Rush hour in Copenhagen, one of the early leaders for Vision Zero design.  Image by Mikael Colville-Andersen licensed under Creative Commons.

In our first post, we outlined how, six years in, DC’s Vision Zero program can only be described as a failure. While there have been some marginal improvements to the city’s transportation infrastructure, it has been nowhere near enough to slow the number of deaths on our streets — in fact, they’ve been increasing. If we are going to engage in a genuine effort to eliminate traffic deaths and injuries, we need bold, system-wide solutions that tackle the District’s biggest safety concerns. We must disrupt an inequitable, environmentally unsound, and car-centered status quo.

Many of the strategies needed will be familiar to anyone who has given thought to street safety in DC. They are working in cities around the globe, and local advocates have been asking for them for years. In some cases, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) has made initial steps in the right direction by adopting pilot programs or pursuing “complete streets” designs on major corridors. It’s not that DC is ignoring proven solutions. It’s that the scale of our efforts over the last six years has not matched the magnitude of the problem we are trying to solve.

Here are a set of policies that should be the immediate priority of residents and city officials to achieve Vision Zero:

Implement emergency road diets on all arterial streets, followed by permanent changes

DC has been reluctant to deliver significant changes to arterial streets, but that’s precisely where change is needed. As Charlotte Jackson Lee exposed earlier this year, the disproportionate scope of the problem is quite stunning. Focusing on crashes involving pedestrians specifically: while arterial roads make up only 23% of our streets, they have accounted for 69% of these crashes.

DC road types and pedestrian crashes between 2015 and 2020. Data from Roadway Blocks and MPD Crash Reports datasets. Image by Charlotte Jackson.

But don’t be confused, this isn’t just the benefit of hindsight. Mayor Bowser and DDOT knew this from the very outset of Vision Zero. The campaign’s 2015 report identified that “15 arterial corridors with multiple total fatalities accounted for more than half of all pedestrian and bicycle deaths between 2010 and 2014.”

Map of fatalities on DC streets 2010-2021. DC Vision Zero Data.

Those deadly corridors will be familiar to most residents: Wisconsin Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, Florida Avenue, Georgia Avenue, North Capitol Street, New York Avenue, K Street NW, Constitution Avenue, East Capitol Street, M Street SE, Benning Rd., Alabama Avenue, Southern Avenue, Eastern Avenue, and the Suitland Parkway.

The changes on these streets have been minimal: four blocks of part-time bus lanes on Georgia, an interim fix to Florida Ave after the death of Dave Salovesh two years ago, and some good protected bike lanes on a segment of K St finally installed this year. But DDOT has not meaningfully changed the overall design of any of these corridors since Mayor Bowser announced the goal of zero traffic deaths in 2015.

Each of these roads is designed to maximize vehicle volume and has at least four vehicle travel lanes if not five or six, sometimes with parking as well. Outside of peak commuting times (which is only about four hours, five days a week), arterial streets become less congested and, paradoxically, more dangerous. During the pandemic, we witnessed this phenomenon nationwide: reduced traffic volumes were associated with increases in reckless speeding. Implementing interim lane closures could significantly reduce vehicle injuries and death.

Reduce speed limits on all roads, and deploy automated enforcement to make those limits real

We are never going to enforce our way out of traffic deaths. Road design is by far the most important strategy because it does not require constant vigilance. But where we have yet to modify a street’s design, real enforcement is necessary. That’s why we need lower speed limits and why extensive automated enforcement, reconceived and run by DDOT (not the police), needs to be ramped up.

National and localconversations about police reform have highlighted the need to take traffic enforcement out of the hands of police because traffic stops are discriminatory and deadly. The DC Police Commission recently recommendedhanding over large portions of traffic safety enforcement from MPD to DDOT. The recent killing of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota is a tragic and all-too-familiar example of why: police conduct pretextual traffic stops for ulterior law enforcement purposes that have nothing to do with making our streets safe. In another recent example, a Black Army officer, Caron Nazario, was held at gunpoint and pepper sprayed by police in Windsor, Virginia after being pulled over for failing to display permanent license plates.

