The organization had visited the boy’s elementary school to teach the children about their , including the right to privacy which protects individuals from bullying.

“The boy sent a written letter thanking us for coming to the school,” Rodgers said. “He said he was thinking about committing suicide and that learning the rights helped him overcome his issues.”

Rodgers said she felt many emotions of happiness and sadness and felt obligated to create programs and events that spread awareness on human rights issues.

On Sunday afternoon, the organization led a Stand Up for Human Rights march at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where dozens of people braved the cold to spark fire on human rights.��

Activists held up signs in shades of blue, reflecting along the pool as participants marched. Participants talked with people watching educating them on the importance of the event.��

Beth Akiyama, executive director of the Church of Scientology, led chants yelling “Human rights now! Human rights now! Human rights now!” as they echoed throughout the area attracting visitors to glance and even start conversation.

“It’s important to spread awareness about human rights because we all have them and deserve to use them when needed,” Akiyama said.

Mary Ann Steinacker-Grimm, human rights activist, said she discovered how essential it was to exert her rights after a rough time with her ex-husband.��

“With my ex-husband, it was a slow slippy slope to control issues to a point in 2014 in Brooklyn I couldn’t go out of my house to the Post Office box without him wanting to know where I’m going and how long I’m going to be out,” Steinacker-Grimm said. “It was mild compared to what I’ve heard and read online, but I realized at some point that I want to speak out and stand up for my basic rights.”

After the march, participants were called to visit the Founding Church of Scientology to see the Human Rights Pop-Up Exhibit, which provided videos explaining the 30 rights and their timeline from 539 BC to 1945’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The organization displayed videos showing examples of the right of privacy, copyright, no slavery and the right to life.

The organization said that 40 million children below the age of 15 suffer from abuse and neglect, approximately 20 million people are enslaved in human trafficking trade around the world and more than 300,000 children under the 18 are being exploited as child soldiers worldwide.

The organization did a across the District to see how many people actually knew their rights and the purpose for each. Surprisingly, a huge number of residents have no clue there are actually 30 rights.

According to the organization the following are constituted as rights:��

91���� did a quick survey of their own after the event asking 10 people what their rights were. Out of 10 only one knew all 30, two knew more than half and the rest were either uncertain or knew a few.

The post Participants march, standing up for human rights first appeared on 91����.

“I know I should be packing their school lunches or taking the extra time to monitor what they eat but when you work as much as me, it’s hard,” Jones said.

Columbia Heights is a neighborhood filled with many convenient food options like corner stores that are more affordable than Whole Foods or Giant Foods, that don’t offer many healthy options either. “I only ever have to really shop once a week and even then I still manage to have more cookies than carrots,” Jones said.

Health equity from a health professional

James Huang, board-certified family physician at Unity Healthcare’s Upper Cardozo Center, spoke on the need for health equity in a Ward 1 Comprehensive Plan meeting in November.

According to Huang, health equity focuses on addressing whatever assets or barriers that a person has and helps them elevate to their full potential of health.

“When I think about health equity that means that a person regardless of who they are, their socioeconomic background, their education or where they live has the opportunity to achieve the highest level of health,” Huang said.

Medical specialists in D.C. have coined the term “social determinants of health” when categorizing the issues that influence a patient’s health.��

The determinants can affect everyone, but there is a difference in the degree of how it changes someone’s health and the severity. “For example, you could have a college degree and work 9-to-5 but that’s still a determinant of health because it’s affecting your ability to have a higher paying job. It just affects different groups in different ways,” said Huang.

According to Huang, the healthcare center looks at a patient’s health to determine that only 20% of their well-being is affected by internal issues. The other 80% is affected by someone’s living situation, access to healthy foods, education, housing and employment status.��

“When we think about health equity in Columbia Heights one thing is that we have access to a good amount of grocery stores and corner stores, but there is an issue around healthy eating and nutrition,” Huang said. “There’s an issue of really understanding what is impacting your health through food.”

