TheWashCycle

DC Council passes contributory negligence fix bill, Bowser signals willingness to sign

In case you haven't heard yet, the DC Council unanimously approved the Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Amendment Act of 2015 yesterday and also passed the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act of 2016 and transmitted it to the Mayor (with a response due by July 26th). Pretty big day for DC bicycle law. Not to diminish the importance of other laws like the DC Commuter and Parking Act, Bicycle Safety Amendment Act, Bicycle Safety Enhancement Act, etc...to have passed since I started blogging, but from the standpoint of DC legislation, its hard to think of a bigger year. Lots of progress has been made this summer. 

The first time I heard of the contributory negligence bill was back in 2008, when then WABA Executive Director Erik Gilliland wrote the Bicycle Advisory Council (BAC) about it.

Please see the attached file [about the case WMATA v Young].  It’s an appeals court judgment on a case involving a cyclist that was struck and severely injured by a Metro bus driver.  We have been talking about how the contributory negligence policy of DC (and MD and VA) might hinder the ability of cyclists to recover damages in a civil suit if he or she is found to have contributed at least a little bit to a crash. 

Over the next 8 years WABA, BAC, (once they existed) the Pedestrian Advisory Council (PAC) and others have been working to change this law, with WABA doing most of the heavy lifting. Shane Farthing wrote a great piece making the case for the change. GreaterGreaterWashington has been hitting the issue pretty hard for years. In 2014, David Grosso with Tommy Wells and Mary Cheh introduced the first bill that tried to fix this, the Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Amendment Act of 2014, but even as it failed it set up yesterday's eventual success. Within months, Mary Cheh modified it to be more politically palatable (and frankly better for cyclists and pedestrians) and Kenyon McDuffie eventually moved it through committee. Even when he held up the bill last month, it appears to have been due to a general misunderstanding, not opposition. Finally the whole council has supported the change and it appears Mayor Bowser will sign it.

Success, they say, has a lot of fathers, and in this case it is absolutely true.

The Vision Zero Action Plan: How DC plans to end road fatalities

Mayor Bowser released the Vision Zero Action Plan earlier this month as the administrations playbook for the first few years of Vision Zero, which is the goal of eliminating all traffic fatalities by 2024. [I have a complimentary post at GGW about how the DC council and the administration are both pursuing policies towards safer streets for cyclists and pedestrians and how this represents the most significant effort in this regard that I know of]

The first part is about the process of putting the plan together and includes a lot of data visualization and raw data. For example, the vast majority of bike and pedestrian fatalities occur on roads with 25 mph speed limits, but this doesn't mean that drivers are going 25mph or slower at the time. 

And the 15 most deadly roads in DC accounted for more than half of all cyclist deaths.

The second part of the plan includes over 50 strategies, some of which echo other plans, from four categories, for making roads safer followed by specific actions to carry them out.

