(Photo by Kevin Harber)

To accommodate the masses flocking to bars and restaurants in ridehailing vehicles, which often block traffic and create safety issues when people arrive and depart, the District’s Department of Transportation is experimenting with a new pick-up and drop-off zone in the blocks just south of Dupont Circle on weekend evenings.

“The impetus was a desire to try and address the very heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic that we’re seeing on Connecticut Avenue on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights,” says DDOT spokesman Terry Owens.

To do so, officials will need to eliminate street parking. That’s generally not an easy sell for most residential neighborhoods, but it is largely a commercial area and the request came from the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District itself.

“This was something that was driven by the community,” Owens says.

Officials will temporarily restrict parking on the northbound stretch of Connecticut Avenue, between Dupont Circle and Rhode Island Avenue, and 18th Street, between Jefferson Place and M Street to create areas where people can be safely picked up and dropped off. Parking in those areas will be restricted between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights starting on October 19.

In addition to the Golden Triangle BID, DDOT worked with the Metropolitan Police Department and the Department of Public Works to design the zone.

The pick-up and drop-off area follows a model that DDOT has used during special events, including Inauguration and the papal visit, but it is the first time the agency has deployed it on a permanent basis.

Transportation officials plan to evaluate the project after one year. Owens declined to say if it is a model that DDOT is considering using in other nightlife heavy areas, like 18th Street in Adams Morgan or on U Street.

“We are going to pilot it here,” he says. “If its effective, certainly if something is working, if there’s another area that poses a similar challenge and if there’s demand from community” it would be considered.

The areas, marked in purple, where weekend evening parking will be restricted to create drop-off zones (Courtesy of DDOT)