We commend Montgomery County for its commitment to ending all traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Vision Zero is important for many reasons, chief among them to make our transportation system one where all users can safely move. We cannot create great places for people to live, work, and play in Montgomery County if people do not feel safe getting there. The county also faces other challenges, such as the county’s rapidly aging population who would like to age-in-place and combating climate change, of which Vision Zero is a critical component of the solution.
Category: Safe Streets for Biking and Walking
Event: Envision the Future of Lee Highway
Arlington County wants to hear from you as the community lays out a vision for the Lee Highway corridor! The Plan Lee Highway team is hosting a community meeting this Thursday, May 27th to present and get feedback on corridor-wide and neighborhood area plans for the Arlington East Falls Church, North Highlands and Lyon Village neighborhoods.
You are also invited to join the Plan Lee Highway team for a walking tour on June 12th to discuss visions for the future. Walking tours are a great opportunity to think about how we can transform commercial corridors into more walkable, sustainable neighborhoods.
Plan Lee Highway Community Meeting
Arlington East Falls Church – North Highlands – Lyon Village
May 27, 2021 at 7 pm
Join the Meeting
Walking Tour
June 12, 2021 at 10 am
Join the Walking Tour
Community members’ input helped to shape the preliminary land use scenarios for five neighborhood areas. The scenarios offer different land use mixes to provide diverse housing options, enhanced open space and stormwater management, safer streets and better transit. Feedback will be used to help develop a preferred Concept Plan.
Thursday’s community meeting will focus on Neighborhood Areas 1 and 5 including Arlington East Falls Church, North Highlands, and Lyon Village neighborhoods. Two other community meetings were already held for Neighborhood Area 2 (John M. Langston, Yorktown, Tara Leeway Heights, Leeway Overlee), Area 3 (Waverly Hills, Donaldson Run, Old Dominion, Glebewood, Waycroft Woodlawn), and Area 4 (Cherrydale and Maywood). The recordings and presentations for all the meetings are posted on the project website here.
You can provide feedback for all neighborhood area and corridor-wide concepts via an online survey through June 20th.
For more information about the Plan Lee Highway process, visit the project website.
CSG Testimony Re: Virginia 6 Year Plan
May 4, 2021
Testimony re Virginia 6-Year Plan 2022 – 2027
For this evening I will focus on the big picture. We will submit more detailed comments by the deadline.
First, thank you for your leadership in supporting transit in Virginia including funding reduced fare and free fare initiatives for bus service. Transit is now receiving more funding than it has in the past, however we believe it should receive far more – as much as 50% of future state transportation funding in order to support economic opportunity and equity, more efficient land use and state competitiveness, and fight climate change.
Second, thank you for your great leadership on Virginia intercity rail. Your analysis showed that adding another lane the length of I-95 would be both costly and a failure due to induced demand. Since our Reconnecting Virginia project in 2005, we’ve shown that intercity rail, transit, and transit-oriented development in the state’s urban crescent should be a top priority. Third, thank you for adoption and implementation of SmartScale which in general is resulting in more effective projects and spending.
However, we urge you to do more, in light of the existential threat of climate change. Virginia will be heavily impacted by sea level rise and we must limit that rise if we are going to save our coastal communities including Hampton Roads and the Naval facilities. In addition, we will be faced with more flooding events, washed out roads and transit facilities, as well as longer droughts and significant heat events.
This means you must scale back the extensive road expansion in state plans. New and wider roads in metro areas fill up in as few as five years and they fuel more auto-dependent development, more vehicle miles traveled, and more greenhouse gas emissions. “Congestion relief” is not possible. The science shows electrical vehicles will not be enough. We need to reduce VMT by at least 20% statewide, and because rural residents have fewer options and must drive more miles, our metro areas need to reduce VMT even more. We know how to do this – by focusing development in our cities and towns, and creating transit-oriented communities (TOCs) in our suburbs. This must be combined with focusing our transportation $ on transit, on local street networks for TOCs and on bike/walk investments. It also means pricing solutions like parking pricing, and employer transit benefits, and zero transit fares.
