City Paper's
Housing Complex blog reported late Friday afternoon that DDOT has decided to put in a "Barnes Dance" configuration (also known as a
pedestrian scramble) at New Jersey and M, SE, sometime early in 2011. This is the setup where traffic on all sides have a red light at the same time, allowing pedestrians to cross in any direction. The first one in DC was put in at 7th and H in Chinatown a few months ago. With so many people needing to cross diagonally to go between the Navy Yard Metro station entrance and
USDOT, this is probably a good choice for another intersection to try it out.
(Though I do dream of a day far in the future, when Forest City builds an office building on the NGA site on the southwest corner of the intersection as part of
the Yards, that that new construction would include an additional entrance to the Metro station, obviating the need for people on the south side of M to cross the street to get to the subway.)
