Repost, originally published 12/12/2025

At its third public meeting for the South Dakota Avenue Corridor Safety Project earlier this month, DDOT revealed five priority locations for spot treatments.

See DDOT Presentation – South Dakota Avenue Corridor Project Spot Treatment Presentation (December 2025).

Complete DDOT’s Spot Treatment Survey by January 26, 2026.

Spot Treatment Locations from Highest to Lowest priority

1. Hamlin Street to Bladensburg
2. Lawrence to Rhode Island
3. Webster to Taylor Street
4. 18th to Otis Street
5. Galloway Street to Gallatin St

Galloway-Gallatin is the only location selected for spot treatment in this neck of the woods. DDOT did not plan to address anything on the northern end, but then Galloway received the most comments and Riggs Road received the second highest number of comments. So DDOT decided to put Galloway-Gallatin at the bottom of the priority list. Everyone, including DDOT, knows that Riggs is a problem but they say that addressing Riggs & South Dakota would be a very capital intensive project that would need support from the Ward 4 councilmember.

In any case, DDOT has about $600,000 remaining in the South Dakota Avenue corridor project budget, which is enough for just the top one or two priority areas. But Councilmember Zachary Parker’s office seems confident that they can get more money to do all five priority areas if residents really want them to.

So let’s pretend that DDOT will get to the northern end and take a look at what they propose for Galloway-Gallatin.

Existing Conditions Galloway-Gallatin

Residents are familiar with existing problems at South Dakota/Galloway and at South Dakota/Gallatin. Galloway gets a lot of traffic. It leads to the Fort Totten station and the Metropolitan Branch Trail, so lots of cars, buses, pedestrians, and people on bikes. The station is a major bus transfer point and lots of students use the station to get to nearby UDC and charter schools or to get on buses to go to schools outside the neighborhood. Gallatin sees less traffic than Galloway, but still gets a fair amount. And Gallatin is envisioned as a future connection to bike trails in Prince George’s County.

Looking at the existing conditions described by DDOT above, note that there is no intention of putting a traffic circle at either Galloway or Gallatin. That was a comment submitted by a resident during the early stages of the project.

Proposed Concept – Gallatin

For Gallatin, DDOT would consider a few things:

1. Centerline hardening southbound South Dakota to slow down turns
2. “Stop for Pedestrian while Turning” signs
3. Daylighting markings on all four corners of Gallatin to improve visibility of crossing pedestrians
4. Yellow frame around traffic lights so that they are easier to see

This all seems fine enough and would not interfere with potential bike facilities in the future.

Proposed Concept – Galloway

For Galloway Street, DDOT would consider doing a few things:

1. Northbound South Dakota Avenue
   • Dedicated left turn lane
   • Short Median in northbound travel lane would provide safe space for people in middle of crossing, ensure that drivers turn left at Galloway and do not proceed straight, and reduce the number of through lanes in just that one spot.
   • Center lane hardening
2. Southbound South Dakota Avenue
   • Lane markings
3. Eastbound Galloway Street
   • Two eastbound travel lanes so that there is a left turn lane for drivers to head northbound on South Dakota Avenue or proceed straight on Galloway and a dedicated right turn lane.
4. Westbound Galloway Street
   • One travel lane westbound
   • Daylighting markings east and west of South Dakota

This post is way too long so TL;DR here – I do not think what is proposed for Galloway makes sense, and I am curious what others think.

The thing that jumped out to me immediately is that the proposal states that DDOT would talk to Metro about removing the eastbound bus stop at Galloway & South Dakota in order to make two eastbound travel lanes on Galloway. I confirmed with DDOT that they were referring to the eastbound stop. In fact, Metro removed that eastbound bus stop during the bus network redesign but that got overlooked by DDOT.

That means the westbound stop on Galloway would remain. There are a lot of cars and buses that make that left turn onto Galloway. Currently, when buses make the turn onto Galloway and stop at that westbound stop (it is used a fair amount), cars are able to go around the bus. If DDOT makes two eastbound travel lanes and one westbound lane, I do not think there will be enough space for cars to go around the stopped bus and that would leave cars hanging out in the intersection trying to make the left turn. That would not be good.

DDOT said maybe they could move the stop further west or create a diversion space around the bus or something. I do not see where else the stop could go that would not create the same problem or become useless given that it is the last stop before the Metro station and moving it closer and closer to the station would eventually make it useless.

Also, I think I can safely say that the buses would not be able to make that turn onto Galloway if the stop bar is at the crosswalk. Moving the stop bar back could provide a better turning radius but then fewer vehicles would get through the intersection to turn left or go straight ahead.

With respect to the dedicated turn lanes westbound Galloway, I do not know that it makes sense to have vehicles traveling straight on Galloway sitting behind vehicles waiting to turn left.

I am also not sure about the treatment for South Dakota Avenue with the short refuge median there.

All of this to say, I am not so sure that the proposal for the Galloway-South Dakota travel lanes make a lot of sense. But I am not an engineer and I have not seen a traffic analysis, so I don’t know, maybe this all could make sense.

Things that I think would make sense:

1. More time for pedestrians to cross South Dakota at Galloway
2. Centerline hardening (though I suspect the buses will just run over it)
3. Daylighting on Galloway east of South Dakota on both sides of the street. Bulbouts here are actually included in UDC’s 2023-2033 Lamond-Riggs campus plan (which is not really moving forward because apparently there is no money or something). UDC’s enrollment at the Lamond-Riggs campus has grown tremendously (which is why they really need funding to proceed with their campus plan, so DC Council really should give them the money to do it!!). Between campus visitors and the youth sports teams that practice on the field across the street from the campus, lots of cars end up being parked right up to the intersection often enough.
4. I like the idea of dedicated left turn lanes because it is true that waiting for buses/cars to turn left backs up traffic and makes people impatient and they end up running the light regularly enough. But I just do not know that this concept is the way to do it unless maybe they removed the parking lane on Galloway west of South Dakota, which I am reluctant to even type out because I can just see heads exploding. Lots of parents drive to the daycare on Galloway so I can certainly see why people would want some curbside space to drop off and pick up the kiddos.

Also, a 10-foot multi-use path is supposed to be installed on the south side of Galloway between South Dakota and 4th Street, with construction currently anticipated in 2026-2027. This is one of those (federal) projects that keeps getting pushed back year after year for all sorts of reasons. If this does proceed as planned, it might be useful to see how travel patterns for pedestrians and people on bikes change.

None of this will likely do much to slow down the excessive speeding on South Dakota, which was supposed to be the whole point of the corridor project. But we abandoned that goal before we really got started so.

These are just my thoughts. DDOT will not do anything at Galloway-Gallatin unless residents really want them to and ask Councilmember Parker’s office to identify funding to get it done. The cost for Galloway-Gallatin is not that much (roughly $70,000-80,000), so people need to decide what they want to happen or not happen.

Complete DDOT’s Spot Treatment Survey by January 26, 2026.

Project website: https://sdcorridorsafetyproject.ddot.dc.gov.

Join DDOT’s mailing list for updates on the project.

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