DC's busy bicycle legislative agenda, part 1

David Grosso stops in a bike lane.

I've been on the BAC for over a decade now, and on the legislative committee for most of that time, and I've never seen a year like this when it comes to legislation. There are at least 10 bills that have been introduced this year that should matter to cyclists, and others concerned with safe streets. It's a lot so I'm going to try to break it up into a few posts

The Bicycle Advisory Council (BAC) Expansion Amendment Act Of 2019 was already discussed here. Since then the BAC has suggested that the District Council nominate one person representing scooters or other non-traditional Personal Mobility Devices to join the BAC as well. There's a lot of place that our interests overlap or collide and they should have a voice somewhere in this process. And such a person could help the BAC give better advice (which is the main purpose after all). 

The Florida Avenue Multimodal Project Completion Emergency Amendment Act of 2019 has already passed and is headed to the Mayor for signature. That bill sets a September deadline for creating a 6-4 road diet for Florida Avenue between 2nd and H NE and using the newly freed space for something other motor vehicles. It has the same deadline to install High-visibility crosswalk marking. It also requires monthly status reports starting in June. The Mayor needs to respond by the end of the month. A letter couldn't hurt. 

But the big bill on the agenda is CM Allen's Vision Zero Enhancement Omnibus Amendment Act Of 2019. This bill has MANY moving parts. The bill aims to:

• Approve the 2014 Multimodal Long Range Transportaion Plan (aka Move DC)
• Shorten the Notice of Intent period from 30 days to 10 days in cases where the proposed change will increase safety at a high-risk intersection as defined in Move DC and a report about it has been posted on the internet.
• Prevent the issuance of building permits until DDOT has published a report assuring that for-hire and delivery vehicles going to that building will not make conditions unsafe
• Require the construction of sidewalks on both sides of the street, not just one
• Require DDOT
  • to submit a Vision Zero progress report and make it public. The report will include
    • A list of projects in MoveDC by ward describing how it would improve safety, increase equitable access to transit, contribute to the mode share goals in MoveDC, decrease motor vehicle speeds. 
    • The expected delivery dates for all the projects in MoveDC for which funds have been allocated
    • Interim steps for projects that are to be allocated 2 years out
    • An explanation for why unfunded projects in MoveDC are unfunded
  • to publish all the data required by the 2016 Bike and Ped safety Act, data from the DOH's annual trauma report, all speed data they collect    
  • to create a transparent, standard project delivery process focused on MoveDC plans and things that make the roads safer and more equitable (sorry alleypalooza). 
  • to update the MoveDC every two years and to report on the goals to get commuter automobile mode share in all wards to lower that 25% and transit share in all wards to at least 50%. Should also include a list of streets to add bus-only lanes to with at least one in each ward and a list of high-risk intersections.
  • to submit an incident report to the council 30 days afer each crash that results in a fatality or injury including interim design changes that have been put in place, permanent changes they plan to put in place and whether or not it is a high risk intersection. 
  • to install marked crosswalks where an unmarked one currently exists when doing other roadwork (unless DDOT thinks it will make things less safe)
• Prevent the issuance of public space permits for new buildings until they have built and restored all the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure that they were required to build and all that was there prior to construction
• Require MPD to collect information about the speed of vehicles involved in collisions or that receive moving violations. 
• Require anyone getting a new or renewed driver's license to take a written test
• Lower the speed limit to 20 mph on all local, collector and minor arterial roads and to 25 mph on all principal arterial roads.
• Prohibit right turns on red (everywhere, all the time)
• Require stop signs or traffic lights at all intersections of roads classified as local, collector or minor arterial.
• Authorize towing of a vehicle blocking a bike lane or crosswalk or that have more than 5 outstanding tickets for exceeding the speed limit by more than 30 mph or for overtaking a vehicle stopped for a pedestrian
• Authorize the city to mail citations of more moving and non-moving violations
• Create a Citizen Safety Enforcement Pilot Program allowing a few citizens to cite violators using a phone app. This has been all over the media, and much of it has been bad and/or ill-informed takes. 

It's a good start.

Seriously, these are some great ideas. Some of these things the BAC has recommended in the past and some (faster NOIs) are new to me. But they all seem targeted to my Vision Zero sentence that I've been saying which is that:

Getting to Vision Zero will require us to have fewer and safer cars; driven at slower speeds; by sober, safer drivers, on better roads shared by more cautious cyclists and pedestrians.

And this bill will hit on most of these things, and certainly the more important ones. 

Finally, just a few comments on some of the media coverage of the Citizens Enforcement pilot. It's fascinating to me that this has gotten all the press (it's become national news even) while the plan to ban RTOR everywhere or lower the speed limit to 20 (!!!) or even, finally approve MoveDC has not. Oh well, I don't know journalism.

Petula Dvorak at the Post, whom I normally agree with, has a particularly bad take. 

She starts out by referring to it as tattling. As someone on twitter put it

You can tell a lot about a person by where they define “snitching.” Is reporting animal abuse snitching? Child abuse?

The article mentions safety once, and not in relation to this bill, but instead goes straight to the AAA framing of "revenue grab" using the old Trump trick

A lot of us wonder whether this has anything to do with the city’s declining parking ticket revenue, thanks to mobile parking apps.

Which might be a valid concern if you thought bad parking was no longer a problem, but she doesn't.

