Imagine gripping onto your handlebars for dear life as you negotiate cracks and fissures, holes and ditches, and bumps and undulations on city streets. Imagine arriving at your destination shaken, your arms weak from absorbing too many bumps and your wheels either bending out of shape or going flat. For cyclists in the District, it doesn’t take much to imagine this scenario — it’s part and parcel of riding on the city’s awful streets.

Riding a bicycle on the District’s streets is the most primal way to connect with roadways gone bad — you have thinner wheels and less suspension than cars, and the slightest jolt from a pothole or split in the pavement is enough to send you flying headfirst over the front end of your bike. What a driver might perceive as a slight thump a cyclist will perceive as the end of the world. In essence, riding a bike in the District is a vivid reminder of the stalemate that seems to have developed between the District Department of Transportation and the roads they are charged with overseeing — one hole gets fixed as another one blooms.

Many main traffic arteries are pocked with cracks, both traveling with grain and perpendicular to it. Some stretches of road feature pavement that has taken on the look and feel of a carpet whose ends are pushed towards each other, resulting in a wavy texture. And the District’s approach to fixing some of the more prominent road blemishes seems to cause more trouble than solve — one day they’ll simply dig a bigger hole where a smaller one existed, only to wait days before filling it in. Other holes are simply patched over with the equivalent of pavement band-aids, leaving behind roadways that are uneven and harsh.

So what are the worst District roads? And how can the city go about finally fixing them, both for the benefit of area cyclists and motorists?

Tell the District about potholes in your area here.