For years the streets of Hill East have served as an unofficial connection between two major freeways. The proposed 11th Street Bridges Project will solve this problem and make significant strides towards reducing traffic problems on Capitol Hill, especially Hill East.

Right now, there is no direct connection between the Anacostia Freeway north of 11th Street and the Southeast Freeway. As a result, our neighborhood streets have become a freeway route. Commuters traveling southbound from Maryland to Virginia are unable to get to the 14th Street Bridge without cutting through neighborhood streets in Hill East or east of the Anacostia River. Potomac Avenue and 17th and 19th streets in Hill East have long been major commuter routes as high-speed commuter traffic gets off the Anacostia freeway, crosses on the East Capitol Street (Whitney Young Memorial) Bridge and travels down to the Southeast Freeway. Increasingly, 18th Street has become a commuter route to avoid the traffic on 17th and 19th streets. The result is a safety threat to us and our children, and increased noise, traffic congestion and air pollution in our neighborhood.

The illegal ramp at Barney Circle is also used as a cut-through as traffic seeks to bypass backups on Pennsylvania Avenue and the Sousa Bridge. Even on a good day, the evening rush hour traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue is congested. On a bad day, the backup goes as far as Sixth Street SE. The reason for this congestion is the lack of a freeway connection. Traffic on the Southeast Freeway headed north must exit onto the Sousa Bridge, cross three lanes of Pennsylvania Avenue traffic and make a left on the other side of the river in order to get onto the Anacostia Freeway northbound. This interweaving of two streams of traffic causes the backup.

In addition, the city is planning to redevelop the Hill East Waterfront, also known as Reservation 13. This redevelopment will be a very positive addition to the neighborhood but will also bring increased traffic. Potomac Avenue, 19th Street and Independence Avenue will be three of the main routes in and out of the new development, which is slated to have about 800 residential units as well as significant retail, recreational and government facilities. Unfortunately, these are also three of the streets most heavily impacted by freeway cut-through traffic today.

If nothing is done to solve this problem, congestion created by the new development combined with existing commuter traffic will force more and more cars onto side streets, impacting more and more residents. We need to reduce commuter cut-through traffic to ensure that the new development does not create an intolerable traffic burden on Hill East.

The proposed 11th Street Bridges Project will help with all these problems. It will create a freeway-to-freeway connection, allowing northbound traffic to stay on the Southeast Freeway, cross the11th Street Bridge and head north on the new ramps. Southbound traffic on the Anacostia Freeway will be able to cross at 11th Street and move directly onto the Southeast Freeway. Freeway traffic will stay on the freeway, rather than be forced to use our neighborhood streets.

At the November Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B meeting, DDOT presented data that shows a reduction in traffic on 17th and 19th streets and Potomac Avenue (see figure 1). The data also show a decrease in traffic crossing the East Capitol Street Bridge due to the new 11th Street bridges, as well as decreased traffic on Benning Road and on the Sousa Bridge.

But the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. The lack of a freeway connection doesn’t just bring more traffic into the Hill East neighborhood, it also brings a different type of traffic: commuters whose goal is to get through the neighborhood as quickly as possible so that they can get back onto the freeway. The new connection will keep these drivers on the freeway, not racing through our neighborhood.

The existing 11th Street bridges are considered structurally deficient. They will be replaced one way or another. We should take advantage of this fact to rebuild the 11th Street bridges so that they will reduce neighborhood traffic. In addition, the existing 11th Street bridges do not allow for safe pedestrian or bicycle traffic – nor can they be used for future dedicated mass transit, such as light rail or trolley lines. The separation of local lanes from freeway lanes that is proposed for the new project would allow for these alternatives to auto transit.

Let’s take this opportunity to do something positive about traffic in our neighborhood. The Hill East Waterfront Action Network, a community organization which advocates for redevelopment of the Hill East Waterfront, supports the proposed 11th Street Bridges Project as a way of getting commuters off our streets. This will not provide the complete solution to Hill East traffic problems; the community will need to work with city officials to determine what other measures are needed, especially as new development progresses. But putting an end to the use of our residential streets as a freeway route is a necessary first step.