May 10, 2007
Saturday Traffic Forecast: Really Bad
Unless you enjoy wasting your weekend sitting in traffic, you may want to avoid driving downtown on Saturday. Three street-closing events—the National Asian Heritage Festival, the National Police Week 5K race, and the DC101 Chili Cook Off (which will feature two DCist staffers as judges, stay tuned for more details!) — will be joining forces Power Rangers-style to snarl traffic.
Pennsylvania Avenue will be closed between 3rd and 6th streets NW from 2 a.m. until and 11 p.m. Saturday, and the Police 5K race will bring “rolling street closures” to all four quadrants of the city between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. The Chili Cook-Off will be held at the site of the old convention center at 11th Street and New York Avenue NW from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m., and though no scheduled street closures are planned, you can bet you won't want to drive anywhere near it thanks to the thousands of pedestrians and other folks trying to park who will descend on the area. More specific details about restricted access to streets on Saturday can be found here.
UPDATE: via FreeRide, also be aware that OPRAH IS COMING to speak at Howard's commencement and you will all need to stop what you're doing while she parades through Shaw on unicorn that sits atop a giant magical floating castle made of ice and the dreams of little girls and ... OK so they're just restricting parking around the university. Check out the details here.
Photo by easement
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That's a usual spring-summer weekend schedule in DC. There is often an additional walk-for-a-cause or Moms' March Against Something Bad. Event producers are supposed to reimburse the city for police overtime and clean-up, but it appears councilmembers might be helping them weasel out of this, sticking the taxpayer with the bill. Even if events pay their share, we end up with some sleep-deprived cops on Monday -- let's hope they all have court dates.
Meh -- these aren't really traffic problems.
The 5K will be over and done with by the time things start to wake up downtown. (The reason it's being held there instead of on Haines Point is because it's in conjunction with Police Week; it's a fundraiser for the nearby Law Enforcement Memorial.)
Mike was right -- there's something going on every weekend between the Capitol and the White House on Penn Ave. On weekends this isn't a heavily traveled street.
Although admittedly, the cook-off might cause some unusual backups for folks who use New York Ave (a/k/a Route 50).
"Really bad" is for folks outside the District who have to drive 95 south from Springfield to Woodbridge on any given Saturday afternoon, or 66 through Vienna (either way), or the B-W Parkway through Laurel (again, either way).
Graduations all around. Sunday won't be great either. Stay home and call your mom.
Oh man, Howard totally should have gotten Dina Lohan to be their commencement speaker. Doesn't she call herself "the white Oprah?"
JC: Cook-offs can be problematic for the folks down-wind, too. Be sure to take your asthma inhaler.
Speaking of street closings, Park Rd between Beach Dr and Klingle is going to be closed on Monday. I hope they are putting in street lights on that perilous strip of road...or repairing all the potholes...perhaps both! I won't get my hopes up.