As usual, we strongly disagree with the Northern VA Transportation Alliance whose focus on the failed metric congestion reduction has done great damage to planning in NOVA.
Our suburban elected officials must recognize that the auto-dependent land use approvals that they are granting and the efforts to widen so many roads (even if they have bike/ped paths) creates more traffic and less than ideal experiences for pedestrians and cyclists.
For today, I will just mention two items of concern:
495Next – we and our partners urge you to delay action because VA and Md have not studied a TOC/transit/demand management alternative. The P3 process continues to override fair and objective alternatives analysis. As it is, the proposal to date has far too little funding for transit, and extends the provision limiting transit and HOV to 24% of HOT traffic after which the taxpayers must pay fees to Transurban.
State of good repair – We appreciate the increased attention to maintenance. But it appears that you are including capacity expansion, at least for bridges, in your state of good repair program. If that means additional vehicle lanes, we ask that the relevant portion of the cost due to capacity expansion not be charged in the SGR category but to the capital funding spent on road expansion.
Route 1: We are concerned that the widening of most of Route 1 will create a barrier and make the road far more dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders. So could the proposed 123 and Route 1 interchange.
Thank you,
Stewart Schwartz
Executive Director
RELEASE: CSG statement regarding the Washington, DC region’s deadly roads and too many lives lost
Coalition for Smarter Growth
Press Release
For Immediate Release:
April 29, 2021
Contact: Stewart Schwartz, 703-599-6437
Statement on the Washington, DC region’s deadly roads and too many lives lost
The Coalition for Smarter Growth shares in the profound sadness and anger at the deadly state of our region’s roads. In the past month, there have been six lives lost in DC alone to preventable traffic crashes: Jim Pagels, Brian Johnson, Evelyn Troyah, Zy’aire Joshua, Waldon Adams, and Rhonda Whitaker. Numerous other fellow residents have been killed in the region’s suburbs including at least four people so far this year in Fairfax: Raymunda Garcia-Hernandez, Christine Caldwell, Ramakant Bhusai, and Choon Yoo. We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of all those lost on the unnecessarily dangerous roads in our region..
We commit to working with our partners in the non-profit community and with area officials to address dangerous road conditions and other factors with a goal of ending traffic deaths and serious injuries.
Despite an overall reduction in vehicle traffic during the pandemic, traffic fatalities soared due to increased speeding and reckless driving. A recent report from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association showed that pedestrian deaths have risen 46% over the last decade, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments says bicyclists and pedestrians are one-third of traffic fatalities in our region. Smart Growth America (SGA), in Dangerous by Design, documents the racial and economic disparities in these deaths and serious injuries among pedestrians and cyclists, and the major role of dangerous road designs that favor the speed and movement of cars over the safe movement of people and safe local access to schools, libraries, services, jobs, and transit. SGA has also shown that as a percentage of people walking, it is our suburban arterials that are the most dangerous.
Unfortunately, the presentations at the recent Council of Governments/Transportation Planning Board Vision Zero Arterial Summit confirmed that most area jurisdictions are not doing enough to fix our roads — particularly our suburban arterials — to make them safe places for walking and biking and taking transit. Too many DOTs continue to focus on moving cars, building new roads, and expanding existing roads. Instead, DOTs should be redesigning our existing roads to be humane places that support the growing demand to walk and bike for access to daily needs, to improve our health, and to fight climate change.
