Last week I wrote about three bills before the DC Council, primarily the Vision Zero bill, but as hinted at in the title, there is still more bicycle-relevant legislation before the Council.
First of all, there's the Transportation Benefits Equity Amendment Act Of 2019. A similar bill was introduced during the last session, but it never made it to a committee vote. As with the 2017, the goal is again to make commuter benefits more fair, but has the added benefit of encouraging more transit, biking and walking. This bill however has some changes from the 2017 version. The new bill
- Allows an employer who offers an employee a parking benefit to increase its financial contribution to the employee's health coverage if the employee declines both the parking benefit and the transportation benefit (for vanpools or transit only) such that the increased contribution equals the market value of the parking benefit offered. I'm not sure of the reason for this option, but my gut tells me its tax related.
- Still allows employers is to pay a $100 Clean Air Compliance fee for each employer offered parking, but in the new bill, that money just goes into the general fund instead of the Transportation Demand Management fund.
- Gives employers additional options to (a) quit offering free parking (b) Create a Transportation Demand Management plan that will cut the number who driver or take a taxi to work by 10% in per year until 25% or less of all employees are driving/taxiing to work. That plan will have to approved by DDOT and annual reports are needed to prove it is working. If it doesn't work then they have to offer the benefit or pay the compliance fee.
- Change the method for calculating the value of parking from the one used by the IRS to one based on advertised prices or one determined by, and justified by, the employer. I'll note that I could not find the one the IRS used as identified in the code 132(f)(5)(C).
- Exempts employers who own their own parking or have a lease that predates the bill's effective date.
When the bill last came up, there was concern that this act actually didn't create equity but rather hurt poor drivers to the benefit of wealthy cyclists, pedestrians and transit users. Or that it would result in more gentrification. Or that instead we should get rid of all transportation subsidies (amen). There was also concern about the regulatory burden.
Getting rid of all the subsidies, while a good idea, is difficult, so while a good idea, it's not one DC can really do. I think people who say this will hurt the poor are either ill-informed about who drives and who bikes or are arguing in bad faith.
All of the changes, to me, are OK or good except the exemption for employers who own their own parking. I'm not sure what the thinking is - except that maybe people who've built their own parking can't simply disinvest in it - but it undermines the benefits of the bill.
The second bill of import here is the budget bill which includes $500,000 for a congestion pricing study. That study has gotten most of the press, but it is by no means the only important element to cyclists; though it is a big deal.
Congestion pricing, charging motorists a fee to enter congested areas, is gaining momentum in U.S. cities. New York recently approved congestion pricing for drivers entering the central business district of Manhattan, beginning in 2021. The money would be used to fix the city’s ailing subway. Several other cities, including San Francisco and Seattle, also are considering congestion pricing as a way to alleviate gridlock, take cars off the roads and encourage transit use.
District officials hope the study will analyze how the city could implement congestion pricing to help reduce the number of non-D.C. drivers on city streets, identify pricing strategies and address equity concerns.
[Cheh's] proposal from the Committee on Transportation and the Environment requires the results of the study be made public by July 2020.
“Specifically, the study should evaluate and plan for the tolling of the roads into the District consistent with the tolling of those same roads by Virginia,” the committee’s budget document said.
The council could also determine how to spend any money raised.
D.C. Council members Charles Allen and Jack Evans explicitly spoke in support of the proposal at a committee markup.
In addition, the bill budgets more resources for enforcement and recommends more as well.
The Mayor called for $2,766,000 to support the Vision Zero initiative through rush hour towing and bike lane enforcement.
The Committee is pleased to see this investment in bicycle lane enforcement, particularly after hearing during oversight that enforcement of bicycle lane parking laws has dropped significantly over the past few years. This increase in the number of officers patrolling bicycle lanes will contribute to cyclist safety and overall street safety. In addition, the Mayor’s Budget Support Act includes a subtitle that will allow parking enforcement officers to mail tickets to vehicles that drive away before officers can serve a notice of infraction in person or by affixation, a practice that has made bicycle lane enforcement difficult. The Committee was encouraged to learn during oversight that the Agency has developed technology that will make it possible for officers to issue tickets in these circumstances and believes that this will make the Agency’s bicycle lane enforcement even more effective. In addition to implementing this technology, the Committee recommends that DPW continue to explore ways to make the bicycle lane enforcement team more responsive to street users, such as through social media, to allow cyclists to quickly report and end bicycle lane blockages.
The committee recommended more Sunday enforcement of bike lane violations
...it is critical... that we keep our bike and bus lanes clear seven days a week.
And the committee increased funding for public space enforcement by $360,000 to add 3 more inspectors.
The Committee has concerns regarding DDOT’s efforts to ensure utility companies and their contractors restore a street to the condition it was in before the companies undertook excavation in the public space. According to post-oversight hearing responses, there were 340 citations issued in FY 2017 to utility companies for failing to restore the public space to its original condition. However, that number fell to 153 in FY 2018. In addition, in FY 2018, DDOT public space inspectors found nearly 98% of excavations were restored to their original condition after work by a utility in the public space was completed. The Committee routinely hears from residents who provide information on instances in which contractors failed to restore the public space to its original condition, often at the expense of cyclists and pedestrians in the form of unrestored bike lanes and unpainted crosswalks. The Committee believes that this high compliance number is not a result of utility companies restoring the public space to its original condition 98% of the time, but rather that DDOT public space inspectors are spread too thin to enforce the public space utility work requirements as strictly as they should be. The Committee believes the volume of new construction sites in the District has left DDOT’s public space inspectors short-handed. The staff is overburdened attempting to keep up with the number of sites they must visit on a daily basis.
The committee, however, expresses concern about safety and mobility funding and the slow pace of the Eastern Downtown Protected Bike lane project, providing funding for the later.