The strategies include

• Increase enforcement and protection for pedestrians and people on bikes in work zones and in parking garages. Educate development/construction stakeholders and develop green building code elements for safe transportation.  (Target Completion December 2016)
• Install or upgrade 20 miles of on-street bicycle facilities. Prioritize improvements using injury and crash data. Install five miles (of the 20) of separated/protected bikeways. (Target Completion December 2017)
• Protect people on bikes with enhanced enforcement that focuses on improper U-turns through bicycle facilities, parking in/blocking bike lanes, improperly entering mixing zones, dooring, and failure to observe three-foot passing law. Utilize subject-matter-expert police officers on bicycles. Publically report citations issued on a regular basis via open data on the Vision Zero website. (Target Completion October 2015)
• Compile and analyze pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle safety and injury data at all DCPS and DC public charter school locations. Complete improvements at no fewer than three locations per year, beginning FY17 (Target Completion June 2016)
• Specifically track Capital Bikeshare safety data and publish targets and trends on Vision Zero website. (Target Completion January 2016)
• Complete first full cohort of universal bicycle training for all DCPS 2nd graders in every traditional public school. Identify opportunities to expand bicycle education in public charter schools.(Target Completion June 2016)
• Deter dangerous parking behavior of commercial and delivery vehicles: parking in bicycle lanes, crosswalks, parking abreast / double parking. Publicly report violations monthly via open data on the Vision Zero website.(Target Completion October 2016)
• Develop region-wide special events, including “safe streets” events that promote the use and awareness of bicycles, and bicycle education. (Target Completion October 2016)
• Accelerate use of bicycle counting stations to determine the number of bike trips made in the District per year in key locations to better understand exposure rates. Establish pedestrian counting stations to determine the number of pedestrian trips made per year in key locations. Utilize private sector partnerships and smart-phone applications to enable crowdsourcing of data and encourage resident participation. Evaluate impact of new facilities. Make data publicly available on Vision Zero website.(Target Completion July 2017)
• Establish public repository on the Vision Zero website for crowd-sourced video of behaviors that are dangerous to pedestrians, people on bikes, transit users, and drivers. Disseminate safety education tools using videos, and inform enforcement and engineering strategies accordingly (Target Completion December 2016)
• On a weekly basis, target illegal loading/unloading and unauthorized vehicles in loading zones, erratic behavior, and dangerous interactions with bicycle facilities by drivers of public vehicles for hire. Focus on commercial corridors, entertainment areas, bike lanes, and areas near hotels. Specifically analyze crashes involving bicycles and vehicles for hire. Explore driver incentives for voluntary participation in vehicle cameras, data-recording devices, passenger facing speedometer pilot programs.(Target Completion October 2017)
• Every other year, continue updates to the DMV driver manual and test materials to refresh emphasis on dangerous driving and bicycle and pedestrian safety (Target Completion April 2017)
• Complete DCMR Title 31 Compliance Audit to address public-vehicle-for-hire driver misconduct that threatens motor vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian safety. Conduct related education and outreach for all vehicle-for-hire drivers. (Target Completion October 2016)

In order to put these strategies into action, there are some real policy initiatives that go along with it.

There are regulatory changes that have already been proposed and for which there will be a hearing on January 8th.  This includes increased fines for striking a cyclist and for parking in a bike lane. 

There's the Vision Zero Enforcement Act which codifies a Complete Streets law, strengthens impaired and distracted driving rules, and addresses the safety concerns caused by On-Street ATVs and Dirt Bikes.

New to the plan is the announcement that the District’s FY16 budget will include a $500,000 Vision Zero Fund. This will spend $156,000 on side underride prevention devices for the DC fleet - something WABA pushed for and that became required, but unfunded, back in 2008; $103,000 on 50 workshops to increasing access to safe bicycles for underserved communities, conducted in conjunction with DCPS bicycle education; and $80,000 for an education program related to truck blind spots. 

All things considered, it represents a good start, especially when combined with everything in the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act. Slower streets, more enforcement, more education, safer trucks, better laws. It probably won't get us to zero deaths, but it will save lives. Hopefully the initiative on side underride guards will encourage Maryland and Virginia to follow suit, since a large number (perhaps the majority) of trucks on DC roads are from out-of-state. 

See also, 

Greater Greater Washington coverage of Vision Zero. And coincidentally, WABA wrote about it between the time I wrote this and the time I published it. 

Mayor Bowser's Vision Zero Act of 2015

Following on the heels of Cheh's Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act, Mayor Bowser has transmitted the Vision Zero Act of 2015 to the Council for their consideration. 

This bill does several things geared towards making DC's roads safer.

1. Like Cheh's bill, it would codify a Complete Streets policy as law
2. It would ban the use of dirt bikes and ATVs on DC streets (I thought this was already the law)
3. It establishes an Ignition Interlock Device Program that repeat offenders or 1-time offenders with particularly high BAC will be required to install.
4. It changes the fines and jail sentences of drunk drivers
5. It Increases the fine for distracted driving from $100 to $500 and adds 2 points 

So, not as sweeping as Cheh's bill and the distracted driving part isn't as good as the Mendelsohn's Enhanced Penalties for Distracted Driving Act of 2015, but it represents a growing consensus that safety legislation is needed - specifically with respect to Complete Streets and distracted driving. 

