Between the wine bars, cafes, and taco shops, Columbia Heights’ 11th Street strip should be the ideal spot for a dog park. Instead, it’s stuck with a mostly fenced-in unofficial park at Park Road, much of which is taken up by a grate.

One group of park-goers wants to change that. The Friends of Columbia Heights Dog Park are organizing to ask the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which owns the land, how they can be allowed to improve the park.

Friends of Columbia Heights Dog Park member Robyn Swirling has a long list of ways that the park could be improved, including:

• Blocking gaps under fences that small dogs can squeeze through.
• Installing the kind of double entry gate popular at other parks.
• Creating rules for the park.
• Putting more material on the ground to help with drainage.
• Adding a water source for the dogs.

Photo by Flickr user IntangibleArts used under a Creative Commons license