TheWashCycle

New DC Bike lane and Vision Zero regulations

DDOT has been busy adding and modifying their regulations in an effort to make roads safer. A set of Vision Zero regulations went into effect at the start of the year and new rules governing the Proper Behavior in Bike Lanes were published this week - to go into effect in 30 days. 

The Vision Zero regulations will

• raise the fines for
  • excessive speed
  • failure to stop at a stop sign
  • failure to yield to a pedestrian
  • making an illegal right-turn-on-red
  • overtaking another vehicle stopped for a pedestrian
  • stopping, standing or parking in a bike lane
  • parking in medians or safety zones
  • Dooring
  • Driving on the sidewalk
  • Carrying an item on a bicycle that prevents the usage of at least one hand
  • Hitching onto a moving vehicle (on a bicycle)
  • Failure to yield (on a bicycle)
  • Bicycling too fast
  • Walking suddenly into the path of a vehicle, without the right-of-way, and colliding with it
• Creates new fines
  • for crashing into a pedestrian on the sidewalk or when the pedestrian has the right-of-way while riding a bicycle
  • Riding with a headset,  headphones, or earplugs covering both ears
• add points for failing to move out of the way of an ambulance, overtaking another vehicle stopped for a pedestrian or to proceed with caution near an incident
• require side guards on large commercial vehicles within 2 years
• lower the speed limit near schools and rec centers to 15mph for much of the day
• require drivers to yield to buses that have signaled to move back into traffic
• ban stopping or parking in a travel lane
• Expands dooring fines to include both sides of the vehicle

Mostly the Vision Zero rules are good. 

In most cases raising the fine probably won't do much, but for illegal parking (in the bike lane or otherwise) it might help with commercial vehicles. To the extent that you believe UPS/Fedex and the like have decided that parking tickets are just a cost like gasoline, raising the cost could help them to re-evaluate their business plan. For the raised fines for cycling infractions, I'm old enough to remember when all the fines were dropped to $25 as the city tried to get more bike friendly, but (my theory) an appearance of equity matters. 

The new rule about not riding with headphones in each year is hard to justify. There's not a lot of scientific justification for it, and there really can't be because there hasn't been much study of the subject. A 2009 study found that people who listen to music break more traffic laws (but that's likely not causal) and perceive that they are more at risk (slightly more than riding with one hand). Observations showed that 4-8% of cyclists are observed listening to music but only 2.2% of cyclists report listening when they're in a crash. There is no distinction in this study between listening with both ears or one ear. In the figure below, of perceived risk,Control 1 is riding with 1 hand and Control 2 is riding with both hands. MP3 is listening to music.

In total that data is hardly damning. Further, are they saying the hearing impaired can't bike safely? I think there would be some pushback on such a claim.

There's another study (I can't find now) that shows that cyclists auditory perception does go down when listening to headphones in both ears - as anyone would expect - but that even then, it is better than that of drivers listening to the radio. So, it might save lives, but if it's a good idea then we're missing out by not removing radios from all cars.  Frankly, I don't know of any crashes where dual-headphone use by a cyclist was a contributing factor - but MPD should add this as a statistic to track to see if there is some relationship. 

The side underrun guards were something proposed by the safety commission Cheh set up several years ago, so I'm not sure why it took so long to get the regulations in place. In the intervening time there's been at least one crash where such guards could have saved the cyclist's life.

Naturally, John Townsend of AAA protested the fines. 

“This is about generating revenue under the patina of traffic safety,” said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. “There is not a shred of empirical evidence or research that proves that higher traffic fines deter bad driving behavior, and the District knows this and ignores the fact.”

I tend to agree that there's no evidence tying higher fines to better behavior, but I disagree about revenue being the motivation. I think they are just trying to turn the knobs they have. 

The recently published proposed bike lane rules limit when a driver may use a bike lane to legal turns, parallel parking and at the direction of a police officer. This is a subtle difference as, right now, they may also block a bike lane "when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic". So drivers won't be able to do that anymore. It also removes the loophole that allows for double parking or other "bad" parking temporarily to load or unload freight or passengers. I'm not sure what prompted the first change, but I would guess someone started abusing that loophole. The second changes is long overdue.

We can, and should, share the trails with e-bike cyclists

Paul Basken's Washington Post article (and his follow up here) calling for a ban on e-bikes on multi-use trails continues a conversation that cyclists have been having for some time now about what is and isn't a bike and who should and should not be allowed on trails and other facilities. Much of the bicycle advocacy world is coalescing around the position that low-speed electric assist bikes should be treated like purely human-powered bicycles, but there are those, like Mr. Basken, who are concerned that this will bring along changes too unpleasant to be lived with. I don't think that position is very strong or well-reasoned, and such a policy stands in the way of better bicycling and better transportation policy. 

Our transportation policy should be built around the goal of creating a system that moves people easily, equitably and with the least amount of damage. This is why bicycles are so great in the first place. Bicycles can move people quickly, cheaply, safely and cleanly and are especially useful in urban environments where travel distances are short, congestion is high and parking is at a premium. And on top of that, cycling has public health benefits. All of these benefits can be found with e-bikes, even if they're less pronounced.  