The proposed capital budget allocates $16,960,000 in FY 2020 and $62,684,000 over the six-year CIP for projects that have a primary focus of improving safety and efficiency of the District's transportation system. Most of these projects are pedestrian and cyclist focused with an aim to achieve the District’s Vision Zero goals of zero fatalities and serious injuries to travelers of the District’s transportation system. Subprojects of this master capital project include: the Crosstown Bicycle Lane, the Arboretum Bridge and Trail, and street sign improvements.
Although the Committee is pleased with this investment in safety for the District’s most vulnerable road users, there are lingering concerns about the capital funding in the years beyond FY 2020. Each year the funds allocated shrink, from $14,809,000 in FY 2021 down to $5,538,000 in FY 2025. Given the District’s ambitious efforts to increase bike lanes and revamp intersections to help meet our Vision Zero goals, the Committee believes the funding should be increasing each year, not decreasing. The Committee does not have the available funding to increase the funds allocated in each year but urges DDOT to increase its investment in the Safety and Mobility Capital project in the years beyond FY 2020
The District has a dire need to create a two-directional north-south bike lane in order to accommodate the growth in District neighborhoods, maintain safety, and become a more sustainable city. The neighborhoods at the north end of downtown, including U Street NW and Shaw, have seen an increase in bike commuting trips in recent years. Although there are multiple east-west dedicated bicycle facilities traversing the areas in and around downtown, only 15th Street NW provides contiguous north-south protected facilities in the city core. This leads to a large downtown north-south gap in the protected bike facility network between the Metropolitan Branch Trail and 15th Street NW. For these reasons, DDOT commissioned the Eastern Downtown Protected Bike Lane study. The purpose of the project is to fill in the north south bike lane gap by developing the final design for a new protected bike lane that will connect central DC neighborhoods to downtown, as well as existing east-west bicycle facilities.
The Eastern Downtown Protected Bike Lane study has been completed and as of February 2017 both options for the bike lane, 6th and 9th Street, are at 30% design. The community has been waiting for over two years for DDOT to make a decision between the two options so that design can be finished, and improvements started. The Committee urges DDOT to make a decision and proceed with the project. The Committee has allocated $300,000 from the Safety and Mobility Capital Project to fund the completion of the design for whichever street DDOT decides to build the protected bike lane.
The committee recommended additional money for protected bike lane construction
The proposed capital budget allocates $16,960,000 in FY 2020 for Safety & Mobility projects, which includes support for expanding bicycle lanes and infrastructure, such as $1,215,987 for the Crosstown Bicycle Lane project. The Committee applauds DDOT’s progress in expanding bike lanes across the city over the past decade but recognizes that there is still much progress to be made and that many of the District’s bike lanes are not protected. Protected bike lanes are essential to the safety of cyclists and to increasing the number of cyclists in the District; if people feel unsafe riding in the District, they will not do it. Cyclists are equally entitled to use the road as drivers, and a protected lane keeps cars from infringing on the cyclist’s portion of the road, not just while driving but while parking as well.
Protected bike lanes also protect pedestrians, who will then use sidewalks without competitions from bikes and scooters. Additional protected bike lanes will require DDOT to improve their reaction time to fix damaged or downed separators that pose risks to cyclists in the bike lane. Just last year, the Committee heard from a cyclist who hit a downed lane separator, severely injuring himself. He reported the issue to 311 and reached out to the Committee, who in turn notified DDOT. Despite this, it still took DDOT over three weeks to get the lane cleared and the separators fixed. From what the Committee routinely hears from cyclists, that repair happened much quicker than most. The Committee urges DDOT to increase its construction of protected bike lanes and to improve its maintenance of those lanes
The bill calls for $115,000 for a dockless-scooter (and potentially bike) parking program.
Since the launch of DDOT’s Dockless Demonstration Project for dockless scooters and bicycles in 2017, the Committee has routinely heard complaints about scooters being left in inconvenient locations, such as in pedestrian walkways, handicap parking spaces, or on private property. To address the same issue, the county of Arlington, Virginia, recently began creating street parking spaces for scooters and bikes only. The Committee believes it would be beneficial to bring this same idea to the District as it applies to dockless scooters (legally known as personal mobility devices). The Committee recommends the inclusion of a new Budget Support Act subtitle that would create of a Scooter Parking Pilot, which would require DDOT to establish parking spaces exclusively for use by personal mobility devices. Under the
pilot, DDOT would create at least one such parking spot per Business Improvement District (BID). The Committee does not intend to require personal mobility device users to park in a designated parking place; however, the Committee believes that if such spots are available, personal mobility device users will use them. Therefore, in line with the Budget Support Act subtitle included later in this report, the Committee recommends increasing (PSDV) Planning and Sustainability by $78,000 and 1.0 FTEs in FY 2020 and by $20,000 in FY 2021, and increasing (PSDV) Planning and Sustainability by $17,000 in one-time funds for DDOT to create a scooter parking pilot.
In addition it
- funds a Safe Routes to School Program Specialist
- notes that DDOT will add 18 CaBi stations in the District and update the expansion guidelines of the Capital Bikeshare Development Plan as they have exhausted the old one
- funds the K Street Transitway, which DDOT says will include a bike lane
- increases scooter speed limits from 10 mph to 15 mph.
- funds the redevelopment of Dave Thomas Circle ($35,000,000)
- funds the Tenley Plaza project, with one goal being to improve bicycle safety
- funds the Benning Road streetcar expansion which will also construct bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure along the four-mile
corridor
- funds the New York Avenue Streetscape and Trail Project ( $34,248,000)
- funds the Ward Eight Streetscapes project ($26,579,000)
Finally, the Bicycle Advisory Council expansion act was rolled into the budget bill.
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