Starburst intersection -- Maryland Ave.-Bladensburg and Benning Roads

Right turn from Benning onto Maryland Ave. north. According to traffic studies, in a 24-hour period, about 50 cars use this road segment.

The creation of a plaza and re-engineering of roads at the intersection of Bladensburg, Benning, Maryland, H Street, and 15th Street was one of the recommendations of the H Street Transportation Study. This project was fast-tracked by Dan Tangherlini, by his decision to add this project, conceptualized as part of the H Street Streetscape redesign, by extending the in-process Ward7-Ward 8 Benning Road road project one block west. The Benning Road reconstruction project was to end at 16th Street. By extending it to 15th Street, this moves up the changes at this intersection by 3 years at least.

Last week, there were two public meetings on the redesign of this intersection. One, held during the day, I went to, and the other was at night. I didn't attend the night meeting, but Elise Bernard reports on that meeting at her blog, in this entry.

The day meeting was a near disaster--dominated by a few extremely car-centric and "backwards thinking" community members. These people had a difficult if not impossible time conceptualizing anything but car-centricity.

I think the site is a difficult one to improve in the short run, because it's not where people congregate, but there is plenty of potential over time to create a quality public space in a neighborhood that is desperately short of great spaces.

One of the things that constantly bugs me about public participation in the greater neighborhood is about how fact-averse people's opinions tend to be.

Maryland Avenue has very little traffic. Acting as if it doesn't is non-sensical. Maryland Avenue north of Benning is a road to nowhere as it doesn't provide access to the Arboretum (that entrance is closed) yet the street is engineered to handle freeway driving speeds and is about as wide as a highway to boot. Why some of the vociferous pro-car people want to preserve road turnoffs for 2 cars/hour, instead of provide better spaces for the community is beyond me.

Maryland Avenue at H Street, looking north.

Other photos of the Starburst intersection and Maryland Avenue.

One difference between the day and the night meeting was going out to the site and performing the PPS "Place Game." I think site visits, using a systematic but creative process such as the Place Game, are key to get people out of traditional ways of thinking.

It's not operational quite yet, but the creation of this plaza will have a companion website at www.starburstplaza.org.