Image by Dan Reed.

Weekly, Regional Policy Director Dan Reed and DC Policy Director Alex Baca will share with you an action you can take in the immediate future that has the potential, sometimes great and sometimes small, to increase the number of homes in our region, decrease the trips people take by car, make all of it safer, and not screw people over in the process. This week: what is DDOT but its people; ANC trainings; who gets to live here is a reflection of our values; come for a walk with Dan; and go vote in Alexandria and Arlington today!

If you have any questions, email dreed@ggwash.org about Maryland and Virginia Do Somethings, and abaca@ggwash.org about Washington, DC, Do Somethings—or, about whatever you want to talk about.

DC

The confirmation for DDOT’s acting director, Sharon Kershbaum, is on Thursday, June 20 at 9:30 am. To be honest, we haven’t yet decided what the best role is for GGWash with regard to Kershbaum’s appointment. We supported Mayor Muriel Bowser’s previous DDOT-director appointee, Everett Lott, to the understandable chagrin of some of you. (That initial support did come in handy when it became the case that we were repeatedly stating publicly that he was not particularly good at his job. We looked credible, rather than catty.)

Kershbaum’s confirmation is coming at a time when trust in DDOT is lower than I recall it being in over a decade, and Lott’s confirmation hearing was not preceded by the agency’s profound, last-minute reversal on a high-profile project, and its subsequent sloppy scrambling to justify a worse design for a very dangerous road. It is my job to work with DDOT, and it is increasingly hard to hold at bay the rage and disappointment I feel, as a DC resident, about its performance. Screaming at an agency—about the most aggressive thing I myself can do—is not going to get us anywhere closer to a District in which drivers aren’t killing people.

Building bus and bike lanes, taking space away from drivers, and reducing trips by car is not visionary—in a city with constrained space, it’s practical. I actually do not particularly care, at this moment, whether we have visionary leadership from either Bowser or her DDOT director. I would simply like the agency to do what it says it is going to do when it says it is going to do it. Planning the work and working the plan to advance a government’s own stated goals (which include zero traffic deaths, a lot of miles of bus lanes, a considerable reduction in trips by car, and so on) doesn’t quickly deliver sexy projects for which to cut ribbons. Worse, it doesn’t keep people who are really mad about losing their parking spots, or seeing a bike lane where there wasn’t one before, or whatever other thing, from making things deeply unpleasant for all involved.

But I know DDOT is capable of doing it. The agency is simultaneously blowing up five years of work on Connecticut Avenue and pretending as if it didn’t break the law in repressing a report on road pricing, and building bus and bike lanes that necessitate unpopular tradeoffs. I’m in San Francisco this week, a city I lived in for a brief time in my life, 10 years ago. Walking, riding a bike, and taking transit was worse there than in DC when I lived here, and it’s not as good now, either. I use the 9th Street and Kenyon Street bike lanes a lot, and I don’t take for granted the delight I feel when I’m riding in them. I’m on, like, pins and needles waiting for the Georgia Avenue bus-priority project to start, because I can’t wait to talk to my neighbors about how it’s going to make it less awful to walk in Park View.

I can’t figure out, and will probably never know, if the good stuff at DDOT has grown and expanded under Kershbaum’s leadership. It would be easier for us to show up for her confirmation if I could. What I do know is that DDOT at its best is a testament to its excellent rank-and-file staff, who are some of the best public-sector employees that I’ve met. I worry that they aren’t going to stay working for an administration that isn’t true to its word, and makes them come in four days a week.

Transportation is not and has never been a concern for Bowser, and I don’t delude myself into thinking that she’ll care about it, ever. It’s easy to write off “the bike people”—we’re annoying, though apparently less annoying, and less threatening, than the car people. What I want in a DDOT director working for this mayor is someone who a) doesn’t drive to work and b) can stop the opposition to good projects from breaking DDOT containment and filtering up to the Executive Office of the Mayor, which is my diagnosis of the Connecticut Avenue drama. I don’t think that Kershbaum is that person. (Anyone who drives to work will never be that person.)

We could submit a professional, record-worthy comment to the Committee on Transportation and the Environment. Kershbaum’s appointment isn’t something we can really justify supporting given DDOT’s recent failures. That said, I’ve also worked long enough in this space to know that saying an appointee is unfit, or incapable, or just a bad choice, gets weaponized by the mayor to defend her people. GGWash has said a lot about DDOT over the years. Maybe silence can do what showing up sometimes can’t.

You, however, can register to testify in person on Kershbaum’s appointment (and submit written testimony until July 14) here.

