DC residents create “Sidewalk Palooza” for pedestrian safety

A group of Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners and community leaders (including myself) are hosting a series of pedestrian safety walks dubbed Sidewalk Palooza to draw attention to discrepancies in the District Department of Transportation’s (DDOT) scheduled response times for potholes versus broken sidewalks and similar pedestrian needs.

The event draws its name from the District’s series of similar efforts to concentrate agency attention on roadway needs (Potholepalooza, AlleyPalooza, etc) while leaving safety concerns for other street users languishing.

Residents will walk through their neighborhoods submitting 311 requests for unaddressed safety needs like broken sidewalks, missing crosswalks, and signage problems, among other issues that create pedestrian safety and accessibility challenges, particularly for people using wheelchairs or other mobility-assistance devices and parents with strollers. These requests will also be sent to DDOT, the Council, and the Mayor’s office to urge city leaders to reprioritize these crucial needs as they finalize the District’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget.

Sidewalk Palooza events will be hosted around the city this month, primarily between Friday, June 4, and June 11. Many organizers are combining their safety walks with other activities like music, children’s activities, and trash pickups.

A broken status quo

DC’s system to handle pedestrian safety and infrastructure requests is not working. Anecdotal reports of many residents I know tell of 311 requests to fix impassable sidewalks, missing crosswalks, and other needs often sit open for long periods — sometimes for years — or are closed without any action. It’s enough to discourage even the most committed advocate from bothering to report pedestrian safety and infrastructure issues at all.

Earlier this year, a DDOT presentation to Advisory Neighborhood Commissions provided both more clarity and a new level of frustration. On a slide documenting their service-level agreement times for various requests (i.e., DDOT’s targeted response times for service requests), the presentation revealed that year+ delays are not a bug, but a part of the system.

While some of the obvious, high-priority safety problems like traffic signal issues and streetlight repair investigations are targeted for a reasonable 2-5 business day turnaround, there’s a major discrepancy in the treatment of more “medium-urgency” repairs that represent long-term safety risks.

The presentation shows that DDOT aims to repair potholes in three business days, but similar problems like striping, signage, and traffic safety investigations are all listed at 130-270 business days (six months to a year of real time), and that’s if DDOT actually sticks to its timelines.

Potholes are certainly quite frustrating, and they do present safety risks. But are they 43 times more dangerous than broken roadway signs? Or 90 times more dangerous than missing crosswalks and broken sidewalks that force vulnerable users into the street?

When asked about this discrepancy, DDOT responded that this difference is “a function of cost, personnel and equipment” as well as the “relative sizable backlog of submitted requests.”

But those explanations only cement that this is a resource prioritization problem. More personnel, equipment, and funding should be added to bring the response times for pedestrian safety and accessibility items down to the same single-digit business day standard. And if that’s not feasible for some reason, DDOT should re-allocate some of the time and money being used for pothole service to even out this discrepancy.

Get involved

You can find a Sidewalk Palooza event near you at SidewalkPalooza.org. There are already 20 events on the map with more to come. Simply email the contact listed to RSVP and show up at the designated time and location. We’re also looking for more community leaders to help host events, so if you’d like to participate, email sidewalkpalooza@gmail.com for more information!