On Monday DDOT began construction of the long-awaited L Street cycle track, which when complete will instantly become the best way to bike east through downtown Washington.

The final design of the cycle track includes an adjustment that BeyondDC recommended last May: extending the high-visibility green-painted section into the conflict area where cars cross over the cycle track in order to turn left. Here’s DDOT’s original design from May, with the final design below:

Original design.

Final design.

The main purpose of the green paint is to increase visibility at conflict points between cars and bike lanes, so painting the crossover point along the cycle track is a natural idea. It looks like DDOT will use the same hatching pattern they use at R and Connecticut, which seems to work well.

Kudos to DDOT for making the adjustment, and especially for moving forward with construction.

Now hopefully the M street cycle track, L Street’s westbound twin, will move forward quickly. I have a feeling that L Street, which is supposed to be one-way only, will have a lot of reverse direction riders until M Street opens.