From the archives: DC's Bicycle Coordinator abolished in 1991

I've been going through the Washington Post's older bicycle articles, from before the blog and even before I moved here. Some are pretty interesting, like this one about Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon's 1991 decision to let the bicycle coordinator go as a cost-saving measure.

The post, created by the D.C. Council in 1985 and funded almost entirely with federal highway money, has been filled for six years by Tom Pendleton, a professional bicycling specialist. Pendleton's last day of work was Friday.

Public works officials defend Pendleton's firing, saying it will free up federal dollars to be used for more bicycle paths and programs.

But bicycling advocates, buoyed by the mayor's reversal on staffing the city's tree maintenance division, have flooded the offices of public works officials and D.C. Council members with letters denouncing the layoff.

It sounds like Pendleton did a good job

They also credit Pendleton with major contributions in bicycle access and expanded routes for two-wheelers, including ongoing negotiations with landowners to make way for the Metropolitan Branch Trail bicycle path that would run alongside the CSX train tracks to link Union Station and Silver Spring.

Pendleton, who sat on various city and regional planning boards, also was involved in ensuring that bicycle lanes were included in major street resurfacing projects and in plans for the Barney Circle interchange proposed to link the Anacostia Freeway with Interstate 295.

It's interesting to hear that "at least 10" other major cities had a bicycle coordinator at the time. I'd bet there are few that don't have one right now. And that the position was then a part of the Public Works Department. 

Because 86 percent of his $42,000 salary is federally funded and the city must pay Pendleton 18 weeks' severance pay for abolishing his job, he could stay in the job for two more years for what it costs the city to fire him, Nathanson said.

"That's the kind of shortsightedness that led them to eliminate the tree people," said D.C. Council member William Lightfoot (I-At Large). "They've eliminated another amenity that makes it worthwhile to live in the city."

"There's a significant lack of interest {in bicycles} in the rest of the department, which is why we fought so hard to get the bicycle coordinator position in the first place," said Bill Silverman, president of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. "His loss would be enormous. Removing Tom is a big blow."

[I was wondering what happened to Thomas Pendleton. It looks like he got involved in the founding of the East Coast Greenway and then...well...hopefully not this (even though the name, age, interest in biking and residency in Michigan match).]

Catania and Bowser on replacing contributory negligence statute

Via All Walks DC. 

Do you support the bill introduced by Councilmembers Grosso, Wells, and Cheh to replace the contributory negligence statute as it applies to pedestrians and bicyclists with comparative negligence?

David Catania: Yes.

Muriel Bowser: It’s an issue that deserves further consideration. I know a lot of states have a comparative negligence standard and it gives bikers legal protections so they have some redress even when they were partially at fault for an accident. But, I’m also interested in knowing why bikers deserve unique treatment compared to victims in other personal injury cases. There are also other solutions to help protect bikers. MPD needs to be better trained on the laws in place to protect bikers. We need more protected bike lanes throughout the city so accidents never happen. We also need to train both drivers and bikers to share the roads and drive/ride safely.

If Muriel Bowser wants to end contributory negligence in all cases, that's a possibly good proposal, but it's not one that's on the table right now. If she wants to say that either everyone gets a life vest or no one does, that's a bad proposal. 

David Catania on Bicycles

From the GGW interview/live chat

There are many core elements of moveDC that I embrace, including 200 miles of bike lanes. When I go back to the issues of education and enforcement, I think we've done a really terrible job of educating the public on what bikes contribute to our community. Obviously, there are huge environmental benefits from cycling. It also helps dramatically reduce demand for existing roadways—we're up to 14,000 cyclists.

The third area which is rarely talked about is how cycling contributes to the economic development of our city. Many people bike out of economic necessity. But for others—the cost of operating an average medium size sedan in our country is between $8,000 and 9,000 per year. If we can convince more of our residents to forgo that investment and instead use bicycles, they'll spend those thousands of dollars here locally in housing, retail and supporting our local economy. This may be overly simplistic but if you look at 14k cyclists forgoing that 8k a year, there's over $100 million in economic opportunity for our city when we're not buying cars and fighting wars overseas but instead investing in our communities. It's a very powerful economic development tool and we've never communicated that importance to the population.

