Why is klingle road closed

Chicago Detroit Los Angeles. New York San Francisco Archive. Convenient Rock Creek Park trail will close for up to three months for storm drain work. Washington DC Share this story. Vociferous community advocates arose on all sides of the issue: some argued Klingle Road should be fully reopened to all traffic, others wanted a permanent closure, others a conversion to a trail, and various positions in-between. After numerous twists and turns, the road's fate was finally resolved in with DC Council legislation that required this section of Klingle Road to remain closed to cars and reopen as a multi-use trail.

With that clarity, DDOT was able to advance project development through the design and engineering phases, and construction started in July The additional features include a restoration of Klingle Creek to resize and realign its channel and stabilize its eroded banks. Without this restoration, the new trail would quickly be undermined by water runoff from the creek just like the previous roadway. The trail surface also uses porous asphalt to minimize water runoff.

Old: eroded, broken-up concrete sections of Klingle Road. New: the trail, with a bioswale trench to help manage stormwater. Moreover, far from being unnecessary, Klingle Road road is necessary for public safety of persons and property, and to relieve the undue burden on our residential streets.

DPW in recent meetings has assured its citizens that no decision to close the road has been made. All of the surrounding ANC's have voted to re-open the road.

Myth : Klingle Road is not necessary since it has been closed for 10 years. Fact : Klingle Road was never lawfully closed. The passage of time has not reduced the need for this road.

On the contrary, the road is needed now more than ever, as an alternate cross-town east-west route. It is the only cross town artery that provides a short cut from 16th Street to the Wisconsin and Reno Road areas, passing underneath Connecticut Avenue to Woodley Road.

Its the right way to get back and forth between 16th Street and Wisconsin Avenue and upper Georgetown, without going through residential streets.

Since its closure, traffic that would normally travel through the park on Klingle Road is now forced to use Connecticut and surrounding densely populated residential streets like yours, such as Porter, Tilden, Macomb, Newark, Ordway and cross streets like 34th and 36th Street.

As a result, we believe that accidents are happening more frequently along these residential streets. Some of us witnessed an accident in July at Newark and 34th Street Reno.

A resident on that block agreed that the closing of Klingle has contributed to an increase in congestion and accidents on these residential streets. Moreover, Klingle Road provides redundancy that is vital to our fragile system of streets in Northwest D.

When any one of the cross-town streets is closed, the remaining streets cannot handle the excess burden. Klingle Road is a vital artery that should not be severed.

Fact : Klingle Road has no hairpin turns -- just look at the map. Even if it did, so do almost ALL of the roads in the Park, as well as Beach Drive, and so do the roads now being taken as alternate routes to Klingle Road, such as the route through the National Zoo.

All of the park's serpentine roads were designed as pleasure drives. The present road system continues to reflect their original purpose of providing public access to the enjoyment of extraordinary rural scenery.

Although adapted to the automobile, the designed alignment, width and environmental surroundings of these scenic roads has not substantially changed since the s. National Register of Historic Places. Myth : 1, citizens from all over the city petitioned to keep Klingle Road for themselves. Fact : Those who want the road closed made the mistake of bragging that these petitions were collected outside of the Giant Food Store at Wisconsin and Macomb.

How many of those signatures were from citizens in zip codes , and ? Even if one million signatures were collected, the fact is that we live in a democracy.

Therefore, one group cannot band together to deny the civil rights or property of another group. There is a process for the closing of a road. To close the road, the Mayor must present a detailed proposal to the Council - which must determine that we do not need the road. Gathering petitions and imposing your will is not the American way. Myth : We know the road is unnecessary because we monitored it for a day, at 34th and Woodley.

Fact : This may not be the best indicator. DC traffic authorities said the traffic doubled at Connecticut and Porter because of the closure.

The police department also opposed its closure for public safety reasons. Moreover, the necessity of the road should be presumed since it existed for years, serving this function. For those who want to deprive the citizens of DC of our road, you have the burden of showing that DC does not need this east west artery.

To fairly and accurately gauge this, the City needs to hear from the people who would use the road, including the emergency service vehicles, rather than the ones who never used it and would not use it now. The people who actually used the road before, the citizens who predate and those who would use it now when it is restored to us want it open.

Ask the citizens in Crestwood, which is an adjacent community east of the park and less than 1 mile from Klingle Road. They want our road back. Indeed, those primarily and negatively impacted by the closure live in zip codes , and Ask the cab drivers. Ask the ambulance drivers who sometimes cant get through Connecticut and Porter. Ask the citizens of Mt. Ask most of the citizens of Cleveland Park and Woodley Park. The majority wants the road repaired.

Myth : Opening Klingle is a recipe for disaster for the school children in the area. Fact : Continuing to delay the repair is courting disaster. Think about it. Right now, all of that traffic is being diverted up and around the John Eaton School on Macomb Street and down the residential streets leading to it. Children are crossing there. Some of that traffic would not be going up Macomb, right at the playground, if we could travel up Klingle to Woodley. Keeping Klingle Road closed is not helping the children or parents of the other schools, either because it is denying an available artery and adding to the congestion.

Some of the parents have been involved in traffic accidents along Wisconsin Avenue because the families and children were forced to take the more congested routes, instead of Klingle. The myth that closing Klingle Road will promote the safety of school children, taken to its logical end, would support the closure of all roads leading to and surrounding every school in the City. Myth : Klingle Road is poorly planned because it opens onto residential streets.

Fact : It is the nature of east-west arteries that they provide a connection to the side streets. Plus, Klingle Road predates Connecticut Avenue. We are not talking constructing a new road. Klingle Road follows a stream valley, as is common practice in road building -- just look at some other local examples: Piney Branch Parkway, Beach Drive, Tilden Street, Rock Creek Parkway, just to name a few.

Myth : Civic organizations and local papers want it closed. Fact : Which civic organizations? Every affected ANC supports repairing the road.