Huang proposes there be education around eating healthy and becoming equipped with certain knowledge on what foods to avoid.��

“Sometimes it’s easier to grab a soda at the corner market versus carrying a bottle of water.”

Huang is concerned that in Columbia Heights healthy eating options are skewed toward .��

“A lot of our families are working multiple jobs with a lot of long hours so that often translates to less time at home, maybe having barriers to preparing healthy food because it does take time,” Huang said.��

The District has an insured rate of 95% with good access to healthcare, but many healthcare facilities lack clinicians. For example in certain wards obstetrician-gynecologists are limited. “When looking at other wards in the city, if you look at the concentration amount of clinicians who are providing primary care in other specialty services that is actually the issue,” Huang said.

This program does what?

The Comprehensive Plan is a 20-year framework that aims to grow and develop in areas ranging from land use to health equity. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has a goal of creating an environment that is equitable for everyone to achieve their highest level of health, despite independent factors.��

Columbia Heights farmers’ market also provides a produce plus program which helps residents of D.C. who are on government assistance to get access to fruits and vegetables from June to December.��

The Columbia Heights health center provides a wellness program for families around nutrition and physical activity once a week. The program works with families on how to eat healthy on a budget, connects them to different resources and physical activities to address the higher rates of unhealthy eating in the neighborhood.����

The community’s health center also enforces language programs for their population of patients that speak Spanish and the official language of Ethiopia, Amharic. “We also offer a community partners program with Capital bike share which provides a one-year membership at a lower cost, helmets and free biking classes are included,” Huang said.

What’s next

The D.C. Department of Health created the Office of Health Equity to address the social determinants of health. The D.C. Healthy People 2020 Framework will increase and diversify partnerships to improve health.

Huang wants the community to question how they can work around the related issue of affordability in the neighborhood.

“How can we address the work hours of parents in order to afford housing, thus contributing to the increased need for working more and having a higher income to live in Columbia Heights,” Huang said calling for action.

The post New equity plan tackles health barriers first appeared on 91����.

As the House impeachment hearings, part of an inquiry into allegations that U.S. President Donald Trump tied military aid to Ukraine to the investigation of a political rival, entered their second week, they continued to captivate a broad audience, drawing some 13 million television viewers—almost the same as the average for this year’s World Series. But for some onlookers, C-SPAN offered too distant a view.

An intrepid few woke in the early hours to line up for a spot in the public hearing room. Most of those drawn to observe said they were motivated less by partisan politics than by the desire to witness what they saw as history in the making.

“I have always been a political junkie,” said Bailey, a writer who traveled from California to attend the impeachment hearings and stay at her daughter’s D.C. apartment. “I feel like every opportunity I have to make a difference, whether through phone calls, letters to officials or protests, is representing Americans who want truth and justice to win out.” Bailey said she is “nonpartisan.”

Bailey passed the time snapping iPhone photos and videos and chatting with the people in line behind her.

Uber to the hearing

Many people traveled from all over including California, Alaska and even Australia to hear the testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a leading Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, Vice President Mike Pence’s special adviser for European and Russian affairs.

Both officials listened to the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Voloydymyr Zelensky, which figures at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of political rival, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, according to a rough transcript of the call.

“I read the newspapers but it’s better to see it in person and see the reactions.”

Behind Bailey was Alaska native Pat Walsh, 68, an artist who spontaneously ordered an Uber the night before to attend the hearing.

“I’m curious to see the hearing in action and how the members of the House conduct themselves,” Walsh said. “I read the newspapers but it’s better to see it in person and see the reactions.”

Angel Vargas, 39, a full-time student and social worker at the University of Southern California, marked a spot in line at 6:30 a.m. He took a week-long leave of absence with no pay to attend his first hearing.

Like others 91���� spoke with in line, Vargas supported the impeachment inquiry, which he saw as a way to hold the president accountable for corruption.

“There is a lot going on that the president and his staff know that’s toxic, immoral and borderline illegal,” Vargas said. “I came here this morning because I want what’s best for the country.”