From a purely selfish standpoint, more trail users and cyclists (e or otherwise) means there is a larger constituency for trails and more bikes on the road, bringing greater political influence and safety in numbers.

E-bikes result in positive mode shifts, making transportation cleaner, healthier, safer and more efficient

In most ways e-bikes are like regular bikes. E-bikes cause no more congestion than regular bicycles - which means they cause far less than cars - and require no more public space for parking. And "e-bike riders exhibit nearly identical safety behavior as regular bike riders" meaning that like an e-bike will cause fewer injuries and deaths than an automobile will. 

The key difference, that they make biking easier via a battery-powered motor, means that they compare somewhat poorly to traditional bikes for health or environmental benefits but significantly better than automobiles and transit. Where e-bikes have been used they have led to mode shifting away from automobiles and transit, with people who have access to an e-bike biking more, for longer distances and as a larger percentage of their trips. Surveys show they could increase bike trips in the Netherlands by between 4-9%. Even at this early stage, e-bikes represent the largest adoption of an alternative fuel vehicle in history. Despite the fact that they're motorized, the low-power and human-power assistance means that they're significantly more energy efficient than others modes. When people move from automobiles - or even transit - to e-bikes it means they're making the total transportation system cleaner. 

With public health, again, the benefits of e-biking are less than cycling, but because the rider is still pedaling they're still significantly better than more sedentary modes. 

From a transportation standpoint, they also bring transportation diversity and equity because they're able to make biking available to people who otherwise would not ride. Studies in Europe have shown that the earliest adopters of e-bikes in Europe have been the elderly, and that women are much more likely to buy e-bikes than men. And once women have e-bikes they will also use them more.  E-bikes serve people with longer commutes, people with cargo bikes and those who don't want to or can't shower at work.

So, making it easier for people to switch to e-bikes for their transportation is something we should pursue, just as we strive to make it easier for people to switch to traditional bikes. And one way to make it easier is to improve their utility. Allowing e-bikes onto trails will, by definition, improve their utility, which will result in more mode shift; bringing all the environmental, health, congestion-relief and land use benefits such a shift would create.

The concerns are based exclusively on unfounded fear

While Basken seems to accept that this mode shift would have environmental and health benefits, he nonetheless opposes allowing them on trails and states three reasons for doing so. He fears that allowing e-bikes on trails will scare ordinary cyclists away, thus offsetting the benefits described above. He claims that many bicyclists and pedestrians believe there should be a place for people who want some kind of pavement without any motorized vehicles. And he at least implies that allowing e-bikes on trails will have negative impacts on safety.

Basken's concern that e-bikes will scare away traditional cyclists isn't particularly developed and is only hinted at once, but suffice it to say, he offers no proof that this is true. The evidence we do have indicates otherwise. Minnesota has allowed e-bikes on trails since 2012, and yet bike counts at 7 trail locations in Minneapolis are up 15% from 2012 to 2016. Most of Europe allows e-bikes on trails and has for several years and yet there has been no backlash or movement to ban them, nor has there been any drop in biking. If traditional cyclists are being driven away, it is a very small number. 

His second claim about the attitudes of bicyclists and pedestrians is more clearly stated, but like his earlier claim bereft of any evidence. The only survey of attitudes he cites shows that most think that e-bikes should be allowed on trails and is immediately denounced by him. But that survey shows more than he indicates. While it's true that 25% of the respondents owned an e-bike, they broke respondents into two groups, league members and non-league members. Though the ownership rate in the 2nd group was more than 50% higher, the opinions of the two groups was nearly the same - indicating that ownership isn't the main driver of opinion. Furthermore, the Canadian run Electric Bike 2000 Project found that 95% of cyclists, when given exposure to an e-bike, felt that e-bikes should be allowed on shared-use paths. And in Minnesota, where they've been legal on trails, Dorian Grilley, executive director of the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota said "There are certainly some purists out there who don't think they should be on the Greenway, but I think they're in the minority."  While it may be true that many would like to keep e-bikes off of trails, the evidence shows that most would not. 

His third claim is that we don't really know if adding bikes onto trails is safe, and he strongly implies that it is not, again without evidence. But here again, a study of comparative safety shows that e-bike cyclists "exhibit nearly identical safety behavior as regular bike riders" and that on shared use paths "speeds of e-bike riders (11.0kph) were lower than regular bicyclists (12.6kph)." And this was not a one-off as other studies also show that e-bike speeds do not differ much from bicycle speeds and when they do, it is primarily because they don't spend as much time at slower speeds, not because they go a faster top speed. Basken tries to argue that the 20mph top speed of a legal e-bike is far outside the norm and does so by showing Strava data from the Capital Crescent Trail. But he chose an uphill segment on a trail with a 15mph speed limit. Naturally the speed will be slower there. On a flatter section of a trail with no speed limit, around half of all cyclists top 20mph. If weight is a concern, there is already no weight limit on trails and the e-bike shown above weighs ~20% less than a Capital Bikeshare does. 

