Nick Sementelli considers himself a confident cyclist, but the Eckington resident says he won’t bike through the intersection of New York and Florida avenues Northeast, where “drivers persistently try to beat lights … and violate the law all the time.”

He’d rather go five minutes out of his way to avoid the intersection, often called Dave Thomas Circle, which he describes as “one of the places that has viscerally felt to me like a very dangerous, unpredictable kind of place to be a pedestrian or a biker, and the stats bear that out … so I’ve adapted my life around trying to stay out of this area when it should be, as the center of a transportation hub, a place where you can safely cross.”

And it’s not just bikers steering clear of the intersection, which serves as the crucial connection traversing the city east to west, entering the city from the north, and accessing Eckington from the south and NoMa’s commercial core from the north. But it’s far from straightforward: the tangle of streets all wrap around a triangular plot of land at the center, which is currently home to a Wendy’s, and operate like a traffic circle.

When she’s in her car, Betsy McDaniel, a Bloomingdale resident who helms the Bloomingdame Twitter account, drives blocks out of the way to avoid it. “I don’t have the patience, and people get so angry,” she says. When walking, she’ll often take a bus to avoid making her way through the four required crosswalks: “It’s awkward to walk—you have to go through so many lights.”

Those two were among the dozens of D.C. residents attending an open house hosted by the District Department of Transportation on Monday night in NoMa, replete with poster boards about the plans and timeline for fixing what Mayor Muriel Bowser has called a “juggernaut.” This year’s mayoral budget includes $35 million over six years to acquire the private property at the center of the intersection—the Wendy’s that inspired the moniker Dave Thomas Circle, after the chain’s founder. In 2010, DDOT implemented the current traffic pattern, which turned the intersection into a “virtual traffic circle,” a change that has only made things worse, in McDaniel’s estimation.

Even though local groups like the NoMa Business Improvement District and Eckington Civic Association have long called for changes to Dave Thomas Circle, Sementelli says that “the reason you’re seeing so many people tonight is that we’re finally, in a small way, paying a little bit more attention after tragically, those two deaths last week.” He was referring to Dave Salovesh, a longtime street safety advocated killed while riding his bike a few blocks east of that intersection on Florida Avenue NE, and Abdul Seck, a pedestrian in Anacostia killed by a car crash. Both men were killed in the same weekend earlier this month.

These most recent tragedies have increased the ire focused towards Bowser and her administration among many advocates for safer streets, who are frustrated by an increase in traffic fatalities in the District, despite a pledge to eliminate them by 2024.

DDOT Director Jeff Marootian says that “we share that sense of urgency to make the city safer for everybody, and that’s why this project is prioritized in the mayor’s budget,” along with other plans for Florida Avenue NE and K Street NW.

Marootian was on hand Monday evening to field questions and explain “Virtual Circle Concept 6,” the only alternative the agency has that would raze the Wendy’s that currently sits at the center of the triangle plot of land, which, more than two centuries ago, formed the boundary of Washington, D.C. With the Wendy’s at the center gone, the intersection itself could be more direct, and be flanked by green space. Florida Avenue would be a two-way street, First Street would intersect with Florida Avenue at Eckington Place NE, there’d be dedicated turning lanes to both New York and Florida avenues, and the city would add two-way cycle tracks on First Street NE and New York Avenue NE to meet another planned bike lane on Florida Avenue NE.

“What we’re focused on here is simplifying the movements for everybody, adding pedestrian and bicycling accessibility,” says Marootian. “And really, just making it a safer and more efficient intersection.” He says the agency will be holding more meetings to hear from the community, including how to use the green space.

Bowser has said she is willing to use eminent domain to acquire the property that includes the Wendy’s, which is currently valued at $6,668,370 (most of that is because of the land, which is worth more than $6 million on its own, according to figures from the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue). But she may not have to if the property owner, CRV Sunrise Valley, is willing to sell. When the LLC associated with Bernstein Management Corp. purchased the property in 2006, it paid $2.3 million.

The city is in talks with the property owner, says Marootian. “We are in the middle of that process right now. I can’t speak to any of the specifics except to say that it is moving forward,” he says. According to a DDOT project timeline, the final design will be prepared by fall 2020, when construction procurement will begin, with actual construction slated for spring 2021-summer 2022.

Kevin Green, a lifelong Washingtonian and musician who said that he attended the open house because “I love this town, not just this intersection,” spent a portion of the evening engaged in long, sometimes tense conversations with cyclists. He gave the examples of pedestrians who walk while distracted by their phones, or cyclists who weave in and out of traffic: “These things suggest to me that we’re not having an honest conversation about sharing the road,” says Green. “They’re basically saying, ‘get out of the way,’ and so I take issue with that, because cars don’t have anywhere [else] to go … the streets are the only option.”

But even though he takes issue with the broader conversation about street safety in D.C., Green is open to the changes potentially coming to Dave Thomas Circle. “I’m not married to the Wendy’s,” he says. “Based on what they have here, this is the beginning stages of some thoughtfulness, if you ask me.”

Previously:
The City Just Got One Step Closer To Seizing The Wendy’s In The Middle Of Dave Thomas Circle
Councilmember McDuffie Requests Funds To Seize The Wendy’s In The Middle Of ‘Dave Thomas Circle’
‘A Juggernaut That Needs A Solution’: Bowser Commits To Fixing One Of The City’s Most Vexing Intersections