Jim Graham proposes banning sidewalk cycling along streets with bike lanes

You can read all about it at GGW.  Here's my thoughts about it.

The DC code allowing cyclist on the sidewalk goes back to DC's original traffic regulations from 1972 and 1974 and has it's roots in the Uniform Vehicle Code, which in 1968 added a stipulation that cars were not allowed on the sidewalk.  I'm not sure what DC's traffic laws were like before then, but even back then it included the ban within the CBD. The primary reason for the CBD ban, as I understand it, was to deal with the problem of bike messengers on the sidewalks. The ban on sidewalk cycling (if back issues of Dr. Gridlock are any indication) was not enforced and was never successful, even when messengers were required to have license plates on their bikes. The problem was such that in the late 1980's Ward 6 Councilmember Nadine Winters proposed regulations for the bike messengers, including requiring them to be licensed, pass a safety course and wear visible ID numbers. But with the decline of bike messengers in DC, the perceived need for such regulations has largely disappeared. But the CBD sidewalk ban remains.

The only way to make a ban work is to have more enforcement, but If more enforcement is planned, then this law isn't needed. That's because the kind of behavior that supporters of this ban wish to make illegal is already illegal. Current law says that cyclists may use the sidewalk "so long as the rider does not create a hazard." Ergo, hazardous sidewalk cycling is already illegal. What this law does is make non-hazardous sidewalk cycling illegal.

 

The only reason for this would be the pretense that enforcement would be easier. But the logic behind making non-hazardous sidewalk cycling illegal because it would be easier to enforce is questionable to say the least. It reminds of the old vaudeville joke where one man is looking for his wallet and another offers to help. After some time, the second asks "Where did you lose it?" and the first says "Over there in the woods." "Well then why are we looking for it over here" the second asks angrily. "Because the lighting is better." Why are we going to ticket non-hazardous cycling? Because the lighting is better.

 

Furthermore, there is already a process to ban sidewalk cycling on streets where it makes sense.  The Mayor can ban sidewalk cycling on any street with a simple order. And he can do so with input from DDOT and MPD. Instead of creating a blanket rule that may or may not work in every situation. Under current law, the default is no ban, with the Mayor able to overrule that. The new law changes it to a ban, with the Mayor able to overrule that. 

 

Sidewalk cycling is not ideal, but for some cyclists and at some times it is a totally adequate option, and possibly even the best one. Rather than changing behavior by forcing less confident cyclists off the sidewalk (even as young as 13 years old), we should be enticing cyclists off the sidewalk with better facilities.  This law replaces an individual cyclist's judgement about the safety, their comfort and the current conditions on the road with that of the Council's who has no insight into any of those things. It forces cyclists to either break the law, do something that makes them uncomfortable or not bike. Which of these is an appealing outcome?

 

Bans do not get cyclists off the sidewalks, but bike lanes, and to a much larger extent, cycletracks do. That's where efforts should be focused.

 

Graham's bill is unlikely to achieve the goals he seeks. The 4 year old example of a bad outcome that he cites isn't even applicable. That happened in an alley, not a sidewalk. And it didn't happen next to a bike lane. And it isn't even clear that the cyclist was at fault in the crash (though they did flee the scene afterward). There's no data to back up the need for this - just the fact that Graham has received a lot of complaints. How many bike crashes are there on DC sidewalks? Where are they occurring? Next to bike lanes? Don't know. Don't care. But a study carried about by DDOT from 1997-99 showed a total of 29 bicycle-pedestrian crashes over a two year period. A follow up study from 2000-2002 also showed 29 bike-ped crashes involving 30 pedestrians (and one bike-bus-pedestrian crash). Many of these were not on the sidewalk.  

 

Not only will this do little to reduce sidewalk cycling, I doubt such a bill will "help to encourage the construction of even more bicycle lanes for the safety of all" but if that's something he's interested in (and it would be a new interest for him) then there are better ways to get that outcome. 

 

The most dangerous part of his press release, and the part that makes me glad he's leaving office is this part "I think it’s time that rather than riding on sidewalks, bicyclists and others be required to use bike lanes" Oh no, no. no. Mandatory bike lane laws are a very bad idea. Even worse than the law Graham has proposed. 

 

Just to add fuel to the fire, in a very timely post Streetsblog has a report on how sidewalk bans in NYC have been disproportionately enforced on black and latino cyclists.  

 

Comments

[jeffb]

The 4 year old example of a bad outcome that he cites isn't even applicable. That happened in an alley, not a sidewalk. And it didn't happen next to a bike lane.

It also happened within the CBD where sidewalk cycling is already illegal.

[Ampersand]

I saw a comment that bicyclists are the greatest threat to pedestrians on a sidewalk, mid-block (not in an intersection). However, it occurred to me that stories of cyclists killing pedestrians are very rare, while stories of pedestrians killed by curb-jumping vehicles are exceedingly common. I wonder what the difference is in the counts of these kinds fatalities?

[washcycle]

You can probably find the count for peds killed on sidewalks by cars at FARS (with all the caveats mentioned for bikes), but no one that I know of tracks ped-bike fatal crashes.

[contrarian]

Required reading is the paper, "Killed By Automobile," by Jack Komanoff.

You can read it here:
http://www.cars-suck.org/research/kba_text.pdf

It's a detailed study of pedestrians and cyclists killed by automobiles.

It includes this finding:
"Five percent of pedestrian and cyclist deaths occurred on sidewalks or other off-road areas where it is illegal to drive an automobile."

It also includes this finding:
"Public officials and the media divert attention from dangerous driving by attacking trivial nuisances like bikes on sidewalks."

It's worth reading the whole thing.

[contrarian]

Sorry, Charles Komanoff not Jack.

[Jonathan Krall]

Brilliant! Thanks for the pointer to the Streetsblog article.

Legislating trivialities invites sloppy law enforcement officers who, rightly, haven't wasted their time learning trivial laws. It also invites abuse. Legislating trivialities is a waste of taxpayer money.

[Jack]

The best way to discourage sidewalk riding is to build good facilities in the roadway. And on streets with bike lanes, that's exactly what's happening.

[Ampersand]

@contrarian - thank you for the post! I noticed the quote that I will see if I can find some applicable information on FARS. "Motorists killed 50 pedestrians on sidewalks during 1994-97 [whereas] one pedestrian was killed by a bicycle on a sidewalk during the same period", which is along the lines of what I was expecting.

The Invisible Visible Man had a post about using reason to determine threats rather than romanticism which ties into this. I saw another comment from a person who said that he had been hit by cyclists four times but "luckily" had never been injured. I would counter that not being injured had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with the fact that cyclist collisions are basically not dangerous (albeit unfortunate and best avoided, of course). Bikes zooming by might seem dangerous but actually aren't, while pedestrians are vastly more likely to be killed by a car driving up at them off the street.

[Slappy J]

As a 20+ year bike commuter, I'm fine with this. If you're over 12, ride on the street. There are very, very few streets in DC on which I don't feel comfortable riding (Parts of Capitol and New York, mainly), and they're quite easy to avoid.

[washcycle]

But Slappy, you're not the only kind of cyclist out there. And you're not the only kind we want. Being a 20 year bike commuter makes you an outlier - probably the top .01%. Is that really where we want to draw the line? At only the most confident cyclists? Or do we want to make room for the "interested but concerned" cyclists who constitute the majority?