Virginia Avenue traffic median creates car crash hot spot

Popped tires, damaged bumpers and scattered hubcaps have change into indicators of a string of site visitors crashes alongside Virginia Avenue this month after not less than 5 automobiles have crashed on the similar location.

Witnesses of the crashes mentioned automobiles driving eastbound seem like hanging the middle median of the 2400 block of Virginia Avenue avenue subsequent to Columbia Plaza Residences and Shenkman Corridor. The middle median bisects the road into two diverging lanes, one connecting to twenty third Avenue and the opposite persevering with alongside Virginia Avenue with a tunnel.

Rita Champagne, a retired State Division worker and longtime Columbia Plaza Residences resident, mentioned she has seen greater than 100 automotive crashes at that lane separation from her condo since she moved there in 1976.

“Each time I hear a bang out right here, I do know what’s taking place,” Champagne mentioned.

She mentioned town as soon as put in reflectors on the median, however they have been destroyed one month later following a automotive collision, by no means to get replaced. She mentioned working to alert metropolis officers of the issue is “losing your time” as a result of they’ve by no means adopted up on her site visitors security considerations.

Champagne mentioned she has tried to forestall the crashes all through her time dwelling within the condo, portray the median and putting cones, which has amounted to little success in stopping the crashes. She mentioned she cleans up particles that’s typically left behind from crashes due to the shortage of a metropolis response.

“You’d suppose that when the police have been there, they may decide up the trash,” Champagne mentioned.

The Metropolitan Police Division declined a request for remark concerning the incidents at that location.

She mentioned whereas the crashes occur year-round and infrequently late at evening, snow masking the median throughout winter months makes the median particularly tough to note whereas driving.

Champagne mentioned she “feels unhealthy” for the drivers whose automobiles get broken working over the median, and whereas she doesn’t personal a automotive, she want to make security modifications to the median on her personal accord to assist stop these crashes from persevering with to occur.

“If I can assist save individuals’s automobiles a bit of bit, I’d be glad to try to do this,” she mentioned.

Zhengtian Xu, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at GW, mentioned Virginia Avenue’s site visitors hazard could possibly be solved if town put in reflectors and indicators on the median or painted the street to point a median was up forward. Metropolis officers haven’t positioned any signage or reflective materials on the barrier.

“This isn’t tough in any respect,” Xu mentioned. “You make the portray extra seen and set up some indicators so it doesn’t contain the restructure of the geometries of these lanes and roads.”

Xu mentioned metropolis officers will typically prioritize fixing the areas that trigger probably the most accidents or fatalities, and since most of Virginia Avenue’s crashes aren’t extreme – leading to largely car harm fairly than pedestrian or driver accidents – the avenue hasn’t been receiving consideration from town.

There have been no accidents with accidents recorded on the block of Virginia Avenue between the start of the yr to current, in line with the Imaginative and prescient Zero Deadly and Damage Crashes Dashboard.

Mayor Muriel Bowser and the District Division of Transportation launched the Imaginative and prescient Zero Initiative in 2015 to get rid of critical site visitors accidents and fatalities within the metropolis by 2024 with safer streets and sidewalks and harmful driving prevention.

DDOT, which oversees the Imaginative and prescient Zero Initiative, didn’t return a request for remark.

Visitors fatalities have elevated since 2012 with 40 recorded in 2021 – the very best quantity since 2008. Statistics like these prompted the District Auditor to start a 10-month investigation into Imaginative and prescient Zero’s lack of success in September 2021.

Sophomore Maddie Billet mentioned she has witnessed not less than 10 automotive accidents by the site visitors median within the final semester from her room in Shenkman Corridor, which overlooks Virginia Avenue.

Billet mentioned in most accidents she noticed, automobiles hit the median and most drivers pulled over to evaluate the harm to their car – normally flat tires or damaged bumpers and hubcaps – earlier than driving away in the event that they have been ready. In three of the crashes she noticed this semester, Billet mentioned the drivers couldn’t drive away with out the help of emergency companies.

She mentioned she helped an aged girl name 911 late final month after she heard a loud bang exterior her dorm and noticed the lady’s automotive totaled on the facet of the avenue.

“That’s the place she needed to name a tow truck,” Billet mentioned. “She was fairly shaken up so I referred to as 911 as a result of I didn’t know if anybody else had.”

Billet mentioned she filed a street restore report with town after the accident late final month in hopes that officers would repair the “complicated” lane cut up with further signage or reflective materials on the median. She mentioned metropolis officers promised to resolve the issue, however they painted a five-foot white line on the road outlining the median final week as a substitute of putting in signage or reflectors.

Ria Gupta, a sophomore who additionally lives in Shenkman Corridor, mentioned she noticed 5 crashes on Virginia Ave final week from her Tenth-floor room.

“It’s normally at 2 within the morning,” Gupta mentioned. “However after we hear a loud screech, we normally stand up and look, and it’s a automotive that hit the divider or being very loud.”

Gupta mentioned town ought to prolong the painted divider markings farther down the street as a result of they enhance the median’s visibility from a distance.

“I’m from New Jersey, so all of the dividers I see normally have a line, a drawing round them and the form of a triangle that goes out loads additional,” she mentioned. “So you’ll be able to see from loads earlier {that a} divider is arising.”

Gupta mentioned throughout a few of the crashes she’s witnessed, automobiles’ airbags have been deployed and a few automobiles “ricocheted” backwards after hitting the median, whereas others have been straddled on high of the divider and left caught, unable to reverse. Gupta mentioned nobody has gotten damage from the accidents she’s seen to date.

“It takes some time for the ambulance to return, like 15 to twenty minutes later,” she mentioned. “We’d fall again asleep after the crash, after which get woken up once more by the sound of the fireplace vans and the ambulance and police automobiles.”

Grace Chinowsky contributed reporting. 

This text appeared within the April 25, 2022 difficulty of the Hatchet.