Family walking and biking on an Oakland Slow Street by City of Oakland, California.

Cities like Oakland, Seattle, Denver, Charlotte, New York, Paris, Montreal, and Bogotá have opened many neighborhood streets for people not in motor vehicles to use to run errands and get exercise during, and after, the coronavirus pandemic. DC councilmember Mary Cheh (Ward 3), who chairs the transportation committee, and colleagues Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1) and Charles Allen (Ward 6) sent and published a letter Friday asking DC to do the same.

DC mayor Muriel Bowser has coordinated with the National Park Service to open three parkways for exercise, and Montgomery County has done this with Sligo Creek and Little Falls parkways. Bowser also rolled out a program to block off parking spaces around essential businesses for people on foot, but this doesn’t apply to anywhere with existing travel lanes.

No jurisdiction in our region has created what many other cities are calling “slow streets,” streets with lanes blocked or just marked as off-limits to through traffic. That’s what Cheh, Allen, and Nadeau want to see.

They write, “Traffic in the District is at an unprecedented low, creating an environment that encourages speeding; on the other hand, there has been an increase in the number of residents using our sidewalks and public space during this period for exercise and essential errands.” They add that many sidewalks are too narrow for people to effectively social distance.

“Where doing so would not affect safety, closing or narrowing roads to through traffic is one way the District can help facilitate proper social distancing,” the letter continues, suggesting this happen by closing “entire blocks to through traffic, or simply … certain lanes.”

However, the District Department of Transportation “has not yet acted,” the councilmembers wrote, and if it does not, they plan to introduce legislation to “enable residents to self-identify their blocks for closure or narrowing,” with the approval of their local Advisory Neighborhood Commission. Several ANCs have already requested closures of this nature.

“Looking beyond the immediate future, though, we want to highlight that we can and should fundamentally shift how people move around the District,” the letter concludes. “We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity before us. When the bulk of workers return to offices, rather than allowing these people to, yet again, clog and congest our streets, we should do all that we can now to lay the ground work to encourage people to walk, ride bikes, and move around the city without using their cars.”

The full text is on this press release from Cheh’s office, as is the text of the proposed amendment, which the members plan to bring up on a COVID-19 related emeregency bill Tuesday.

I’m told the amendment will likely have a fiscal impact, meaning implementing it would cost money. Under council rules, the CFO’s office judges the fiscal impact of every council proposal, and emergency legislation, like what the council will consider Tuesday, can’t have a fiscal impact. Therefore, unless Mayor Bowser is willing to move money (here, mainly, DDOT staff time) to implement this, it will be “ruled out of order.”

Ultimately, what the three councilmembers want is for the mayor to take action, since legislation is at best a clumsy, and often ineffective, tool to actually force action. The councilmembers’ letter gives the mayor a choice: Tell DDOT to enable narrowing or closing neighborhood streets — especially now that businesses are asking for street closures — or we’ll try to use tools at our disposal to compel the department to do so.

Traffic could be worse during the recovery

Beyond the three councilmembers’ points about people “allowing people to again clog and congest” streets, if people return to work before there is a full coronavirus vaccine, there’s a strong chance traffic could be worse than usual. That’s because, according to WMATA, trains and buses can operate with at most 20% of their former capacity due to the need for people to social distance.

Even if the agency runs full transit service, which is not likely, transit will not be able to move as many people for the time being. And, some people may be afraid of riding transit. If people switch to driving, the roads could quickly hit capacity. Helping people get around through other means, means which take up less space per person, will be an imperative.

In a recent article for Slate, David Zipper wrote, “The stakes for cities could scarcely be higher. If traditional transit riders decide en masse to shift toward driving private automobiles, urban road networks will be saddled with unprecedented gridlock, bringing corresponding increases in pollution and crashes. But city streets could keep flowing if enough travelers choose to bike, walk, or use a scooter—or if they keep riding public transportation.”

Many of our readers emailed their ANCs to ask for sidewalk expansions and copied their councilmembers, in response to our call. Thank you to all who did this! That Allen, Cheh, and Nadeau have written this letter reflects your demand for slowing traffic on residential streets, at a citywide scale, as part of the District’s Covid-19 response.