Committee of 100 questions DDOT on bike program

From a letter by the Committee of 100 calling for Gray to get rid of Gabe Klein and Harriet Tregoning

Similarly, the DDOT initiative to create a network of bike lanes lacked depth of planning which has resulted in confusion for all roadway users and questionable safeguards for any of the users. It would have been helpful and prudent if DDOT had accompanied the promotion of bike usage with an aggressive campaign to demonstrate the safe and lawful role for each category of roadway users and an active enforcement of laws governing each of the users. The singular goal was to produce another symbol of the “livability” agenda and to declare victory despite the created tension among pedestrians, bikers, drivers, and public transit operators.

Wow. So much wrong in such a short paragraph.

DDOT has put in quite a bit of planning into it's network of bike lanes. Almost all of the 49 bike lanes we have were defined back in 2005 during the bike plan. And each bike lane gets individual attention from DDOT staff. How much planning is needed anyway. This "inadequate" planning myth is 100% Fenty's fault. Not Klein's. It comes from the fact that DDOT put in bike lanes on Penn and then rebuilt them just before they opened. This was not an engineering decision. This was a political decision. Fenty said it was his call, and not Klein's. Klein (from what I've heard) wanted to leave the lanes, but Fenty was afraid they would hurt him in the election. Ironically, removing them opened him up to criticism for not doing due diligence and probably hurt him more than the bike lanes ever would have. But, there is really is no truth to the complaint that DDOT doesn't properly plan for bike lanes. From what I've seen they plan way more than is needed.

As for education, DDOT pays for WABA to offer free classes on cycling to both adults and children - and has educated thousands as a result. They also do two StreetSmarts campaigns a year. Enforcement is not DDOT's job, it's MPD's. If their criticism is that drivers are terribly ignorant about the law and their place on the road - I agree.

Still, I'd like to see how they think these lack of planning, education and enforcement have manifested themselves. Where is their proof of a lack of these things? And what do they think DDOT should do?

Finally, their claim that the "singular goal was to produce another symbol of the “livability” agenda" is nearly libelous. The goal, as stated several places, is to give residents more transportation options. And the rise in cycling, walking and transit use is evidence that they're achieving their goals.

I think DC residents should fire the Committee of 100.

Update: GGW has a response to the full letter, as well as a letter that everyone who supports Klein and Tregoning should sign. Alpert also includes this particularly brilliant part:

Clark shows that he is the one out of sync with all residents of the city when he writes, "At the same time that Mr. Klein was focused on bikes and streetcars, daily transportation needs went unaddressed." The many people who walk, ride the bus, or bicycle to work on a daily basis would disagree with Clark's narrow definition of "daily needs."

Comments

[Brendan]

I didn't know the Committee of 100 was a Tea Party affiliate: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/tea-party-agenda-21-un-sustainable-development

[SJE]

I just don't understand the Com100. They say they are for the original L'enfant vision, but how is that inconsistent with livability? There were no cars, and the city was a fraction of its size, at that time.

There is a map of DC in approx 1890 down the hall from my office. There is nothing but farmland just beyond what we would now consider "downtown." Connecticut Ave stops at Rock Creek Park. There are canals and creeks going through the downtown.

[Christopher Fotos]

I haven't followed this close enough to have a firm opinion, but I thought this long comment by bike commuter Alex1207 over at GGW was valuable:

I would disagree about Tregoning. While I may not agree with 100 % of her views, she is atleast qualified for the position and intimately knowledgable about her job.

Gabe Klein certainly needs to go. He is no more qualified to head a DOT than I am qualifed to fly to Mars.

The guy worked at a failing car rental agency, then worked as a DC street vendor whose claim to fame is that he catered then Mayor Fenty's birthday party.

A couple months later, he was all of a sudden head of DDOT.

One minute slinging hotdogs at lunch, then next minute in charge of a city agency with a ~200 million dollar budget and billions of capital projects in the pipeline. Him in that role is astoundingly ridiculous.

He has failed at every single DDOT endeavor he has his name attached too.

The "speed bumps for anyone who wants one" policy ended up an embarrasing failure after NW DC council members started getting thousands of complaints of speed bumps appearing on their streets without study or warning, many of which were then removed.

