Right now Route 29 is dangerous to cross

Most crossings of Route 29 happen at marked crosswalks at signalized intersections. Between Sligo Creek and Northwest Branch, the core area of this plan, there are presently only five signalized intersections with eight crosswalks:

  • Sligo Creek Parkway (two crosswalks)
  • Franklin Avenue (one crosswalk)
  • University Boulevard eastbound (two crosswalks)
  • University Boulevard westbound (two crosswalks)
  • Southwood Avenue (one crosswalk)

Of those existing eight crosswalks, four have medians of at least ten feet in which a pedestrian can wait if they don’t make it all the way across the road, those being the four crosswalks at Colesville Road & University Boulevard.

At Sligo Creek Parkway, one crosswalk has no raised median refuge (south leg of the intersection), and one has a four-foot concrete median (north leg of the intersection).

The crosswalk at Franklin Avenue has an identical four-foot median as does the crosswalk at Southwood Avenue. Most people do not consider these four-foot-wide medians to be comfortable places to wait, and many do not consider such a narrow space to be a median at all due to the lack of utility as a suitable refuge.

Photo of crosswalk at Route 29 and Southwood Drive. There is a marked crosswalk, yellow warning signs, pedestrian traffic signals, and a 4-foot wide median island.
Some of the safer intersections on Route 29 have prominent warning signage, pedestrian traffic signals, marked crosswalks, and median refuges. These features make the intersection somewhat safer, but nevertheless, Route 29 is still stressful and dangerous to cross.

How would Better BRT improve pedestrian safety?

The Better BRT plan proposes to add seven new signalized crosswalks to Route 29 between Sligo Creek and the Paint Branch, nearly doubling the total number of signalized crosswalks. All seven of these new crosswalks will be at newly signalized intersections:

  • Oak Leaf Drive
  • Northwest Drive
  • Hillwood Drive
  • Crestmoor Drive
  • Timberwood Avenue
  • Lanark Way
  • Hastings/Granville Drive

The detailed map of Better BRT displays all the locations of the new traffic signals and crosswalks.

Under the Better BRT plan, all new crosswalks will have a median refuge at least ten feet wide. The median at Route 29 and University Boulevard will be widened by two feet (more room at those four existing crosswalks), and crosswalks at Franklin Avenue and Southwood Avenue will be relocated to the opposite leg of those intersections to gain a ten foot median rather than the existing four foot median.

At the new signalized intersections, crosswalks would be on the leg of the intersection opposite the left turn pocket, which allows room for the median adjacent to the new bus lane in the space voided by the turn pocket. This configuration is illustrated in the rendering below.

typical-intersection-with-crosswalk-1200x800
A typical Better BRT signalized intersection with a left turn pocket and a pedestrian refuge across the intersection. Image by Sean Emerson.

Below is an example of the leg of an intersection with no median due to the presence of the bus lane.

And below is the opposite leg of the same intersection where the median forms by the absence of a turn lane to provide a crossing refuge.

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