If the concern is that e-bike riders will go too fast or ride too recklessly, well we already have rules against that. As WABA said "the best way to keep our trails as pleasant places is not by excluding different kinds of riders, it’s by practicing courtesy and common sense." Basken says these rules don't work because they are widely ignored by riders and never enforced by police. This is an odd position for someone to take when they're arguing in favor of a rule. Rules are what we're relying on to keep dangerous behavior off the trail, let's focus on making them work.

Allowing e-bikes on trails will increase their utility. This should result in more mode switching from cars to e-bikes, bringing with it a host of benefits. Most people are fine with e-bikes on trails and e-bike riders don't behave any differently than regular cyclists do. So why let unsubstantiated fear of "motors" keep them off? After all, we already allow motors on the Capital Crescent Trail in the form of Electronic Personal Assistive Mobility Devices (EPAMD). If tax-paying, freedom-cherishing bicyclists and pedestrians are looking for a place with some kind of pavement without motors on it, they're already going to have to look for some place else. Meanwhile there are a lot of parents buying bikes like this:

Do we really need to ban this family from the Capital Crescent Trail?

This is not the face of e-biking that Basken wants you to see, but it is far closer to the truth. He showed 4 scary images of the what e-bikes could look like. Of them, one is a bicycle that you can already ride on the trail. The other three have motors and speeds that exceed the limits to be considered a class I or class II e-bike. Throughout the articles he conflates the e-bikes I've shown above with automobiles by calling their users "motorists"; the trail a "respite from motoring", and writing about the "clear dangers" a letter-to-the-editor writer who wrote about not wanting to ride next to cars "properly associates with motors." But it's ridiculous to claim that people are afraid of motors. It's like saying someone who doesn't want a tiger living with them is scared of cats. 

We can safely allow low-speed e-bikes on our trails, and doing so will make us all better off. That's something we should advocate for.

Comment period for Vision Zero Proposed Rulemaking extended to April 10, 2017

The Directors of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the District Department of Transportation are extending the public comment period for the Vision Zero Second Proposed Rulemaking to April 10, 2017.

These proposed rules and regulations were a product of the Vision Zero Action Plan from December 2015, which is when the original version of these rules were first released. After public comment the rules were modified and re-released for comment at the beginning of February. Now after a 45 day comment period, it's being extended another 30 days. You can comment at this link.

Below are the main differences I could identify between the two rounds (there's a lot of language changes and clarification as well):

1.  The start date of the side guard requirement for large commercial vehicles has been backed up by nearly a year. The new regulations now cite a US DOT standard for such side guards, and change the punishment. In the original regs, an improperly equipped truck would be issued an inspection rejection sticker and fined $100. Now it's just a $100 fine.

2. It changes the speed limit in school zones and near playgrounds, recreational facilities, pools, athletic fields, or senior centers, when not signed, from 15mph at all times to 15mph from 7am to 11pm.

3.. Sets up a separate punishment for excessive speeding (over 30mph) for someone caught by a speed camera. They will be subject to a fine, but not imprisonment. [The fine that it assigns in this case is one for people going 25mph over the speed limit]

4.The new regs require drivers approaching a crash or mechanical breakdown to slow down as appropriate and use caution, the previous version required that they slow down to a speed at least 10mph below the speed limit and use caution.

5. Lowers the fines

       a. for going 25mph over the speed limit from $1000 to $400 on a controlled-access roadway and $500 on a non-controlled access roadway

       b. for colliding with a cyclist from $500 to $150

       c. for failing to yield to a transit bus from $500 to $100

       d. for failing to proceed with caution around a stationary emergency vehicle, or approaching an incident or through an incident from $500 to $100

       e. for failing to execute a proper right-turn-on-red from $200 to $100

       f. for parking in a bike lane for commercial vehicles and others from $300 and $200 respectively to $150 for all.

       g. for parking on a median strip, island or safety zone from $500 to $200

       h. for driving on or over a sidewalk from $200 to $150

       i.  for dooring from $100 to $50 (and dooring is now defined as "either side" not just the traffic side)

6. Removes the fine for failure to clear a vehicle from a lane

7. Increase the fine

       a. for failing to yield to a pedestrian from $75 to $150

       b. carrying objects that prevents a bicyclist from keeping a hand on the handlebar from $25 to $50

       c. a bicyclist who hitches on a vehicle from $25 to $50

       d. a bicyclist who fails to yield from $25 to $50

       e. a pedestrian who walks suddenly, without the right-of-way and into the path of a vehicle causing a collision from $10 to $100 (note: this used to be defined differently)

       f. a pedestrian who fails to yield to an emergency vehicle from $10 to $100

7. Create a new fine of $150 for a bicyclist who collides with a pedestrian who's crossing a roadway (meaning a cyclist who collides with a pedestrian pays the same fine as a driver who does) and another for $100 if it happens on the sidewalk. There is also now a $50 fine for riding with earphones in both ears.