We need action now from our local, regional, and state leaders to prevent further loss of life. We wholeheartedly endorse the five recommendations and accompanying detailed actions for DC offered by Nick Sementelli and Conor Shaw in their recent GGWash post, which should be adopted in the surrounding suburbs as well:
1) Implement emergency road diets on all arterial streets, followed by permanent changes
2) Reduce speed limits on all roads, and deploy automated enforcement to make those limits real
3) Reappropriate street space for public transportation, walking, and micromobility
4) Make safe modes of transportation free and deadly forms of transportation more expensive
5) More rigorous oversight and regulation of DDOT by the DC Council
There is much to do and among the many necessary actions that need to be taken we also call for all area jurisdictions to:
1) Provide much more transparency and detail in reporting deaths and serious injuries for pedestrians, cyclists, and other micromobility users on the region’s roads.
a) Police and transportation agency reporting must include more information about the road design at each site — including the width and speed of the road (both posted and design speed), location and distance between crossing points, type of crosswalk marking, availability of pedestrian refuges, turn radii, location of bus stops compared to crossing points, etc.
b) All cases should be included in publicly accessible and easily utilized websites.
2) Shift significant funding from road expansion to retrofitting and redesigning arterial and secondary roads to be safer for pedestrians and cyclists, using Complete Streets principles, and the National Association of City Transportation Officer (NACTO) standards.
3) Commit to creating Safe Routes to School so every child can walk or bike safely to school.
4) Invest in an extensive network of protected bicycle lanes and bike/walk trails such that biking and walking to work and to meet daily needs is no longer a high-risk activity.
###
CSG statement regarding the Washington, DC region’s deadly roads and too many lives lost
Coalition for Smarter Growth
Press Release
For Immediate Release:
April 29, 2021
Contact: Stewart Schwartz, 703-599-6437
Statement on the Washington, DC region’s deadly roads and too many lives lost
The Coalition for Smarter Growth shares in the profound sadness and anger at the deadly state of our region’s roads. In the past month, there have been six lives lost in DC alone to preventable traffic crashes: Jim Pagels, Brian Johnson, Evelyn Troyah, Zy’aire Joshua, Waldon Adams, and Rhonda Whitaker. Numerous other fellow residents have been killed in the region’s suburbs including at least four people so far this year in Fairfax: Raymunda Garcia-Hernandez, Christine Caldwell, Ramakant Bhusai, and Choon Yoo. We extend our deepest condolences to the loved ones of all those lost on the unnecessarily dangerous roads in our region..
We commit to working with our partners in the non-profit community and with area officials to address dangerous road conditions and other factors with a goal of ending traffic deaths and serious injuries.
Despite an overall reduction in vehicle traffic during the pandemic, traffic fatalities soared due to increased speeding and reckless driving. A recent report from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association showed that pedestrian deaths have risen 46% over the last decade, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments says bicyclists and pedestrians are one-third of traffic fatalities in our region. Smart Growth America (SGA), in Dangerous by Design, documents the racial and economic disparities in these deaths and serious injuries among pedestrians and cyclists, and the major role of dangerous road designs that favor the speed and movement of cars over the safe movement of people and safe local access to schools, libraries, services, jobs, and transit. SGA has also shown that as a percentage of people walking, it is our suburban arterials that are the most dangerous.
Unfortunately, the presentations at the recent Council of Governments/Transportation Planning Board Vision Zero Arterial Summit confirmed that most area jurisdictions are not doing enough to fix our roads — particularly our suburban arterials — to make them safe places for walking and biking and taking transit. Too many DOTs continue to focus on moving cars, building new roads, and expanding existing roads. Instead, DOTs should be redesigning our existing roads to be humane places that support the growing demand to walk and bike for access to daily needs, to improve our health, and to fight climate change.
