St. Patrick’s enrolls 440 students in nursery, pre-kindergarten, to grade 6 on their Whitehaven Parkway campus in the Palisades area of Washington, D.C.

In 2012, the District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) approved an increase in the cap to 485 students.  W+A conducted a traffic study to evaluate the transportation impacts of the proposed increase.  As part of the study, W+A also evaluated pedestrian and bicycle facilities on and around campus and provided a detailed evaluation of the pick-up/drop-off area.

Prior to the work associated with the Whitehaven Parkway campus, W+A conducted a transportation study for St. Patrick’s proposed middle school for 60 students in grades 7 and 8 in an existing building at 4925 MacArthur Boulevard.

W+A recommended busing middle school students between the Whitehaven and MacArthur campuses.  According to the plan, which is in place today, middle school students would be dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon by parents/guardians at the Whitehaven campus.

To accommodate this increased traffic, W+A recommended reversing traffic flow in the drop-off/pick-up lane, changing curb parking regulations on Whitehaven Parkway, hiring two off-duty, uniformed police officers, and implementing an aggressive carpool program.   This program has achieved more than a 40 percent increase in average vehicle occupancy and is considered a major success.

W+A also provided expert witness testimony before the Palisades Citizens Association, local Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC), and BZA that led to the approval of both projects.