‘Barnes Dance preview’
courtesy of ‘nevermindtheend’
DDOT’s experiment with the Barnes Dance in Chinatown kicked off today at the intersection of 7th and H streets NW at 10 this morning.
Almost 27,000 pedestrians and 26,000 vehicles use the proposed intersection on an average day, making it a prime location for such a test.
A few details pertaining to this particular variation on the Barnes Dance include: allowing pedestrians to cross with traffic that has a green signal and prohibit all turns by all vehicles at that intersection to increase pedestrian safety and maintain a steady flow traffic.
Drivers: If you intend to turn left or right off of 7th Street NW or H Street NW, DDOT requests you use an intersection before or after the Barnes Dance Intersection.
Anyone get any fun photos of today’s inaugural Barnes Dance in Chinatown? If so, let us know in the comments!
Rachel moved to DC in the fall of 2005 to study Journalism and Music at American University. When she’s not keeping up with the latest Major League Baseball news, she works on making music as an accomplished singer-songwriter and was even a featured performer/speaker at TEDxDupont Circle in 2012. Rachel has also contributed to The Washington Examiner and MASN Sports’ Nationals Buzz as a guest blogger. See why she loves DC. E-Mail: rachel@welovedc.com.
While I appreciate the need for the Barnes Dance at this intersection, I’m not quite sure I understand why you need both a Barnes Dance and no turns. Other than allowing diagonal crossing, seems like they both try to address some of the same issues, namely interactions between turning cars and crossing pedestrians.
I was just in Chinatown at 7pm and the intersection was as normal, except that cars could not turn. No Barnes Dance in action
Paige – I was in Chinatown around that time, and the Barnes Dance was going on. You just have to wait for ped signals in all directions, then you can cross however you like.
But when I was there, cars were making turns left and right.
GGW got some good film of the Barnes Dance in action: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=5815