How would you change DC Traffic Laws?

If you were Mayor for a day, and wanted to make roads safer for cyclists, what law would you change or pass (assume you need at least 5 city council members to go along)?

Comments

[ian]

not specifically a cycle law, but I would change the traffic signaling so pedestrians have dedicate crossing time. No more traffic with a green light turning into cross walks with pedestrians who have a walk signal.

For bikes I would mandate that all new road construction must include dedicated bike lanes and all road resurfacing or re striping must include a bike lane unless the road is too narrow to do this.

[thm]

Formally allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, perhaps balanced with enforcement/increased fines for cyclists who fail to yield.

I've thought about trying to make a mathematical argument why this is safe: looking at where you have to stop to make sure you are yielding (that is, not encroaching on the transverse travel lane), and where you are when you can make the judgement about whether or not there will by any traffic you need to yield to, and how fast a bicycle can stop. I think a cyclist can get to the point where s/he can determine that there will be no need to yield while still traveling at nonzero velocity, and to come to a full stop is just a waste of momentum.

[thm]

My suggestion above isn't so much about making cycling safer as it is making cycling more attractive.

I don't think traffic laws are the problem. I'd look to road and intersection design. Motorists tend to drive at a speed they feel comfortable with, and traffic engineers have spent 50 or so years making that speed higher and higher, so posted speed limits are regularly ignored. Things like lane width and paving choices and turning radii and so forth should be chosen such that motorists feel comfortable driving at about 20mph. We should also consider completely doing away with pavement markings, including bicycle lanes--this causes more uncertainty for the motorists, and they do slow down.

Michael King, of Nelson/Nygaard, gave a great presentation organized by the Coalition for Smarter Growth a year ago where he talked about the work he and his firm do for intersection redesign, mostly with pedestrians in mind. One of his ideas is that instructional signs are an indication of design failure: good design should be self-evident and self-enforcing. (pdf of his slides: http://www.smartergrowth.net/education/MKing5.29.07.pdf) So more laws and more signs that tell drivers or cyclists what to do and where to do it aren't likely to have any desired effect.

[Phil]

I would pass legislation that would require the DMV to include a significant number of questions on the written test of the driver license examination that focus on the subject matter of sharing the road with bicyclists and pedestrians. I would also include legislation that required the DMV to include informational fliers regarding that information in all mailings (traffic tickets, license renewals, etc).

[think a little]

I would install those pop-up barriers they have at federal buildings in every intersection and trigger them on red lights, so running the red=totalling your car

Failing that vision, I would stripe 9th/Sherman/Georgia from the district line to the convention center with a bike lane in both directions

My final fallback would be to fix the giant pot-hole on the intersection of Georgia and Missouri (SW corner you catch it as you clear the light) and re-pave the bike lanes on 9th

[William]

I agree with many of the comments here. I would add that DC has been testing a signal which brought all traffic to a four way stop. It has had a 100% safety record.

A handful of drivers complained that the signal was confusing. What did DDOT? They announced the signal would be changed to a red-yellow-green light.

Given the pedestrian fatalities, injuries etc over the past few years, DDOT ought to be evaluating the signal to figure out how to make it less confusing (not sure how red = stop is confusing but I digress), not toss the whole thing out, particularly with the $18 Million Pedestrian master Plan that calls for pedestrian signals throughout the city.

[washcycle]

But those are all engineering fixes.

BTW to fix potholes go here

http://ddot.dc.gov/ddot/cwp/view,a,1253,q,564042.asp

I have had fabulous success with it in the past.

[ian]

not specifically a cycle law, but I would change the traffic signaling so pedestrians have dedicate crossing time. No more traffic with a green light turning into cross walks with pedestrians who have a walk signal.

For bikes I would mandate that all new road construction must include dedicated bike lanes and all road resurfacing or re striping must include a bike lane unless the road is too narrow to do this.

[ian]

sorry ignore last duplicate post, stupid browser reposted my comments when it restarted.

[Auguste]

I would issue tickets for running or walking in a bike lane and biking in a bike lane in the wrong direction. It happens all the time on Capitol Hill and it's driving me crazy!

[ibc]

Absolute "zero-tolerance" for exceeding the posted speed limit. If there were a way to install speed limiters in all vehicles to be operated in the DC limits, and force everyone to go 20mph or less, that would be even better.

As it is, I think that every officer should be instructed to pull over *any* car traveling *any* speed over the posted limit.