Getting ready to ride on Mississippi Avenue SE. Image by the author.

This past weekend, a small group of us adjusted our helmets, tested our bells, and pedeled through Congress Heights, Anacostia, and Navy Yard. I wanted to see what’s working for people who bike east of the Anacostia River, and what could be improved.

The 12-mile tour was organized by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA). Our route started at the Congress Heights Metro station and curved along several streets, up and over the South Capitol Street SE/Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge Bridge straight into Navy Yard, and back over the 11th Street Bridge.

A map of our route, created with ridewithgps.com.

The ride made bike lane disparities abundantly clear

Gregg Adams, a long-time resident of Congress Heights who’s been bicycling for about 20 years, led the ride. He warned us about the lack of bicycle infrastructure east of the Anacostia.

“There are real discrepancies in bike lanes in Ward 7 and 8,” Adams told us before starting the tour. “You’re taking your life in your own hands just to get to the 11th Street Bridge.”

Adams works with the Bicycle Advisory Council under At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds. It’s a resident-led group that helps inform the DC Council about how to improve things for people biking, and works with District agencies to build infrastructure in a timely fashion.

For Adams, his job is two-fold: “You not only have to pressure [the District Department of Transportation] DDOT, but you also have to convince the community that bikes can be beneficial and educate people about the current state of infrastructure,” he said.

On Saturday there was an array of bicycles—including e-bikes, traditional bicycles, and Capital Bikeshare—for us to use to ride on the various types of paths we encountered.

Bicyclists rode along Suitland Parkway Trail. Image by the author.

The tour took us down Mississippi Avenue SE to Stanton Road SE, where a protected bikeway will soon be installed. We rode along the Suitland Parkway Trail, which was smoother than expected, but still had many potholes and obstructions that made it difficult to ride.

This trail is one of the most important projects Adams would like to see movement on.

“Suitland Parkway Trail provides a traffic-free route to several important points in Ward 8, including Anacostia Metro Station, Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, and most importantly, Anacostia Drive itself. That provides options to cross the river to downtown Washington via the 11th Street, Pennsylvania Ave, or Douglass bridges,” Adams said. “This is especially important when commuting during the morning and afternoon rush hours where all the main roads are packed with wall to wall traffic that if not safe for cyclists.”

“It’s really important to emphasize that in addition to the trail itself, safe access to and from the trail is critical to make it useful for bike commuters,” he continued.

Bikeways along Virginia Avenue SE. Image by the author.

Once over the Frederick Douglass bridge, we could use the bike lanes in Navy Yard, which include wide painted buffers between cyclists and drivers. One of the most difficult parts of the trek was getting to the 11th Street Bridge, which required navigating a great deal of traffic via sharrows and forced us ride in with cars.

24th Street SE and Good Hope Road SE. Image by the author.

Once over the bridge, the ride up Good Hope Road SE was also dangerous, with its hilly topography and no bike lanes. Between whizzing traffic and a steep climb, it made for an exhausting ride.

Area residents want to bike

Lorraine Stanislaus lives in Congress Heights. Like me, she took the bike tour because she’s curious about biking to work.

“I would like to ride to work since I work about four miles from home, and wanted the opportunity to learn the “rules of the road” for cyclists as well as the different routes,” Stanislaus said.

So following this ride, is she ready to commute back and forth to her job by bike?

“I feel confident riding my bike to work. It’s the coming home part that I’m still a little leery of,” Stanislaus said. She added that in the future she would love to see “a bike lane on MLK and/or a bike lane from Frederick Douglass Bridge to Navy Yard.”

For Adams, building better bikeways in all parts of the city is the path to better connecting the region.

“Bottom line, this is about having options in terms of recreation, physical fitness, and making a living that other residents in the city take for granted,” Adams said.

The District Department of Transportation has several transportation projects slated for Ward 8 over the next couple of years that should make things safer for people biking. To take the next tour for yourself, head to waba.org for details about the next ride.