Gen-Z comes to the hearing

Three people away, a legal consultant from Silver Spring, Maryland, adjusted his suit jacket and tapped his foot as he waited to walk in. Jared Hoffman, 24, doesn’t expect to come out of an “earth-shattering” hearing but hoped more evidence could support the inquiry.

“I think there is a proportion of people who aren’t informed and don’t follow politics or pay attention, but there are many who are simply unwilling to change their mind regardless of evidence,” Hoffman said.

An hour and a half before the hearing, three teenagers joined the line, laughing and talking. All first-year undergraduates from Catholic University, Andres Varone, Connor Martin and Katie Paiva, commented on how special it was to be one of the many young adults in a sea of older adults in line. The group spanned the political spectrum with a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent.

Varone, a business major who identified himself as Republican, said it was important to know the truth behind the charge.

“I try to inform myself as much as possible,” he said.

Martin, a political and economics major who identified as a “Democrat and classical liberal,” said that checks and balances were important for democracy and that he hoped people would pay attention to the hearing. His friend Paiva, a media and communications major who called herself an independent said, “No matter the outcome of this hearing it will go down in history and to be able to say I was in the room is a very powerful moment.”

The atmosphere was one filled with anticipation. The line started off small until about 8 a.m. when a rush of people came in. Many people came alone but quickly found people in line with whom they could speculate on what would happen in the upcoming hearing.

At 9:00 a.m. the doors opened.

The post ‘This is history and I can’t just sit back.’ first appeared on 91����.

These kinds of violent incidents have an impact, not only on feelings of safety in the surrounding neighborhoods but for kids themselves.

It’s 3:15 p.m. at Tubman and parents are rushing to get their children.��

While 91���� watched, a 45-year-old woman tugged on her son’s arm as he takes a first step on a green light. The mother quietly scolds her son saying, “Be careful, you have to be careful. I don’t want to lose you.”

The woman did not want to be named but said she has been very cautious with her 7-year-old son, teaching him to “remain alert and always pay attention.”

Studies show

According to research conducted by Guns & America, 177 of the 286 shootings in the District of Columbia happened within a 1,000-foot-radius of a school campus.

The most recent numbers from the Office of Student Advocates shows 29% of parents who filed complaints were concerned for their children’s safety.

A report from that office has supported approximately 373 individuals requested assistance; many of which were student safety related.

The office has held 78 meetings, panels, school visits and community events helping approximately , compared to last year’s 3,300. That’s a 41% increase in dealing with concerned parents seeking aid.

DC school officials speak out

Ward 1 Board Member, Emily Gasoi,�� said this year there was a state of gun violence in Columbia Heights that raises obvious issues around safety.

“Columbia Heights is a major transportation hub,” Gasoi said. “DC is a school choice system, so kids are coming and going from Ward 1 schools from all over the city, so wherever they’re going Columbia Heights is often a stopping point.”

Gasoi mentioned that gun violence was an issue for a while in Wards 7 and 8, but this year Ward 1 is on alert.

“Children have to catch a bus or get off the bus and transfer, so it has raised a lot of concern,” Gasoi said.��

Gasoi said that neighbors are often invited to attend community meetings to raise awareness about issues like gun-violence in school-centered areas.

DC provides school safety programs

The Safe Passage Program has recently gained attraction due to increased shootings. The Deputy Mayor for Education is targeting six priority areas across the district for support and resources, one of which is Columbia Heights.��

The was established to improve student safety through a five year plan including shuttle bus and Metro station services.��

Each priority area conducts meetings between school leaders, DC Metropolitan Police Department and Metro Transit Police to discuss student safety concerns, assistance and strategies to improve school safety.��

Each year the program hears about incidents that occur regarding student safety in public transportation. pinpoints multiple schools that have resources aimed to ensure children go from school to home safely.����

The program was established to enhance safety-related policies that impact DC public and charter schools.��

The group collaborates with stakeholders ranging from DC Department of Transportation to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transition Authority to identify communities that need additional support based on incidents reported.

