comment submitted to the Connecticut Avenue NW Reversible Lane Safety and Operations Study meeting on March 30
I strongly support Alternative C, and I wish the project team spent even half as much time on how it would improve access and safety for people walking and biking from surrounding neighborhoods to the commercial corridor, and along the road in general, as they spend on parking loss and level-of-service for drivers.
As my friends on the BAC wrote in last week’s letter to DDOT, “safe, connected protected bike lanes [are] paramount to provide a transportation alternative for a modern city.” It’s disappointing that DDOT doesn’t seem to be seriously working to figure out how to safely get riders between Calvert and California Street—bike lanes must be both protected and connected—but it is absurd that a Department that claims to want to cut emissions by a quarter and get 3/4 of commuters out of cars in the next ten years is even considering proposals like Alternative B that don’t actively replace general-travel lanes with either bike or bus lanes.
As a member of the PAC, I’m also compelled to point out we sent our own letter last month noting that “the City regularly collects data on street usage and has developed annual average traffic volume estimates for almost every city street. The City does not have comparable data or volume estimates for sidewalks. In addition, when the City reports on travel behaviors, it almost always reports only on primary commute mode, which provides a distorted view of actual travel behaviors that vastly overemphasizes the role of motor vehicle traffic (and streets) and underplays the role of pedestrian traffic (and sidewalks).” DDOT’s focus on automotive parking and level-of-service, and inability to discuss similar metrics for people walking or taking transit, is yet another sad demonstration of the car-centric bias that is still epidemic in the Department.
DC’s repeatedly-expressed commitments to lowering traffic, pollution, and drive-alone modeshare all require taking space from cars and dedicating it to making it safer and more comfortable to use non-automotive modes. As the saying goes, what you measure shows what you care about. It’s time to start measuring how DC’s roads impact those who walk, bike, and take transit, and to move forward the options that improve their experiences, not just drivers’.
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