We need action now from our local, regional, and state leaders to prevent further loss of life. We wholeheartedly endorse the five recommendations and accompanying detailed actions for DC offered by Nick Sementelli and Conor Shaw in their recent GGWash post, which should be adopted in the surrounding suburbs as well:
1) Implement emergency road diets on all arterial streets, followed by permanent changes
2) Reduce speed limits on all roads, and deploy automated enforcement to make those limits real
3) Reappropriate street space for public transportation, walking, and micromobility
4) Make safe modes of transportation free and deadly forms of transportation more expensive
5) More rigorous oversight and regulation of DDOT by the DC Council
There is much to do and among the many necessary actions that need to be taken we also call for all area jurisdictions to:
1) Provide much more transparency and detail in reporting deaths and serious injuries for pedestrians, cyclists, and other micromobility users on the region’s roads.
a) Police and transportation agency reporting must include more information about the road design at each site — including the width and speed of the road (both posted and design speed), location and distance between crossing points, type of crosswalk marking, availability of pedestrian refuges, turn radii, location of bus stops compared to crossing points, etc.
b) All cases should be included in publicly accessible and easily utilized websites.
2) Shift significant funding from road expansion to retrofitting and redesigning arterial and secondary roads to be safer for pedestrians and cyclists, using Complete Streets principles, and the National Association of City Transportation Officer (NACTO) standards.
3) Commit to creating Safe Routes to School so every child can walk or bike safely to school.
4) Invest in an extensive network of protected bicycle lanes and bike/walk trails such that biking and walking to work and to meet daily needs is no longer a high-risk activity.
###
Sign-on letter: CSG joins Transportation for America, 75 other groups in asking Biden administration to restore GHG performance measures
The Honorable Peter Buttigieg
Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave SE
Washington, DC 20590
Dear Secretary Buttigieg:
Congratulations on your confirmation as the 19th Secretary of the Department of Transportation. We are grateful for your service and look forward to working with you.
We are writing to urge the Biden administration to reinstate the greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure. This can be done immediately through executive action initiating a notice of proposed rulemaking to reinstate the measure.
Transportation accounts for the largest share of carbon emissions in the United States, and these emissions are rising. Yet in 2017, the Trump administration repealed the GHG performance measure that would have required states to measure and reduce GHG emissions from transportation. With the climate crisis worsening, we must take immediate action to reduce emissions from the transportation sector.
In addition to those undersigned, reinstating the GHG performance measure is supported by 47 Senators and Members of Congress who, led by Senator Ben Cardin and Congressman Earl Blumenauer, recently wrote to ask that you “urgently” restore this critical policy.
Thank you for considering this request. We look forward to working together on this important issue.
Sincerely,
Beth Osborne, Director
Transportation for America
RELEASE: DC Regional Travel Survey Shows Demand for Walk, Bike, & Fighting Climate Change
Coalition for Smarter Growth
February 12, 2021
For Immediate Release
Contact: Stewart Schwartz, CSG, 703-599-6437
“Voices of the Region” Survey Shows the Region’s Residents Want to Walk and Bike More, Drive Less, and Prioritize Projects that Address Climate Change
Points to Need for Less Road Building, and More Sustainable, Walkable Communities
A recently completed survey asked the Metropolitan Washington region’s residents about their travel before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that residents’ travel patterns have changed as a result of the pandemic and that they would like to continue to walk and bike more and drive less post-pandemic. These results are similar to those from a national survey project.
The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) will receive a presentation at its meeting Wednesday, February 17, on the survey, which is intended to inform the update to the regional long-range transportation plan. This survey was conducted using randomly drawn addresses, covered all geographic sub-areas of the region and resulted in over 2,400 complete responses, with a margin of error of +/-2.5%.
“The findings of this survey are critically important and should be an important factor in the Transportation Planning Board’s development of their next long-range transportation plan, which is underway right now,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
“Recently, the TPB voted to prioritize projects that reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. This survey points to public support for telecommuting, walking, biking, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is a bigger concern than traffic congestion according to the survey,” said Bill Pugh, Senior Policy Fellow for CSG. “Land use must be a core solution to achieve people’s goals of driving less, walking and biking more, and fighting climate change. In fact the survey showed the benefits of this approach in that people living in DC, Arlington, and Alexandria, our most compact jurisdictions with the most transit oriented land use, expressed the least concern about traffic congestion.”