The program is also set to pilot Carpool to School and LiveSafe during the 2019-20 school year.��

The office told the Wash that they think the request for assistance rate will exceed last year’s total in a quarter four report.

Program Associate Renatta Landrau said, “There are a lot of pilot programs that were funded this year that are now going into effect, hopefully they will solve these concerns.”

The post DC schools see an increase in student safety concerns after multiple shootings first appeared on 91����.

She then packed up all her belongings and left a bay window dream

“For a while now they’ve been raising the rent, about every six months, and I’ve always paid it, but I could see that I wasn’t getting anything out of the raised rent,” Tabb said.

When she moved into the Carmel Plaza��in 1992 the rent was $400, but when she left this summer the conditions were worse, and the rent was high.

At a rally Saturday tenants like Tabb shared stories of fighting to gain rent control, having history with the homes that are experiencing increases and stories of illnesses due to the stress of rent.

Reclaim Rent Control is a campaign with more than 20 organizations comprised of tenants, housing advocates, legal service providers and labor unions that support residents vulnerable in their homes.

Tenants chanted phrases and waved “power to tenants” signs as they came together at Lamont Plaza in Columbia Heights.

Rent advocacy organizations and tenants are unamused by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s attempt to solve affordable housing issues instead of creating rent-controlled homes.

The campaign is spreading awareness because they expect the Rental House Act of 1985 to expire Dec. 31, 2020. The DC Council must vote to reauthorize the laws before that deadline.

The act provides rent control regulations across the district and covers all residential rental properties.

The law prohibits landlords from raising the rent if it has been raised in the past year, violating the terms of the lease agreement and making multiple rent increases in a set time. The landlord is also required to provide a 30-day notice if there is an increase in the rent amount.

Landlords are also required to follow the Consumer Price Index, which is 4.3% plus an additional 2%, according to the Office of the Tenant Advocate. However, senior and disabled tenants have a smaller increase rate of 2.3%.

Jennifer Berger, managing attorney at the Legal Counsel for the Elderly, has been helping tenants for 15 years who have been subject to vacancies, agreements and petitions filed by landlords.

A tenant union was created to prevent rent increases on buildings made into condominiums at top dollar, said Berger. Columbia Heights is one of the areas Berger fought for due to its growing gentrification.

“Housing providers know that rent can only increase by the consumer price index plus 2% for most tenants, unless the landlord files a petition under rent control to increase the rent beyond the regular amount,” Berger said. “Housing providers threaten to file these petitions for larger rent increases.”

Hardship petitions allow landlords to claim that they do not have a 12% rate of return on their investment. Substantial rehabilitation petitions let landlords claim they have major renovations that are 50% or more of the tax assessed value of the property, which can increase rent up to 125%.

“Petitions get filed with the Department of Housing and Community Development in the rental accommodations division, but tenants can then file a notice and objections which would be heard at the Office of Administrative Hearing,” Berger said when explaining the process a tenant can do to appeal the rent increases.

Berger specifically works with seniors who are subject to large rent increases and has defeated many petitions against them. Advocacy among the community and Americans Association of Retired Persons has protected seniors to be exempt from petitions if their income 60% or less of the area median income, normally at $60,000.

The law may have been set to protect tenants, but those tenants feel that more needs to be done to stabilize community housing.

DC Tenant Union Member Stephanie Bastek said that gentrifying neighborhoods like Columbia Heights have given landlords incentive to push long-term resident out for better profit.

Landlords push older tenants out, flip those units and then bring newer tenants in. Those tenants tend to be younger, whiter and able to pay $2,000 to 3,000 a month for rent, said Bastek.

She added studies show that 20,000 black residents have been pushed out of DC over the past 10 years.

Bastek and other members believe that petitions and other allowances are loopholes that should be over sought by the DHCD.

“Voluntary agreements are a loophole in the rent control law that we want to eliminate because it encourages landlords to cut ties with current tenants that makes it seem like they are benefiting from the law,” Bastek said.

