At first glance, the tree at the northeast corner of 8th and K Streets, NE appears to be buried in asphalt. The truth is much more interesting.

To comply with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, DDOT rebuilt the intersection of West Virginia Avenue NE, 8th Street and K Street in the H Street neighborood. This intersection is a busy transfer point between the 90 and D Metrobus lines and has a lot of foot traffic.

Image from DDOT provided by Veronica Davis.

DDOT has installed modern curb ramps at all pedestrian crossings, and they’ve repaired the concrete in order to smooth out some potentially dangerous bumps. The elderly and disabled now have a smoother path to get from bus to bus as they travel across town.

(It would be nice if DDOT would restripe the crosswalks with higher-visibility zebra/piano striping, but perhaps that’s a subject for another blog post.)

Within the project limits, there were two trees whose roots were lifting the sidewalk. This created dangerous tripping hazards and the narrowed sidewalks made it difficult for those in wheelchairs to use the sidewalk.

The sidewalk before. Image from Google Street View.

Instead of concrete, construction workers have used porous pavement in these areas that extend all the way around each tree. This makes the sidewalks a bit wider, eliminates the need to trim weeds around the base of the trees, and allows more water to filter through the ground to the trees’ roots.

It will be interesting to see how well this pavement works, and if we’ll be seeing it used more widely around town in the near future.