Long story short, count me in. There are very important tools for our city. The better opportunity is to educate our city as to where they're located.

We can get really into the weeds about how some of our streets are better for bike lanes than others. Our one-way streets that are 30-feet wide provide great opportunities for one lane of traffic, one lane of bikes, and one for parked cars.

I prefer to look at things where we can have win-win instead of zero sum. The bike plan isn't taking anything away from drivers but is in fact is a traffic calming device.

Catania and Bowser debate biking

OK, it was 3 years ago, but still it reportedly happened. Here's what they were debating

 

Finally, they debate biking...

From Washington Post coverage of the final mayoral debate. 

The polite crowd reacted most strongly not to a candidate, but to a topic: bikes. An audience-generated question about what the candidates would do to encourage bicycle use in the city prompted cheers and a few sharp answers. Wells criticized the Gray administration for altering plans for a separated bike lane on M Street NW, changing the design in the 1500 block at the behest of Metropolitan AME Church. That comment incensed Orange —  who left unspoken that he is a Metropolitan congregant — accusing Wells of divisive rhetoric: “Last time I checked, I don’t believe I saw a bike lane in front of National Cathedral over on Wisconsin Avenue,” he said. “You can’t be on both sides of the equation depending on what audience you talk to.” Shallal, meanwhile, won cheers and applause for questioning the city government’s push to install bike lanes. “Just painting a bike on the road doesn’t make it safe,” he said, adding, “I stopped biking in the city because it’s too damn dangerous. … We have to come up with a real understanding of what safety is before we start just painting lanes.”

Vince Gray on bicycles

From GGW's set of excellent interviews

I think ultimately, though, having ways in which people can get to where they want to get to because they have amenities and conveniences and work close to where they are instead of having to use vehicular transportation, is a good approach. Getting people more acclimated to using bicycles. Having more bicycle lanes.

We've got to get everybody adapted to the idea that bicycles are an increasingly important way of people getting around in the city. Not everybody has bought into that yet, and that's going to take time as well.

We now have the most robust bicycle program in America. We have well over 20,000 people who are part of our bikeshare program. Others are coming here now to learn about us so they can emulate the bikeshare program.

Transit Benefit Act withdrawn

Late last year, Mayor Gray introduced the Transportation Benefits Act of 2013 as part of the Sustainable DC initiative that would have benefited bike commuters. 

At the beginning of this month, Mayor Gray submitted a package of 11 bills as part of the Sustainable DC Act of 2013. Included in this is the Transit Benefit Establishment Act of 2013, which would require that employers with 50 or more workers provide their minimum wage-eligible staff with some form of transit benefit. [This]  could include the bicycle commuter benefit, if the employer chooses to offer it.

While not perfect, that bill had a lot of promise. But that bill was withdrawn about a month after it was introduced. I've contacted the Mayor and members of the council to find out why, but no one has written me back. So that's disappointing. 

On a related note, there are some other bills that are working their way through or have been approved that cyclists might be interested in. 

There is the Kenilworth Section Of The Anacostia Riverwalk Trail Contract Emergency Approval Resolution Of 2014. This bill will let DDOT lease land from Amtrak fore $2M that will be needed for the Kenilworth section of the ART. This passed earlier this month.

There's the Smoking Restriction Amendment Act of 2013 which became law at the end of 2013. It prohibits smoking at or within 25 feet of any public recreational facility when another person is present (with an exception for smoking at residential property) and it defines a public recreational facility to include trails.

The Spring Place Real Property Limited Tax Abatement Assistance Emergency Act Of 2013, provides a limited real property tax abatement and tax relief to the Spring Place development project. That project includes "completion of a segment of the Metropolitan Branch Trail". It passed last year. And associated with it is the Dedication Of Land For Street Purposes (s.o. 13-) Act Of 2013 which allows for the realignment of the street Spring Place, NW in squares 3185 and 3186 for the extension of the Metropolitan Branch Trail within those blocks. That bill is still in committee. Spring Place, NW is a short road between Blair Road and the Takoma Metro Station.