The campaign has been trying to get rid of loopholes within petitions and agreements because the oversight is little and tenants get abused, said Bastek.

Shock could be heard in Bastek’s voice as she explained that voluntary agreements allow for rent to increase by as much 374%.

Bastek also said that landlords benefit for vacancy increases and can earn up to 30% if a tenant moves out.

“Once they’re out the landlord can make superficial fixes, raise the rent and get new tenants in,” Bastek said.

As for Tabb, she is lucky to have found a new home in a wonderful neighborhood that is rent controlled.

The post DC tenants want to fix loopholes that force residents out of homes first appeared on 91����.

In less than a minute six people were victims of a drive-by shooting around 10 p.m. in a Columbia Road apartment complex courtyard. Five victims were men and one was a woman, one man was killed while the others had non-life threatening to critical injuries, according to police.

Partly in response to high-profile violent crimes like this one, DC Metro Police and Mayor Muriel Bowser announced they would start deploying approximately 45 additional officers every day in October with a total of 115 officers granted extra overtime. The projected cost will be roughly $125,000 per week.

The MPD told 91���� that it has used the increase in officers to locate violent offenders, recover extra firearms and keep the District safer, with overtime expanding field operations by 27%.

Residents are unsure if more police officers are the answer

Brittany Gibson, 22, is a new resident of Columbia Heights. She told 91���� there are a lot of things that could be done nationally that would help gun violence in areas like Columbia Heights.

“When I’m thinking of the U.S., especially in urban cities I am thinking of gun violence,” Gibson said. “I don’t blame it entirely on the local level, police or municipalities but I blame the federal government a lot.”

Gibson has multiple feelings toward the recent crimes in the neighborhood, noting that shootings happen all over the U.S, compared to other countries around the world.

“This is kind of the price you pay if you want to live in a city center or ungentrified urban area, so you have to be street smart,” Gibson said. “I’m not going to walk on the block that has the social housing project late at night, by myself with my headphones on.”

Gibson believes the MPD should be more strategic with their methods, instead of throwing bodies at the problem.

“When it comes to local violent crime more police officers is not the answer. Unless you are talking more about a community policing model where you don’t have police officers in their cars patrolling, but people walking the streets and figuring out what the community needs to feel safe,” Gibson said.

Gibson thinks officials should provide offenders with programming and jobs to get them off the streets.

91���� interviewed a resident that did not want to be identified because he is scared from the shootings but said, “years ago Columbia Heights was a comfortable and family-friendly but now we have to worry about our families.”

MPD’s solutions for violent crimes

“Public safety must be a District-wide priority, and it starts with building and keeping trust between our police and the communities they serve,” Bowser said in a press release several weeks after the Columbia Heights shooting.

MPD detectives are still following up on leads from the incident and there are multiple active investigations. Illegal gun recoveries have increased District-wide, especially the third district with a recent report of 128 recoveries this year. Last year officers recovered 80 illegal firearms.

The department already has officers working near the 14th Street shopping center on bicycles, segways and foot beats. MPD will have a major increased deployment on the 1300 block of Columbia Road NW.

Neighboring communities like Shaw have also seen an increase in shootings and theft crimes. At an emergency meeting on Oct. 10 officials proposed that the system create serious penalties to stop violent crimes.

According to Lamar Greene, assistant chief of police for the Metropolitan Police Department, the population grew in the district by 100,000 residents between 2010 and 2018. Calls for service have also grown with over 125,000 additional priority calls.

“Behaviors are not being changed and people are going back onto the streets, offenders are going to re-offend,” Greene said at the recent emergency community meeting in Shaw.

91���� ran the number and violent crime is up.

shows an increase in violent crime in the third district from 454 in 2018 to 610 this year. Assault with a dangerous weapon is at 61 crimes compared to 41 last year due to a lack of penalties for the offenders, according to Greene.

“Behaviors are not being changed and people are going back onto the streets, offenders are going to re-offend.”

91���� gathered data from MPD’s crime map of the third district.

