Gordon Chaffin is a freelance journalist who focuses on infrastructure and traffic news and insights for Street Justice. You can support independent journalism by subscribing to Gordon’s StreetJustice newsletter: He’s offering a 20% discount to THIH readers. See more information below. –Maria Helena Carey
Alexandria Council: Safety First on Seminary Rd
The Alexandria City Council voted 4-3 to re-configure Seminary Road in the Seminary Hill neighborhood from 4 car travel lanes to 2 lanes, with curbside bike lanes that have one-foot buffer space. Here is the full video of Council debate, public testimony, and voting. This was an endorsement of Alternative 3, the design recommended to the City by its transportation staff, but rejected by the Traffic and Parking Board, after significant opposition from primarily car-commuting residents who use the road to get to/from the highway. Safe streets, pedestrian and cycling advocates, residents living immediately on Seminary Road, and the City’s emergency services supported Alternative 3. The Traffic and Parking Board offered a confusing, bespoke plan with minimal safety improvements and maintaining of Seminary’s four car-travel lanes which induce 85th percentile speeds of 39 mph in a 30 mph zone.
The hotly debated project, a result of the City’s policy to re-think street designs when they re-pave roads, highlighted the biased and exclusionary types of public input DC area governments use. Groups like Civic Associations have somewhat formalized advisory roles, but those groups defacto and often explicitly prohibit members from apartment buildings and even multi-family condo buildings. Part of the problem, safety advocates found, was that residents don’t understand how someone beyond 20-something bike commuters could benefit from bike lanes. Checking Twitter and article comment threads, those who oppose the change have threatened retribution at the ballot box. In the history of bike/ped improvements opposed by residents, rarely does that backlash actually come on Election Day. New features like bike lanes win over skeptics over time.
I think the most important data point was this, as pointed out to me by Alexandria Bike/Ped Advisory head Jim Durham: two years ago, Seminary was four lanes, 35 mph speed limit, and 85th percentile speed was 42 mph. When the City reduced it to 30 and increased enforcement a bit, the 85th percent speed dropped to 39 mph. So, it reduced the speeds most people were driving, but that new pattern was an even greater amount of speeding: nine over instead of 7 over. That data suggests the induced speed of Seminary’s current design is 35-40 mph, which is a speed and safety problem on a road with sidewalks on only one side. As Street Justice often reports, the designs of the roads determine most dramatically the behavior of their users. If a road feels like it’s reserved for cars, wide and free of frequent signal and crosswalk interruption, drivers will drive fast. Diet the road, narrow it, induce drivers to be more on guard for pedestrians and cyclists, and speeds will drop. [Full Story]
ANC 5E02 Commissioner Fails at Anti-Safety Gambit
This week, ANC 5E02 Commissioner Pat Williams tried to pressure DDOT to remove the protective flexposts from the bike lanes on the 700 Block of Edgewood Street NE so those buses and school parents could use the full block for illegal, unsafe parking. Parents of students at DC Prep Edgewood — an Elementary and Middle School — have used the curbside, previously unprotected bike lanes along Edgewood NE’s 700 Block as school pick-up/drop-off parking for years. On or about August 21st, DDOT installed flexpost protection in many portions of the bike lanes on that block.
ANC 5E02’s Patricia Williams has a child enrolled at DC Prep. She got ANC 5E’s Chair to add a vaguely named item to last night’s meeting agenda: “Bike Lanes in the Edgewood Community.” No one from DDOT showed up, so the item was tabled. After the meeting, I approached Commissioner Williams on the hunch that she requested the agenda item. In a short, increasingly heated interview, ANC 5E02 Patricia Williams confirmed that she requested the Edgewood bike lane item and that she intended to ask DDOT to remove the flexpost protection from the Edgewood St NE bike lanes near DC Prep.
Williams became so frustrated with me that she entered 911 on her phone, threatening to dial it and sic the police on me. Once we got to the front desk, Williams demanded the two front desk security officers call 911 on me or escort me out of the building — which they did, by pushing me. They would not let me return to get my equipment, left in the meeting room.
ANC Commissioners aren’t used to being covered by tough, persistent journalists. But Street Justice is about applying that factfinding and accountability to these elected officials. Most may be volunteers. Public meetings like this might not be as glamorous as covering the Wilson Building, Richmond, or Annapolis. But, those who complain loudest and claim to speak for “the community” — justified or not — usually win out in (local) government. [Full Story]
DC and Montgomery County Holding Vision Zero Hearings in October
DC Council’s Hearing for CM Allen’s Vision Zero Bill and CM Cheh’s Scooter Rules Bill has been moved to Thursday, October 24th — Room 500 (the big hearing room) of the John Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW at 11:30 AM. Here are the full hearing details. The Montgomery County Council is holding an oversight hearing Thursday, October 10th, on their County’s Vision Zero efforts. I suspect it will take place during this Transportation and Environment Committee hearing. [Full Story]
Bloomingdale Getting Street Art
Last Monday, the Bloomingdale Civic Association (“BCA” | located in ANC 5E) voted to accept money from DDOT and install street art paintings at all four corners of 1st and U Streets NW. The installations will sit behind new curb extensions soon to be placed at that intersection and others along 1st St NW in Bloomingdale. DDOT has enough money to commission four corners of this curb extension design, for which a stencil will be created, and can be used in the future by BCA or another community group to expand the design to other corners and maintain existing installations. [Full Story]
This is a daily newsletter produced by Gordon Chaffin, a journalist in Washington DC who covers transportation & urban planning in DC, MD, & VA. Reports delivered every weekday afternoon for paid subscribers and Sunday mornings for free subscribers. Sign up for free. Please support local journalism with $5/mo or $50/yr. The Hill is Home readers can subscribe to Street Justice for a 20% discount.