Alley entrance on T Street near 14th. Photo from Google Street View.

Do transportation consulting companies really provide unbiased analysis, or do they simply conclude whatever their paying client wants to hear?

We already know that “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz of New York is unafraid to tell NYC’s teachers that they don’t deserve special parking rights, but will twist ridership figures to please the Town of Chevy Chase and earn his $374,000 fee. Schwartz cobbled together the report they wanted, concluding that the Purple Line should run past other people’s schools instead of their golf courses (and slower).

I smell some similar twisting in Gorove/Slade’s report on where to put the garage entrance for the Utopia project at 14th and U. I’ve already written multiple times about this particular curb cut fight, where I come down (barely) on the side of the 14th Street entrance. But we may end up with the right decision for all the wrong reasons.

Some of these wrong reasons appear in the report. In the scoping process, DDOT asked Gorove/

Slade to show why using the alley for parking is infeasible. It may be, but the report instead simply argues that the 14th Street entrance is not so bad. The biggest question in approving any curb cut is whether implementing it will harm pedestrians, but the report gives short shrift to this issue. After the table of contents, the word ‘pedestrian’ doesn’t even appear until page 7. Instead of analyzing pedestrian safety, the report simply shows pictures of bulb-outs DDOT has already proposed for 14th and U, and then asserts that since those will improve pedestrian conditions, everything will be okay.

The bulk of the report focuses on vehicular Level of Service. It uses terms like “[this] intersection would fail” to describe an intersection with high traffic volume, reinforcing the outdated traffic engineer framing that success means moving large numbers of vehicles through an area. All of this LOS analysis (which takes up most of the space in the report) simply verifies that the front garage entrance won’t worsen vehicle traffic. It’s not nececssarily better; it’s simply no worse. The consulting team spent a lot of time counting the numbers of vehicles going through each intersection, but published no comparable statistics for pedestrians.

Alley diagram at 14th and U.

Image from Gorove-Slade Associates.

The interior alleys at the site are very wide (30 feet), with plenty of room for cars or even to add sidewalks. The alleys connecting to U and T Streets, however, are only 10 feet (5 and 6 above). Two-way traffic on both of these alleys force cars and trucks to maneuver gingerly. Making both of these alleys one-way, with all traffic entering on U and exiting on T, could address this problem. The Gorove/Slade report analyzes this option, but dismisses it because residents won’t like it:

Capacity analysis results indicate that the alley would operate efficiently with the one-way southbound restrictions. However, … the southbound restriction would increase truck traffic along T Street between the alleyway and 14th Street, which is now striped with a bike lane. These impacts would be objectionable to the adjacent community, and the prospective residential and retail users of the proposed development.

The report glosses over mention of impacts, objectionable or otherwise, to the many people who will take Metro to this area, or who live nearby on other streets besides T, and will walk around here. They will feel the impact of a front garage entrance. It also dismisses the impact on the bicycle commuters who ride down 14th to work every day. They weren’t counted, and their objections unheard. Instead, the authors simply dismiss an alternative which would “be objectionable to the adjacent community”.

Gorove/Slade’s report does make some valid points. They also, and more validly, criticize the one-way option for its effect on the Reeves Center, whose garage entrance faces U Street across from the alley. According to the report, having traffic turn into the alley from U and also into and out of Reeves at the same spot could create more vehicular problems.

The report also makes the very good point that the U Street sidewalk is much narrower than the one at 14th. Having vehicles exit there could be much more dangerous than on 14th. Even the one-way option creates more pedestrian conflicts at this tight spot.

Unfortunately, I simply don’t find this report persuasive. It makes a few good points amid a plethora of lousy ones. To conclude, as this report does, that a 14th Street entrance is “the better option”, it’s important to consider all the impacts. Instead, Gorove/

Slade simply considered some (like traffic and neighbor complaints) while ignoring others (like the needs of pedestrians on 14th).

Plus, “better” isn’t the standard for a curb cut; the development must be impractical without one. And by impractical, that means for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and cars, not just for cars. It also doesn’t mean politically impractical. I do believe this development may indeed meet this burden. But this report fails to show that, and does a disservice to everyone trying to rationally decide this issue. On persuasiveness Level of Service, it gets an F.