Automated enforcement that is controlled by a civil road-safety department is the least problematic, most effective way to change driver behavior. And there are ways to do it responsibly. Rather than a handful of locations drivers quickly memorize and speed before and after, cameras should be ubiquitous and at least a portion should rotate locations regularly. Fines should start out small (say $5) but be “swift, certain and fair.” Repeat offenses within a short timeframe should cause those fines to increase. Violations that involve particularly dangerous speeds or egregious recidivism should be punishable by license suspension and/or the installation of a speed limiter in the offender’s vehicle.

A speed limiter is not any more intrusive than an ignition breathalyzer devices, which DC can require offenders to use in certain circumstances. It is also a proven technology that is cheap and widely available. DC currently requires e-scooter companies to limit their vehicles to 15 miles per hour, and many car models now come equipped with software that parents can use to artificially restrict a vehicle’s top speed. To combat the perception that speed cameras are just a money-making endeavor, DC could require that funds collected be reinvested in local safety improvements, returned to the community in the form of free or reduced transit fares, or some other form of neighborhood amenity or subsidy.

Reappropriate street space for public transportation, walking, and micromobility

Another proven way to reduce deadly crashes is to eliminate the chance of conflict in the first place. That’s why the gold standard of Vision Zero engineering is full, protected modal separation between fast-moving cars and vulnerable users. But Mayor Bowser and DDOT’s steps towards reappropriating street space to protect and prioritize walking, transit and micromobility have been painfully slow.

Simply banning cars from key streets is the most straightforward way to reduce conflicts. Pedestrian zones like theseare increasing in popularity in cities around the globe. In some places where a permanent closure isn’t possible, regular temporary closures provide dedicated recreation opportunities.

Despite numerous high-opportunity areas for something like this, DC’s efforts have been underwhelming to say the least. After years of bureaucratic permitting obstacles blocking grassroots groups, Mayor Bowser finally declared an Open Streets event, but only for a single day on a single street. While other cities shut down some streets to cars completely in the pandemic, DDOT’s slow streets effort was only ever a “suggestion” for non-local traffic. In fact, DC’s most successful open street, Black Lives Matter Plaza, wasn’t even planned at all. It has since been partially opened back up to vehicles.

Progress on bike and bus lanes has been better, but hardly swift. DDOT is in the process of updating its transportation master plan, Move DC, for the second time in a decade – but the agency didn’t even attempt to build most of the infrastructure it promised the first time. Sometimes they even actively ignored the plan when it called for bike lanes they did not want to install. Even the handful of lanes they have built have mostly taken five years or more of planning to achieve, when they could have been at least piloted in months.

The 2014 MoveDC map of planned-for but mostly never installed cycle tracks.

We need to implement transit, walking, and micromobility networks that are designed to work. That means bus lanes that allow residents to get from their homes to work in 15 minutes and make drivers in traffic getting passed reconsider their commute choice. It means protected mobility lanes that allow scooter and bike riders to travel east and west, north and south, without gaps in the network. It means designing roads that border schools, recreation centers, metro stations, and commercial areas with the expectation that children and other vulnerable residents will use them.

The space needed to do this is there. Much of it is currently used to park private vehicles that are not being used most of the day. Much else can be reclaimed from streets that need road diets.

Image from the DC Policy Center.

Make safe modes of transportation free and deadly forms of transportation more expensive

The goals of safety and equity in transportation are aligned. Private vehicles are the most deadly form of transportation. The DC Policy Center has shown that areas where car-free living is most possible are predominantly rich and white, while low-income and Black neighborhoods face more difficulty getting around without one, but also have a disproportionate share of the city’s non-car households. The vast majority of bus riders in our region are people of color, low income, and non-car owners. The idea that incentivizing transit, walking, and micromobility over cars is inequitable is completely backwards.

Demographics of Metrobus customers compared to region at large. Source: Bus Transformation Project.

