K Street in downtown Washington, DC, is to

K Street in downtown Washington, DC, is to be reconfigured for bus rapid transit, which will run down the middle of the roadway. In The Boulevard Book, published in 2002, Allan Jacobs, Elizabeth Macdonald, and Yodan Rofé described K Street as a badly designed (and consequently accident-prone) boulevard. (See “The ‘flagship’ of new urban streets,” Sept. 2002 New Urban News.) Breaks in the side medians, called sleeves, allow traffic to move between the central throughway and the side access roads at some points in each block. This arrangement invites accidents and undercuts the clear organization of a good boulevard, the authors explained. The Washington Post reported Nov. 25 that the District of Columbia intends to rebuild K Street, reserving the center two lanes for buses. Ten-foot-wide planted strips would separate the bus lanes from parallel roadways that would accommodate two lanes of trucks and cars in each direction, plus parking. The redesign is expected to cut bus travel time 15 percent and improve the overall pace of vehicular traffic about 5 percent. It should also improve safety. u