— 91���� (@authewash)

The Metropolitan Police Department Captain David Sledge responded to residents who believe officers are not the solution by stating, “that officers scare criminals away” and reduce crime.

The department is hopeful that visible officers and community engagement will have a positive impact on the District.

The post Extra police officers assigned to prevent violent crimes first appeared on 91����.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sept. 24 launched an informal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump following calls he made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A whistleblower complaint states Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. That claim is partially backed up by a of the phone call.

The fate of the upcoming 2020 election and the current President sparked conversation among D.C. campus voices.

Katherine Boyko, 18, a communications, legal institutions, economics and government major at American University, moved from Ukraine four-and-a-half-years ago and feels a personal connection to the international conversation.

Boyko said there are two sides to every story when talking about the impeachment process.

“I’m trying to look at it from the perspective that there’s going to be a clash between the Republicans and Democrats because of the impeachment trial, and I don’t want it to impose any hardships upon policies that Democrats are trying to create simply because this process is starting,” Boyko said.

Ukrainian-born Boyko believes international news coverage should have focused on Ukraine’s election rather than the phone call. During the time of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader had just been elected as president.��

Thomas Kenna, an international studies major and senior at AU, said he follows the inquiry news coverage closely, but can’t take a stance without more evidence.

Kenna said it would have been better if Pelosi waited for the transcripts of the phone call to be released, as Republicans suggested. The five-page rough transcript of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky came a day after Pelosi’s announcement.��

“I totally agree that these are valid allegations to look into if the press reports were true and corroborated,” Kenna said.

Kenna added Pelosi’s decision to launch the inquiry before seeing the transcript from Trump’s call with Zelensky makes the efforts seem non-partisan.��

“There is mainstream media, partisan media and conservative media with different spins of the impeachment,” Kenna said about media coverage. “I don’t think this is the hill we want to die on.”

Other students say they are confident President Trump’s actions warrant an impeachment inquiry. They aren’t confident the inquiry will be more than a political statement by members of the House of Representatives.

George Washington graduate student, Matilda Epstein, says she is “symbolically on board” with the impeachment inquiry, but she wants to wait and see.

“Presidents have been impeached for less, yet this President has stayed in office, so I’m not fully optimistic change will actually come when he wasn’t impeached for other offenses he’s made,” Epstein said.

A few students echoed that lack of optimism, like Tiffany Wilson, a student of the University of the District of Columbia.��

“I think it does no use to impeach Trump if the rest of the cabinet isn’t going too,” Wilson said. “I’m worried all of the attention this is bringing will make people forget about other important issues like the wall at the [U.S.-Mexico] border.”

Brooke Patterson is a George Washington University student studying public health policy and said she’s heard discussions on campus that make her proceed with caution. She said impeachment has been used in the past as a threat.��

“People seem excited, but I am hesitantly optimistic,” Patterson said. “Like people talked about impeaching Obama but that never happened.”

Despite skepticism, some students say they are hopeful this inquiry will result in President Trump’s removal and greater change for America going forward.��

Kyilah Terry, a graduate student at Georgetown University, said her “best-case scenario” is the president being impeached and found guilty by the Senate, something she said has been “a long time coming.”

Mia Graves, another UDC student, said she feels optimistic that justice will be served.

��“I’m pro-impeachment personally. Time has been up,” said Graves.

For now, students look forward to more discussion surrounding the impeachment inquiry.��

“D.C. is a place where politics is everywhere and in conversations with whoever you talk to, so I’m sure we will hear more,” Terry said.

The post Trump’s impeachment inquiry inspires skepticism, dividing students first appeared on 91����.