“We hope that our elected officials and government transportation planners will take to heart both the results of this survey and the urgency to reduce driving and associated greenhouse gas emissions when they create our next regional transportation plan,” said Schwartz. “In the process there will be other significant benefits including meeting people’s desire to walk and bike more, and create a world that future generations will thank us for.”
CSG’s Summary of Important Findings from the Survey
More Walking and Biking, Less Driving Anticipated for All Travel Post-Pandemic
38% of respondents expect a change in their travel patterns (both work and non-work travel) one year post-pandemic compared to their pre-pandemic travel patterns. 53% of all respondents anticipate walking more and 26% anticipate biking more, in contrast to only 3% who anticipate walking or biking less. While 34% of residents anticipate driving more, this was more than offset by the 47% of respondents who anticipate driving less for daily trips, a 13 percent net difference of residents who anticipate driving less.
Overwhelming Support for Expanded Pedestrian Zones, Bike Lanes, Bus Lanes
Three quarters of survey respondents said they supported use of street space for expanded pedestrian access and restaurant seating. 63% support more or wider sidewalks and bike lanes.
While transit ridership has been impacted by the pandemic, a clear majority of the region’s residents, 71%, which includes many non-bus riders, support dedicated bus lanes. And a narrow majority (54%) are supportive of dedicated bus lanes even in situations that involve removal of on-street parking.
Additional Bicycle Infrastructure, Road Safety Measures, or Access to a Bicycle Would Make Most of the Region’s Residents More Likely to Bike
The survey asked respondents about improvements that would make them more likely to use a bicycle. The proposed improvements with the highest percentages of residents more likely to bike as a result were: more direct and complete bicycle lanes and routes (34% of respondents), bicycle lanes separated from vehicles by a barrier (32%), and bicycle lanes or trails near home (31%). Overall, only a minority (42%) of all residents indicated that no improvements would make them more likely to use a bike.
When broken down by age, the impact of bike infrastructure improvements for the region’s residents under 30 was especially high. Almost half indicated that more direct and complete bicycle lanes and routes or lanes near home would make them more likely to bike. Only a small minority (24%) indicated that no improvements would make them more likely to use a bike.
Less Transit Use Anticipated, But Respondents Indicate Service Enhancements Would Make Them More Likely to Use Transit
While 13% anticipate using transit more, 38% anticipate using it less one year post-pandemic. Only 5% of frequent transit riders pre-pandemic and only 26% of infrequent transit riders pre pandemic indicated that nothing would make them more likely to ride public transportation after the pandemic.
Most respondents cited measures that transit agencies can undertake to make them more likely to ride transit. About half of frequent transit users pre-pandemic responded that more frequent cleaning, more spacing of people on bus and train cars, and more frequent service would make them more likely to use transit after the pandemic. (Of note, numerous studies have shown that even during the pandemic, riding transit is relatively low risk. Also, transit agencies in the region have implemented some of these safety measures already).
“The survey shows that frequency and reliability of service and convenient real-time travel information continue to be significant factors for making people more likely to use transit. Safe and convenient routes to walk, bike or scoot to train stations and bus stops were also found to be significant factors in transit ridership, where more improvement is needed across the region,” said Schwartz.
Climate Change is a Significant Concern and Residents Overwhelming Want Officials to Address it in Transportation Plans
84% of the region’s residents agree with the statement that elected officials need to consider the impacts of climate change when planning transportation in the future. For residents under 30 years of age, those most impacted by our long-range planning decisions and climate change, that percentage rises to 92%.
Traffic Congestion is Less of a Concern Than Climate Change
Less than half of respondents (44%) indicated that traffic congestion is a significant concern that impacts their lives. 25% said congestion was somewhat a concern that impacted their lives a little.
