The Vision Zero Enhancement Act of 2018 (and 2019)

Charles Allen announced plans to submit an updated and expanded version of his Vision Zero bill from last year. That bill was introduced in November of last year, after the Vision Zero hearing in September, which itself followed a year in which traffic fatalities continued to rise. Prior to that, DC had been promoting the unbelievably optimistic chart above (from a Feb 2018 MWCOG slide show). By the way, in that same presentation, they knew things weren't going like the chart above, because they included the chart below. One would think they would have sounded the alarm bells then, not wait for bike advocates to do so 4 months later. 

Anyway, back to Allen's bill. That bill had several good ideas in it, but it didn't even get hearing. The bill would do the following:

• Reduce the citywide speed limit to 20mph in residential areas - those zoned in Subtitles D-F and K in Title 11 of the DCMR

• Prohibit Right Turn On Red within a half mile of schools, in all of downtown and at intersection with a bike lane

• Authorize towing and impounding of vehicle blocking the bike lane

• Establish a Citizen Bike Safety Enforcement Pilot Program. The program would select and train 10 citizens and then authorize them to take photo of bike lane violators with an app. Those photos will then be treated as a notice of infraction. 1 year after the pilot ends, a report on the pilot would be sent to council 

Those are all good ideas. What would an expanded bill include? I don't know, but I got ideas.

• Get rid of the 10mph buffer on photo enforced tickets. 
• Add points to photo enforced tickets
• Make talking on the phone while driving illegal, hand-free or otherwise
• Create more ways to enforce violations, like cameras on buses - and also have fines increase for repeat offenders
• Require DDOT to remove on-street parking by setting a statutory limit (this will make it hard for them to give in to pressure to keep it)
• Increase the fee for a Residential Parking Permit
• Increase registration fees for heavy cars, cars with a high top speed and/or the most deadly make of cars
• Raise the gas tax
• Create a congestion zone
• Allow MPD to impound cars with rear license plate covers (they're already illegal and are meant to thwart cameras)
• Raise the tax on alcohol and use revenue to pay for an OWL bus service. 
• Close streets in bar districts near metro on weekend nights
• Create a requirement to retest drivers

While we're at it, there are a lot of things DDOT is already supposed to do, but has not. The "Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Amendment Act of 2016" required the Mayor to send to the council a report and recommendations as to whether the District should implement a remediation and deferred disposition program for individuals that commit moving or nonmoving infractions in the District.

The report shall include the following:

(1) A review of the best practices in other jurisdictions;

(2) An examination of issues such as staffing levels and implementation costs;

(3) The moving and nonmoving infractions, if any, to which the remediation and deferred disposition program should apply;

(4) Whether the remediation and deferred disposition program should reduce the entire fine or number of points assessed, or a portion of the fine or number of points assessed; and

(5) If the Mayor recommends implementing a remediation and deferred disposition program, the report shall include a detailed description of the content of any proposed safety course provided in the program, the process by which a person would participate in the program, and the alternatives available to participants in lieu of paying a fine or being assessed points.

That was due on July 1, 2017. Let's just skip the report and have them design a system for deferred disposition. I don't really want to fine people for driving bad if instead I can teach them to drive better. 

Here's some other reports the Mayor was supposed to produce but hadn't as of last summer:

A) Annual reports on locations with the highest frequency of collisions that injure or kill pedestrians

B) Annual reports on the Bicycle and Pedestrian Priority Area Program

C) Annual reports on the Complete Streets policy progress

D) A report on whether DC Circulator buses and District-owned, heavy-duty vehicles should be equipped with pedestrian-alert technologies. 

E) A report on whether emergency vehicles should be equipped with cameras

F) A biannual report for improving bicycle and pedestrian safety (this only came due on July 1, 2018)

 

Also all trucks registered in DC are all supposed to have side underrun protection by now. Do they? Maybe the Mayor should report on that too. A requirement to report on that could go in the law.

 

It's ridiculous that pedestrians and cyclists should be so over-represented in the share of fatalities as this graph shows. 

Meanwhile, Mary Cheh has introduced the Mandatory Protected Cycling Lane Amendment Act of 2019. That bill would basically require DDOT to build any bike facility that is in the MoveDC plan on a road that they are doing "any road reconstruction, major repair, or curb and gutter replacement on." Those lanes should match up with other ones on the same road. But, they must still consult the ANC, the DDOT director can still decide not to build them if they're too expensive, it wouldn't be used by cyclists, the road can be made safe for cycling without the facility or the District would need to buy an easement to make it work. That's a lot of loopholes. 

 

One last bit of legislation to mention, Charles Allen introduced another bill on Tuesday, the Florida Avenue Multimodal Project Completion Emergency Amendment Act Of 2019.

this one aimed at enacting plans to redesign Florida Avenue in Northeast.

“I’ve asked, pleaded, criticized, and urged DDOT to take action and make needed decisions. That hasn’t always worked. For every year I’ve been on the Council, I’ve asked DDOT to move forward with the redesign of Florida Avenue NE. And each year, action is promised and then not delivered,” Allen wrote on Facebook. The legislation would set a timeline for the project and a series of penalties if the agency fails to meet the deadlines.