'A downtown killer' | Bowser blasts council decision to pull funding for K Street Transitway

WASHINGTON — Should K Street be re-done to add bus lanes and relieve congestion? Or should bus fares be made free in the district? Those are two competing plans, pitting the mayor and members of the DC Council against each other. 

At a Monday press conference, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D-DC) expressed her frustration after a DC Council committee voted to pull the funding from the K Street Transitway project.

"Killing the K Street Transitway is a downtown killer,” she said. 

The project, which Bowser has supported for years, would remove the decades-old service roads on K Street, and add two dedicated bus lanes. These changes would be made in between 12th and 21st streets Northwest.

“This is not a delay," she said. "Let’s be very clear – this will kill the project.” 

The project, which would cost more than $100 million was put on hold last week, after the DC Council's Transportation Committee voted to use that money for the fare-free bus program – known as "Metro For DC" instead.

Councilman Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who chairs the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, argued that the money was better spent offering free bus services to the larger D.C. community. 

In a statement, he criticized the plan for the K Street Transitway: 

"I couldn't agree more that a full redesign of K Street is a priority in transforming downtown into a thriving, mixed-use corridor. Unfortunately, this project doesn't live up to that goal. This project is made for a previous downtown -- one that is not coming back and one where the priority remains on commuters who get in at 9 a.m. and leave by 5 p.m. If we want downtown to be a dense, thriving neighborhood, you can't build streets with seven lanes of traffic. That isn't conducive to retail, residential, or a vibrant street life." 

Allen goes on to say that the project is "not dead," stating that the council has continued to fund the designing of a new K Street project. 

Chairman Phil Mendelson responded to Bowser's high profile press conference at Franklin Square, arguing that there are better ways to revitalize the downtown. 

“The plan needs some refreshing," he said. "And stores don’t need to have the pavement in front of their door torn up for years. Not right now.”

Bowser, who has been pushing for a greater focus on the downtown area, said this revamp of K Street Northwest was a better use of funds than the free bus fare program. 

"Even people who love buses, don’t love buses when they are stuck in traffic and unreliable," she said. "Even if they’re free.”

A small group of bicyclists also showed up to the Bowser press conference expressing their concerns with the K Street proposal, since dedicated bike lanes had been removed from the plans.

Bowser said that they want to expand the bike lanes on L Street Northwest to be two ways, as an alternative to the K Street bike lanes. 

The council will need to finalize their budget in the next month, before sending it to the Mayor's office.