It’s infuriating and dangerous to have cars parked in bike lanes, bus lanes and crosswalks — the violations citizen avengers would be targeting in the proposed pilot program. I live on Capitol Hill and have circled my block for an hour more than once after a Costco shop, past scores of Virginia (mostly) plates overstaying their legal right to park on my street, keeping me from accessing my own home.

I honestly don't think she understands what the proposal is because she mentions both vigilantes and Batman and people parked in RPP spots. That's not what this will be. 10 people from each ward will be selected and trained. They will photograph violators and submit them to DPW who will then review them and issue tickets where warranted. The only tickets this will be for are for parking in a bicycle lane, crosswalk, bus lane or streetcar guideway. 

Dvorak is instead worried about the gestapo.

 The scars and resentments of this kind of citizen tattling run three generations deep in my family, when the communist regime in Czechoslovakia corrupted families and communities with Little Brother tactics.

But how do we begin to police citizen avenger motivations?

There is overview of the people who are allowed to do this, that's how. It's hard to address her fears because they aren't clearly stated. Is she worried the innocent will be falsely accused? That's what the photos are for. Is she worried that there will be confrontations? Since all the CE's will be doing is taking a photograph, and since they will take training for that, I don't see how it would be any worse than cyclists yelling at drivers. Is she worried it will be inequitably enforced (racist or classist enforcement)? Me too, but cars create some anonymity, making it hard to know who's driving that Honda accord (To be fair, if I were an enforcer I might show a bias towards ticketing Hummers or other giant SUVs, And who wouldn't want to ticket someone in a Maserati?), and I suspect that's one of the things the pilot will study. If we see some inequity then we can tweak or abandon the idea. 

She goes on to compare this to public shaming on twitter. That's not what this is either, though that's already happening since people frequently post photos of cars parked in bike lanes. What negative consequence has that had so far?

Luz Lazo also misses the mark though she at least understands the facts.  But her story starts off poorly,

D.C. officials are so desperate for more solutions to the city’s parking and traffic problems that they’re considering recruiting citizens to help enforce the rules of the road.

This is not about fixing parking and will only have a small effect on traffic. This is about safety. Now I'll concede that there isn't any proof that blocking the bike lane makes cyclists less safe (sorry, I'm just not aware of any) but at the very least it makes biking frustrating as hell. And blocking crosswalks too, though there I am more confident about calling it a safety risk. But whether or not it is or is not based on data, safety is the goal. She does get to that later. 

Then she quotes Walter Olson of the Cato Institute. 

"But traffic enforcement does have a lot of judgment calls.”

I'm not sure what judgement call would come into play here, and he doesn't name one. Just some vague idea. I participated in the bike lane project last week. A food truck parked in a hashed off area to wait for the lunch crowd and a parking enforcement car pulled up and told him to leave without issuing a ticket. I guess that's a judgement call - to let that guy go without a ticket - but I don't know if I agreed with it. You get off with a warning if you don't walk away? BTW, the flexposts in the streetview are now gone - wonder how that happened?

Olson also blames this on revenue generation

“The city gets more revenue without having to pay salaries,” he said. “The potential increase in ticket revenue would get their interest right away.”

Ugh. I wish we would just take all the money generated and set it on fire, Dark Knight style, once a year just so we could stop hearing about this. 

“The idea of vigilante enforcement is a bad idea,” D.C. attorney David Tompkins said. “Everyone I don’t like would have a lot of tickets. Well, that’s the joke until a real jerk gets ahold of this idea.”

Again, not vigilantes. He should look up what that word means. Violators would get tickets from DPW, they would not be beaten with iron pipes by a mob in the alley. 

“Law enforcement is a profession,” he said. “Have professionals handle it.”

So is teaching. Is Tompkins against volunteer tutoring programs?

A lot of articles ask "What could possibly go wrong?" and then list very little that could go wrong. 

Imagine what could happen if a resident gets a ticket from his or her neighbor — a neighbor whose address he or she knows.

That is a very special case. One which can happen if you get a ticket from DPW or MPD or DDOT.

There could be some legal issues involved in providing citizens such power

None of those were actually listed.

As with any idea, this could end up being great for neighborhoods or disastrous. 

No potential disasters were identified. 

The inner libertarian in me, of course, doesn’t approve of such over-policing, but the “nearly hit by a cyclist who rode full speed through a red light and nearly plowed into me when I was legally crossing the crosswalk” in me thinks these people need to obey some traffic laws.

Ah yes, we don't need any more policing except for the people who almost hurt ME. Very libertarian. 

Anyway, no hearing has been scheduled for the bill, but when it is, I'm sure it will be widely publicized. 

Comments

[Jacob Mason]

All the fuss about citizen enforcement is fine with me. If we end up dropping a relatively untested idea from the bill but get to keep most or all of the other incredible pieces of progress, that's a huge win in my books.

[ACyclistInThePortCIty]

"Finally, just a few comments on some of the media coverage of the Citizens Enforcement pilot. It's fascinating to me that this has gotten all the press (it's become national news even) while the plan to ban RTOR everywhere or lower the speed limit to 20 (!!!) or even, finally approve MoveDC has not. Oh well, I don't know journalism." Yup, this is brilliant. Council can make a big show of dropping the citizen enforcement pilot, and get the lower speed limits, no RTOR, and the other good ideas through.

[washcycle]

The whole point of the pilot is to test the idea. That's why it only lasts one year. Gay marriage was once an untested idea too, so I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to not try something.