The irony of the plan is some community members believe, during the ongoing construction phase, the DDOT is actually making the situation more dangerous.��

According to a , the intersection of Pine Street, Sacred Heart Way and 16th Street was designed to allow vehicles to turn right without reducing their speeds. But pedestrians and cyclists crossing Pine Street on the east side of 16th Street face a safety hazard, the study said.��

The DDOT said that a��left turn at 16th St. was required to reduce the danger to pedestrians. Review of the study shows that eliminating the left turn risks causing pedestrian casualties. To go through the church drivers have to make a sharp right turn which makes it hard to see people walking.��

Parents are worried about children near the intersection

On Pine St. and Sacred Heart Way there are orange cones lined up by sidewalks as cars drive by. The Sacred Heart church takes over the block with a park attached to it, on the other side of 16th St. is Sacred Heart School on Park Rd. NW.

Multiple do not enter signs line the area to ensure that the tight, narrow street is a one way street. However, a sharp turn is permitted onto Sacred Heart Way and Pine St. with parking spots lined up near the church.��

Law enforcement regularly circle the area for parking and speeding violations near the church, the lights flashed as a car went over the 25 mph speed limit.

Many residents have concerns about the traffic that is being generated from this project, increasing the chances of pedestrian fatalities.

Christine Miller attends the Sacred Heart church and is an ANC1 commissioner. The DDOT plans to remove left-turns for northbound traffic on 16th St during rush hour. The change would bring in a lot of traffic near the church’s playground; something Miller believes could cause challenges for pedestrians to cross.

The playground was recently fenced off with children playing on the red, blue and yellow slides and playing area. Benches, bicycles and tennis courts also surround the church and playing area.��

“Does it take into account of people who don’t pay attention because life gets in the way,” Miller said. “We are dealing with directing traffic near a park with children.”

Miller said that the project is directing 50 cars or more to small roads that are already congested which she has recommended against.

“The original plan was to create solutions within that north and south corridor to make it safer for pedestrians,” Miller said. “In their effort to fix traffic, they have actually created rather dangerous areas for pedestrians.”

This main corridor is set up for heavy traffic but the heavy traffic flow to high density pedestrian areas like 16th causes accidents, Miller said.

“The big concern is are they neglecting the unintended rippling effects in this attempt to accommodation commuters and bus lanes?” Miller said.

Community members demand answers about the bus lane project

According to Miller, this area is a Hispanic populated community and thinks DDOT should accommodate Spanish speakers because they want a more collaborative understanding of what’s happening. One example being that Miller thinks the DDOT should provide the information in Spanish.

“When this initially become an issue I tried to work with them, but hoisting this onto the community without issues being addressed is really concerning,” Miller said about the DDOT.

Residents around the church are unhappy with the traffic being rerouted through their community and have requested an update on DDOT traffic efforts. A letter written by Miller requests for DDOT to release a traffic study of Park Road NW, detailing the mobility issues between 14th and 16th St.��

The ANC1 has identified issues like traffic backups, lack of mobility, reduced pedestrian safety and increased automobile traffic and would like DDOT to provide substantial solutions.

According to DDOT, 16th St. has over 20,000 riders each day making it the highest region of ridership.

Zach Rybarczyk, transportation commissioner of ANC1, said that pedestrians and cyclists are vulnerable road users that need infrastructure to protect them from larger vehicles.��

“Safer street design is the best way to achieve protection for pedestrians, along with improved enforcement and education,” Rybarczyk said.

According to Rybarczyk, 16th., 14th St. and Georgia Ave., all have extreme bus ridership numbers causing conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians crossing streets.

ANC1 also worries about the high number of senior living facilities and schools in Columbia Heights, as they require extra protection when navigating the streets.

The bus lane project is set to be completed by this year but still needs work done

DDOT implemented a transit priority planning design in 2016 after a year of planning to improve transit travel time and performance but work still needs to be done.

According to design plans DDOT had only completed 30% of the project in 2016. The DDOT projected the completion of the project by the end of this year.��

91���� tried to get in contact with the DDOT but have yet to get a response. Multiple attempts have been made to speak with their representatives to get comments on the community’s concerns.

91���� would have liked to get information on where the project is now, how the DDOT has responded to the community’s concerns and what DDOT is doing to fix these issues.

The post Safety concerns during 16th Street Bus Lane Project first appeared on 91����.