A rendering DDOT submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts in preparation for this pilot test.

A rendering DDOT submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts in preparation for the current pilot test.

This week, the District Department of Transportation installed safety bumps called “zebras” on Pennsylvania Avenue NW to help prevent “illegal! illegal!” U-turns through the cycle track.

This is a good thing, since illegal turns are a major problem in that area. But as two tweets from this week show, drivers are still making them.

As Greater Greater Washington reported, the problem may be that the pilot program zebras are placed too far apart.

DDOT’s construction plans call for spacing the Zebras at 10-foot intervals on each edge of the bike lane. However, the manufacturer’s specifications recommended placing them no more than 2.5 meters, or 8.2 feet apart. Subsequent measurements on installed Zebras show the actual separation to be approximately 15 feet center-to-center in violation of DDOT’s construction plans for this project.

Jim Sebastian, DDOT’s bicycle program coordinator, explained that the zebras were spaced “based on the existing pavement markings, i.e. centered between the stripes in the buffer zone. This was mainly for aesthetic reasons. Aesthetics have been an important part of the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes since the beginning.”

Sebastian confirmed that the contractor installed the zebras 15 feet apart, rather than the intended 10-feet.

“If the spacing does not work, we can change it and/or come up with another device or solution,” he said. “We won’t really know much until we count U-turns again, which is scheduled for next week.”

Update: Sigh.

Filed Under: ddot, department of transportation, pennsylvania avenue cycletrack, zebras,