Lastly, here’s your weekly reminder that we’re hosting trainings for prospective Advisory Neighborhood Commission candidates on Monday, July 1 at 6:00 pm (virtual), and on Sunday, July 14 at 3:00 pm (in-person at Grand Duchess in Adams Morgan—stay afterward for happy hour!). Sign up! Ask questions! Meet others who are interested in serving as the official, elected voice of their neighborhoods! We’ve been training anyone who’s interested in serving, and endorsing those who want to see more housing, more affordable housing, fewer trips by car, and frequent and reliable transit in the District since 2018. I’m excited to support those of you who are running, and who share our values, in 2024.—AB

Maryland

One of my favorite poems is “Rednecks” by Nuyorican poet Martín Espada, set at a gas station in Montgomery County in the not-so-distant past, in which high school boys making fun of the seemingly-boorish farmers who stop there discover that things aren’t always what they seem. It’s a reminder that, even here in the place where I grew up, people will surprise you.

Last week, the Planning Board voted to recommend that the County Council allow duplexes, townhomes, and small apartment buildings across much of the county where only single-family homes are allowed today–aka Attainable Housing Strategies. The timeline is ambitious: first, county planners will brief the County Council at three meetings on June 24, July 8, and July 22. Following the summer recess, they’ll team up with council staff to write a zoning text amendment–the thing that actually changes zoning–and in the fall there will be lots of community meetings and hearings for people to offer their thoughts.

County planning director Jason Sartori, who was one of our panelists on Saturday, told MoCo360 that the zoning change could take effect by the end of the year. As if on cue, some people are big mad. We’ve already gotten some salty emails. In this thread of message board and Nextdoor posts Mike English collected, they’re playing all the hits: “Even Bethesda will turn into a dump.” “It inevitably will bring crime, trashy people and their trashy behaviors.” “The [property] values will plummet.” It gets worse from there.

I could easily say: welp, this will be a repeat of the school boundary fight four years ago, where parents said all sorts of openly bigoted things to block a well-intentioned effort to address school overcrowding and segregation, and largely got their way. “Another pickup truck morning, and rednecks,” as Espada writes.

But last Saturday, I moderated a panel on how we can fix Montgomery County’s housing crisis at Communities United Against Hate’s fundraiser, where the crowd included a number of county and state elected officials. I came in anticipating a little pushback–we were in Potomac, home to some of the loudest school boundary opponents–but I was surprised to see the room burst into applause when I said that Montgomery County could become the largest jurisdiction in the United States to end exclusionary zoning. People will, in fact, surprise you.

Right now, the largest place to open up single-family zoning is Austin, Texas, which at 974,000 people is about 80,000 people short of Montgomery County. When Alex and I were there in February, we talked a lot about the tension of making it easier for people to find homes in a place where their rights were being taken away. This, to me, is the argument for abundant housing in our region–and the argument that our panelists made in Potomac on Saturday: by ending exclusionary zoning, we’re making good on our stated values of welcoming people of all different backgrounds.

As the County Council takes up Attainable Housing Strategies next week, they need to hear from people who believe this too–early, and often.

  • If you have a few minutes this week: send an email to the County Council and let them know you want zoning reform: “My name is [BLANK], and I live in [YOUR TOWN]. I support the Planning Board’s recommendations for Attainable Housing Strategies, and making Montgomery County a place that welcomes everyone. I urge the Council to move the Board’s recommendations forward with a Zoning Text Amendment. Thank you!” The council has a new form you can use without typing out all their email addresses, which is very convenient.

This weekend: The future Montgomery County planners envision could look a lot like some of its older neighborhoods, where there’s already a mix of different house types, styles, and prices. Join me and our friends at Montgomery for All this Saturday, June 22, where I’ll lead a walking tour of my neighborhood, East Silver Spring, and see some really cute duplexes, townhomes, and little apartment buildings. It’s going to be stupid hot, so bring lots of water. We’ll take it slow! You can RSVP here.—DR

Virginia

Today’s election day, so if you haven’t already, please check out our endorsements for Arlington County Board and mayor and City Council in Alexandria, go vote, and tell your friends and loved ones to vote if they haven’t already. Fingers crossed!!—DR

Your support of GGWash enables us, Dan and Alex, to do our jobs. Our jobs are knowing how development and planning works in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. If it’s appropriate to take action to advance our goals, which we hope you share, we can let you know what will have the most impact, and how to do it well. You can make a financial contribution to GGWash here. And if you want to see Do Something in your inbox, scroll down and sign up for our daily emails.