The Street Car debacle has drawn national ridicule. A completely unplanned (until this March, 7 years after they bought street cars and started putting in tracks) and unfunded multibillion dollar program that relied almost entirely on federal money they "knew" they were going to get...yet didn't get. And this is from the Obama Administration which is the most transit friendly of any in the past 25 years. Our street cars have been delivered and sitting in storage for ~2 years now, and the tracks they were supposed to go on are 3 years behind schedule.

His transportation policy of "Bike Lanes, Nothing Else" has been an overwhelmingly expensive and embarrasing faux pas for him. Putting in bike lanes anywhere, without the benefit of forethought or study, haphazardly repainting any and all street without thinking of the danger to either cyclists, pedestrians or drivers. The PA avenue bike lanes that went in without planning or study, only to be ripped out and completely redesigned DAYS before they were to open. Klein himself admitted they hadn't really thought about the level of conflict it would create on one of the regions busiest streets. I say this as a regular, daily commuting cyclist.

I could go on for days, but there is a reason one picks someone with qualification for a job like this. Sonmeone with some level of transportation, engineering, construction or management experience. Fenty chose a street vendor and the result was predictable.

Replace him now.

(yes, I did see what WashCycle says about Fenty's role in the Pa. Ave. bike lanes)

[washcycle]

Many of Alex1907's complaints seem to predate Klein. If the streetcar is 7 years behind schedule, and he's been on the job for 20 months, how is that his fault.

[Dr Pangloss]

Ah, ok. So doesn't like speed humps. Fine, though lots of folks who aren't glued to the drivers seat *do* like them. A lot.

He thinks (though provides no evidence whatsoever, and I certainly can't find anything in the national press) that streetcars have "drawn national ridicule".

And it's clear he hasn't a clue as to the history of PA Ave bike lanes, since as washcycle pointed out, pulling out the original bike lanes was a purely political manuever by Fenty, in which he overrode the traffic engineers design at the behest of a vocal bunch of drivers.

Extremely valuable that.

[Christopher Fotos]

Well, plopping down a bunch of speed bumps without properly preparing for various community impacts and then having to rip a bunch of them out sounds like something an official without a professional background in some kind of public administration would do. Just because he likes bikes doesn't make him golden!

Streetcars are the shiny new toys of the moment. Sometimes they could make sense, some lines are laughably underused (more humorous if you're not part of the community paying for them). And didn't DC just lose a Tiger II grant competition that included streetcar expansion? Was Gabe Klein here when that happened?

Again, not familiar with the whole spiel, but no need to rush the beatification of St. Gabe.

[washcycle]

Where did DDOT remove speed bumps?

DC did fail to win a TIGER II grant for streetcars. So did just about everybody else who applied for one. There were a lot of empty pockets chasing each dollar. Our lack of congressional representation couldn't have helped.

[JJJ]

Christopher....do you live in DC?

You say "Streetcars are the shiny new toys of the moment. Sometimes they could make sense, some lines are laughably underused "

Of course they're underused. They don't exist yet.

[Michael H.]

Why is the Committee of 100 so important?

[Liz]

The singular goal was to produce another symbol of the “livability” agenda and to declare victory despite the created tension among pedestrians, bikers, drivers, and public transit operators.

Translation:

All this emphasis on "livability" forced myself and some other drivers to stop ignoring pedestrians and bicyclists and made us aware of a tension that we never knew existed.

[Christopher Fotos]

Re speedhumps being removed, I'm just going by what biker commuter Alex1207 stated in his post at GGW.

JJJ, I live in Manassas. I've worked in downtown DC most years since 1981, and expect (hope) to start doing that again within a month or so. As for underused streetcars that don't exist, I was referring to projects elsewhere in the country.

I'm not a fan of the Metro extension to Dulles either. It's massively expensive for what it does, and I can't for the life of me figure out how it won't turn the Orange line into a railed parking lot. The kind of bus system that could have been created for that kind of money boggles the mind. But--not as glamorous.

[washcycle]

Well, I'm not sure Alex1207 is a reliable source of information considering how much his rant is riddled with errors.