Residents of core jurisdictions (Arlington, Alexandria, and the District of Columbia) reported the highest satisfaction with the transportation system and least concern about congestion. 75% of Core residents say that the regional transportation system meets their needs very well or somewhat well, in contrast to 55% of Inner Suburb (Montgomery, Fairfax, Prince George’s) residents and 38% of Outer Suburb residents. Likewise, only 27% of Core residents say that congestion is a significant concern that impacts their quality of life, in contrast to 46% of Inner Suburb residents and 54% of Outer Suburb residents.
“What these survey results suggest is that the more compact development in the core doesn’t reduce the satisfaction of residents when it comes to transportation, and may reflect the variety of transportation options available (walk, bike, transit) and shorter commutes or trips to the corner store. In contrast, people living farther out are being provided with fewer non driving options and face longer commutes in congestion generated by high-levels of auto dependent development,” said Pugh. “It points to the need for more housing options in the region’s walkable communities near transit and job centers, along with more affordable housing in these locations, and increased investment in transit.”
Residents Say that Future Generations Will Thank Us More for Clean Transportation, Transit, Walking, and Biking than for Wider Roads
The survey asked “What transportation investments should we make today that future generations will thank us for tomorrow?” and allowed respondents to provide their own open ended answers.
The majority of the answers involved clean transportation, public transportation, and improvements for walking and biking. A much smaller group cited roads, parking, and congestion.
● 259 responses mentioned expanding areas served by rail transit and bike infrastructure
● 172 mentioned clean transportation (electric vehicles, lower emissions)
● 72 responses mentioned improving the condition of (fixing and making more resilient) existing roads and bridges.
● Just 134 responses mentioned more or wider roads
Increased Telecommuting
33% of respondents anticipate telecommuting at least one day a week after the pandemic, up from 16% who telecommuted at least one day a week pre-pandemic. Among the 60% of respondents currently telecommuting during the pandemic, approximately half would want to continue to telework 3-4 days per week.
“Both national and local surveys of employers and employees predict sustained higher rates of teleworking after the pandemic compared to beforehand. This means that many of the highway and arterial expansion projects being planned in the region are based on outdated travel forecasts. Many of these projects were based on the premise of addressing peak-of-the-peak commuting congestion, but these trips may fall significantly. The Washington, DC region needs to cancel or at least put on the back burner these major road expansion proposals,” said Schwartz. “At the same time, we need to ensure that our transit system meets the needs of people returning to work and addresses their concerns, especially people without personal vehicle options.”
Land Use and Affordable Housing are Key Solutions But Are Missing From the Survey
“The Voices of the Region survey asked some great questions and provided lots of valuable insights. However, one of the areas it missed was asking about the proximity of services and destinations that are important to residents,” said Pugh.
● Do residents live close to their basic needs and would they want to have them closer?
● What factors make that difficult, is it due to the lack of affordable housing in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods or due to job centers in isolated office parks?
“We see that 75% of Core residents find that the region’s transportation system meets their needs, and that has as much to do with the compact, walkable built environment as with the transportation options available beyond driving in places like DC, Arlington and Alexandria,” said Pugh.
Pugh continued, “three fourths of the trips in the region are for non-commuting purposes, so even if people are teleworking more, they will still want shorter and easier trips that don’t always involve getting in the car. The best way to address the evolving travel needs and desires of most residents to walk and bike more, is in our land use planning. Mixed-use, walkable, compact neighborhoods offer safe and convenient options for accessing basic needs.”
A Gap in the Survey — Failure to Reach Enough Low-Income Residents
“Low-income residents were less well represented than other groups according to consultant staff who presented the survey results at the TPB’s recent Technical Committee meeting. So it would be good to understand from the focus groups and possible follow-up surveys how the region can best meet the transportation and housing location needs of low-income residents and workers,” said Pugh. While low-income residents expressed similar satisfaction with the transportation system as non-low-income residents, staff said in their presentation that this result may be due to the concentration of those low-income residents sampled in Core and Inner jurisdictions.
###
