York Times), since then the Bowser Administration seems to be backing off on bikeway proposals.

Seeing the decking going forward, after being discussed for a good ten years, is exciting.

A number of years ago, I suggested that neighborhoods create their own list of priority urban design improvements.  

I only wrote it out for Dupont Circle ("Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC," 2019) and 17th Street NW in Dupont Circle ("Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021).  

I don't think I did for the L'Enfant-Waterfront area, where the connections from L'Enfnt Plaza to the Wharf are bad, and the SE-SW Freeway could be decked as well--Herb Miller suggested doing so for a baseball stadium ("D.C. Developer Sways the City With Big Bucks and Big Ideas," Washington Post) and in the early 2000s, noted DC urban designer Joseph Passonneau suggested it be converted to a boulevard ("Southeast Freeway Could Go Under," Washington Post, 2000).

DC 295 could be undergrounded also--it's at ground level in many places so decking isn't the solution--and that would make a huge difference for far NE and SE in terms of re-knitting neighborhoods.

DC 295 takes up a lot of space...

North Capitol Street trench in Bloomingdale.

Also, the Bloomingdale Citizens Association has been very active in pushing for decking North Capitol in their neighborhood--they took up the initiative when the city refused to do so ("Bloomingdale Village Square Initiative will be holding its third Community Forum on the proposed North Capitol Deck-over Park," 2020).

Those districts--SW, Bloomingdale, and NE-SE--should begin or renew their advocacy for decking.

Plus an underground parking garage and visitor center system under the National Mall ("Parking under the National Mall should be part of an integrated approach to visitor services and management") and the related concept to extend the National Mall southward, a heritage streetcar system for the National Mall ("Revisiting: a proposal for heritage streetcar service on the National Mall | adding service to the DC waterfront," 2013/2022), and undergrounding the through traffic for I-95 on New York Avenue ("Maglev as an opportunity for DC to underground through traffic on New York Avenue," 2020).

Some of these I discussed in "DC and "city repair" of the urban grid," (2020).

When I was back in DC recently--all too brief--I was blown away by the new construction in Downtown, Walter Reed, and Union Market--I didn't get to the SE Waterfront or The Wharf in SW, nor did I have time to explore Greater Downtown (but I did get to some of our favorite restaurants, Parkway Deli in Silver Spring and Olive Lounge in Takoma Park).

There is a lot of decent urban design interventions in these places.  And I felt good about the long term trajectory of the city, despite Trump's decimation of the federal work force and moving agencies out of DC, which has reduced local employment and housing values significantly.