GGW post: "A Bloomingdale ANC is trying to water down a street safety plan to temporarily save two parking spots"

See this tweet about a Friday afternoon Greater Greater Washington blog post on 1st Street NW traffic calming and the ANC5E06 commissioner:

Hi #BloomingdaleDC neighbors. I wrote a post at @ggwash on whether to hamstring a plan to make 1st St safer in order to (temporarily) preserve 2 parking spaces.

Take a read and if you agree, sign our petition! https://t.co/4RmZzXDMmfhttps://t.co/3eCfsH4qG5

— Nick Sementelli (@NSementelli) April 26, 2019

Here are a few assorted paragraphs from this GGW post:

A Bloomingdale ANC is trying to water down a street safety plan to temporarily save two parking spots

ParkingBy Nick Sementelli (Advocacy Committee) April 26, 2019

First Street NW in Bloomingdale is a residential street, but many drivers use it as a commuting thoroughfare, making it dangerous to people walking in the neighborhood. Residents have complained about it for years, but happily there's a plan to add better pedestrian infrastructure and to slow drivers down. There's just one catch.

The plan requires the removal of six to seven illegal parking spaces, and one local Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC) is stridently opposed to losing any parking at all. She's so opposed that she passed a resolution urging DDOT to exempt key intersections on her block from a plan, even though the two parking spaces she’s trying to protect may ultimately be removed anyway.

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A bad bargain

However, Bloomingdale ANC5E06 commissioner Karla Lewis did not share the views of the BCA. At the March ANC meeting she opposed the plan (2:14:14 mark of the video below), she opposed the plan because some residents in her single-member district already complain about a lack of parking and are unwilling to sacrifice the six or seven spots in question.

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Disappointing leadership

The math on this tradeoff should be non-controversial. The traffic calming measures would benefit thousands of neighbors and visitors who walk and bike on First Street to get to their homes, take their kids to the park, grab a meal or cup of coffee, shop at the farmers market, or otherwise just safely enjoy being outside in their neighborhood.

Opposing it would maybe, temporarily save two marginal car owners a slightly longer walk to their car. Lewis’s reflexive dismissal of any solution that even lightly threatens a single parking space would be comical if it weren’t so shameful.

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