stoplights to be added at Meade St. Bridge ends

This past Thursday night, the third public meeting on the Meade St. Bridge Alternatives Study discussed the tentative preferred plan. The plan includes new red-yellow-green stoplights on both ends of the bridge.  The intersection on the south end is currently a safety horror for pedestrians, cyclists, and inhuman-powered vehicles.  A stoplight there will be a huge improvement.

Additional improvements in the currently preferred plan include:

• bridge sidewalks will be widened
• single-lane counterflow street next to Gateway Park will be eliminated
• intersections with the access roads to and from Rt. 50 will be made more rectangular
• one of the two southbound through lanes on the bridge will be eliminated
• colored bicycle lanes (indicating extra caution) will be painted across the bridge

These improvements probably will begin being implemented in a year or two.

Cliff Garten, the artist designing Rosslyn's luminous bodies corridor of light, attended the meeting.  He described his concern to respect and honor a path to the Iwo Jima Memorial. The installation of light sculptures on the south end of the bridge has generated some heated concern. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was also highly controversial. Expect Rosslyn with its luminous bodies to attract more tourists than that now-celebrated memorial does.

Related posts:

• first Meade St. Bridge meeting
• second Meade St. Bridge meeting