A safe streets revolution doesn’t have to feel just like a loss for some residents. We can and should look to provide material support and subsidy to make these choices easier. It is time to implement policies like free bus or metro fares for all residents (or at least children and seniors), e-bike tax credits or trade-in subsidy, and expanded transit coverage and frequency. Aside from automated enforcement, revenue can come from charging drivers a far more accurate cost for car permitting and parking fees, as well as a decongestion charge for those who choose to drive into the city. (In July, DC will increase residential parking permits for the first time in years, but they are still massively underpriced.)

One model is a program the District has already signed up for: the multi-state Transportation Climate Initiative Program which will set a cap on emissions from fossil fuels and charge large fuel providers for allowances. Those funds will then be reinvested in clean and resilient transportation infrastructure like sidewalks, bus and bike lanes with 35% of the funds specifically designated for parts of the city underserved by good transportation options. By increasing direct user fees for car ownership and trips, DC can address the demand as well as supply side of this equation while expanding the pot of resources available for healthier investments.

The more people we get out of cars and onto buses, trains, scooters, and bikes, the more lives we will save. The more we demonstrate that these forms of transportation can be more efficient and equitable, the more investment and public enthusiasm they will receive, creating a virtuous cycle for curtailing and eliminating vehicle traffic on some of our streets.

More rigorous oversight and regulation of DDOT by the DC Council

Last year the DC Council took action to try to accelerate change by passing new Vision Zero legislation. It’s a good law that represents real steps forward: it expands automated enforcement, requires DDOT to identify and address specific safety concerns on an annual basis, and may close enforcement loopholes with out-of-state drivers and local contractors. But without funding in this budget cycle, the law will not take full effect, so doing so must be a priority for the Mayor and Council.

But if our leaders are serious, this law has to represent the beginning, not the end of Council efforts to reform DDOT. Some aspects of the law fail to address some of the most serious safety risks. For instance, the law:

  • lowers the speed limit to 20 on local and collector roads…but leaves arterials untouched
  • bans right turns on red…but only at select intersections
  • requires planned-for protected bike infrastructure actually be built…but stops short of requiring DDOT to build it on a specific timetable

We also need someone at the helm of DDOT who will transform the agency and make real strides on safety by prioritizing immediate, systemic changes rather than minimizing disruption. Before filling the currently vacant position, left open by Director Marootian’s departure for the Biden Administration, Mayor Bowser should make clear the next director has her mandate to actually do “everything in our power to eliminate transportation fatalities or serious injuries.”

If not now, when?

The signs that it’s time to update our thinking are all around us. Trips by car in DC are falling, bike sales are booming, open streets have been incredibly popular and businesses want to make them permanent. We have a federal Secretary of Transportation who supports right-sizing city streets and who is biking in DC. And we have precious few years to lower greenhouse gas emissions — a quarter of which come from transportation sources in DC.

And all of this without trying the big stuff yet! Cities that are taking bold swings are discovering immense demand they never knew was there. Those car-free and car-light strategies of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and other early leaders are catching on. Elected officials across Europe have used the pandemic to do things like install a collective 1,400 miles of bike lanes nearly overnight, and usage has surged. The aggressive changes have proved so popular in Paris, that Mayor Anne Hidalgo won re-election promising to double down on her effort to transform the capital into a people-friendly “15 minute city.”

These aren’t quiet rural towns or long-ago design decisions. These are cities with the same kind of car-first streets we have, actively choosing to remake themselves in the present day. If we want to unlock the health, equity, and environmental benefits that come with, we should give it a try. If we’re serious about saving lives on our streets, we don’t have a choice.

Nick Sementelli is a 17-year DC resident who lives in Ward 5. In his day job, he works as a digital strategist for progressive political campaigns and advocacy groups. Outside of the office, you can find him on the soccer field or at Nats Park. He currently serves on GGWash's Board of Directors.

Conor Shaw is an attorney at a nonpartisan ethics watchdog. Conor grew up on Capitol Hill and now lives in Eckington, where he is president of the Eckington Civic Association. Conor wants our streets to be safer for all—and especially cyclists and pedestrians; our local businesses to thrive; and our housing policies to promote affordability, diversity and yes—density.