• By Paul Medvetsky*
• June 04, 2024

Moving the Pennsylvania Avenue Vision Forward

With the first consultant team, HR&A Advisors, hired in March, NCPC and the project partners are advancing the vision of the Avenue as a Venue. Understanding Pennsylvania Avenue’s role and function in post-pandemic downtown Washington is fundamental to successfully reimagining the Avenue as a new public space destination and transportation corridor.

Teleworking accelerated during the pandemic, altering where people work and commute. With increased remote work, the commute and traffic patterns of office workers traveling daily to downtown has changed dramatically since 2020. While traffic, office occupancy, and transit ridership have shown signs of recovery, downtown is facing a paradigm shift that presents an exciting opportunity to rethink the use of office buildings and their ground floors, public spaces, and adjacent streets. Earlier this year, NCPC in partnership with Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments released findings from the Workplace Scenario Planning Study, a scenario-based study to better understand how federal telework and remote work might impact the region.

Responding to and embracing this “new normal,” the vision proposes the transformation of Pennsylvania Avenue from an eight-lane thoroughfare designed around cars into a more equitable public space designed for all types of activities and users, including events, pedestrians, bikes and scooters, buses, cars, emergency vehicles, delivery trucks, and more.

Later in 2024, NCPC will announce a second consultant team to help develop the New Pennsylvania Avenue Plan that will address design and infrastructure improvements along the corridor and adjoining public spaces. This design team will work collaboratively with HR&A to:

• Update the pre-Covid traffic study that revealed “excess capacity” of roadway space that can potentially be reallocated to other uses without significantly impacting traffic. These uses may include new sidewalks, bike lanes, transit-only lanes, mid-block crossings, street furniture, trees and plantings, public art, stormwater infrastructure, and other streetscape elements.


• Refine and narrow the three early concepts — Urban Capital, Civic Stage, and Linear Green — to a preferred concept design alternative(s) based on economic feasibility, program of requirements, and public comments received during the 2022 outreach. The preferred concept alternative(s) will be presented to the Commission and released for public feedback in 2025.


• Perform technical analyses to prepare for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA) processes, which include noise, stormwater management, and cultural resources studies.

Pennsylvania Avenue boasts the prestige and name recognition like other iconic streets from around the world such as the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Realizing the Avenue’s role and function in the next evolution of downtown will elevate its brand as a great street and a world class public space in Washington and the United States.

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* Paul Medvetsky is a recent Georgetown University graduate. Before completing NCPC internship, he interned with the NYC Planning Department and Greater Greater Washington.

Initiative Page 2018 Traffic Study Workplace Study