Democracy Dies in Darkness

D.C. council confirms DDOT director who killed Connecticut Avenue bike lanes

Sharon Kershbaum previously was deputy director and has held several city roles, including in human services and contracting and procurement.

5 min
Sharon Kershbaum's tenure as acting director of the District's Department of Transportation has come to be defined by a now-defunct plan to put bike lanes on Connecticut Avenue. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)

The D.C. Council on Tuesday confirmed as head of the city’s Department of Transportation an interim leader who sparked controversy this summer for axing long-planned bike lanes on busy Connecticut Avenue NW.

The vote on Sharon Kershbaum, who has been acting director since Everett Lott stepped down last fall, was unanimous even as lawmakers described her agency as making disappointing decisions with little transparency. They raised the handling of the Connecticut Avenue plan and the way the city is shutting down Circulator bus service this fall over their objections as prime examples. But lawmakers indicated that their complaints were primarily with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), not Kershbaum herself.

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