Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.

Today we talked with Leif Dormsjo, director of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). Here is a transcript of our conversation.

David Alpert: Welcome to our live chat with DDOT Director Leif Dormsjo! I’m here at DDOT HQ with Greater Greater Washington volunteers Eric Fidler, Tracey Johnstone, Payton Chung, and Abigail Zenner.

David Alpert: Our guest will be joining us at noon. Meanwhile, if you have questions you’d like to suggest, you can tweet them with hashtag #ggwchat.

David Alpert: The way the chat will work is I will ask questions verbally, including some of the many great questions you all submitted. Eric, Tracey, and Payton will be frantically typing in his answers. We’ll correct any typos later; if you see some, it’s definitely our fault and not anything to do with Leif.

David Alpert: Leif Dormsjo is now here. Welcome! Thank you so much for joining us.

Leif Dormsjo: Great to be here, David

Leif Dormsjo: It is my office, of course.

David Alpert: To get started, can you tell me what top three(ish) things you hope will be different about the way DDOT operates and/or about transportation in our city after four years of your leadership?

Leif Dormsjo: Sure, Well, the mayor has been very clear with me from the get-go what her expectations are, and it’s real exciting to be part of the Bowser administration.

Leif Dormsjo: So even as early as my interviews, she was focused on Vision Zero, which extends beyond my department. The second area she wanted me to focus on was how DDOT performs on quality of life issues and how we engage with people outside the walls of our departments.

Leif Dormsjo: And the third area that the mayor is keeping a focus on and is a topic of every conversation I have with her is our capacity and ability to deliver projects small, medium and large. Vision zero, customer service and a focus on project delivery I have my hands full.

Vision Zero

David Alpert: Let’s talk about Vision Zero first. JR asks, What is the most ambitious thing you are planning to do as part of Vision Zero? Would you support lowering the city speed limit? Eliminating right turns on red?

Leif Dormsjo: Well, those are two good issues to bring some clarity to, and then I can talk about some things that we’re focused on. Most people don’t appreciate that the citywide default speed limit is 25 MPH. It’s only in rare exceptions that it would be higher or lower. One thing that many cities are looking at is slow zones. Lower speeds will help us drive fatalities and life threatening injuries to zero.

Leif Dormsjo: Regarding rights on red, the biggest factor in intersection crashes is during green. It is green permissive rights when there are pedestrians in the crosswalks. There are red light cameras and those can be configured to ensure there is a stop before a right on red. But the issue of intersection safety requires more attention that just right on red.

Leif Dormsjo: The soft right is a part of the L’Enfant plan, means that a driver’s visibility is very limited. We have to think about the total view of intersections to make sure we do everything we can about safety.

David Alpert: And just for people who might not know, could you clarify what a “soft right” is?

Leif Dormsjo: It’s a diagonal right turn. So what that means is that we have a lot of turning movements where vehicles are not really required to come to a stop to make a hard right turn. And so we’re doing some things right now to extend the curbs, and make those turns more linear — a hard linear turn — so that will avoid and mitigate some of the issues that we’ve had with people moving through intersections too quickly, and not being aware that there’s pedestrians in the crosswalk, which is a very dangerous circumstance.

David Alpert: Thanks. And I know you wanted to talk about the broader Vision Zero, well, vision.

Leif Dormsjo: I think we have some great ideas in traffic engineering, but strengthening our alliances with stakeholders in education and enforcement is a smart thing to do. I have already had conversation with agency counterparts to improve our efforts in the safety front. I am talking to the attorney general about impaired driving.

Leif Dormsjo: Impaired driving is a huge contributor to crashes, fatalities and injuries. We have some laws on the books that are solid, but we can make some improvements there to focus on habitual impaired driving. I’m told there are a very limited number of ignition lock participants in Maryland and that was a big push on drunk driving and impaired driving and I know there were issues on access to work. Whether that’s red light runners or speeders, those should be top priorities.

Leif Dormsjo: With regard to education, I think younger folks are one place where we can get some benefits. For one, younger drivers tend to get in more crashes. I think we need to spend more time preparing people for the privilege of driving. I’ve been talking with the head of the motor vehicle administration about that, and she’s been a huge supporter. That education can come in the form of reaching out to college students who are pedestrians.

Leif Dormsjo: We have some issues around American University in particular. There’s a concern, one I think is valid, that many of those students are not paying attention while crossing the street. That’s something I spent some time on around the University of Maryland in College Park; there were many incidents along Route 1 in College Park.

Leif Dormsjo: Enforcement and education are certainly important and we will do everything we can on the engineering side for new roads and redesigned roads.

Bus lane studies

David Alpert: In our comment thread from last week asking for question submissions, one question stood out above all others that was asked by at least ten commenters. They all wanted to know about the 16th Street bus lane study. There have been multiple studies about this in the past.

David Alpert: As RDHD asked: How will the new 16th St. bus study differ from or otherwise provide new information that the already completed studies did not offer? What was lacking in those studies?

Leif Dormsjo: I’ve run into a number of instances where we had multiple studies of the same issue and I find that as frustrating as the rest of the city. With 16th Street, we had a lot of high level analysis of travel demand and the make up of traffic along that corridor and the time components of traffic congestion and delay. There wasn’t treatment of operation al issues that are the root causes of issues and delays.

Leif Dormsjo: The next study is to take our work to the ground level so we have a better sense of bus bunching delays that are occurring at bus stops, traffic signal issues, and whether or not we can create some priority or preemption with traffic signalization. I think it’s a refinement of the work that’s been done before.

Leif Dormsjo: I certainly agree that we need to a better job of moving from study, to technical feasibility, into environmental review, into a design solution, so we have tangible results. That pattern of having study after study — I’m talking to our team about that, because I don’t think it’s helpful when we have so many.

David Alpert: Many readers hope you can achieve that and commented or tweeted about their frustration with endless studies.

Bicycle infrastructure

David Alpert: Here’s a question from Councilmember David Grosso’s staff.

Leif Dormsjo: We’ve got a solid work plan for 2015 in terms of the construction of more bike lanes, be they fully protected or simply shared lanes, and we’ve got a lot of work in the pipeline with the trail projects. There’s been some really terrific success in both the bike lane program and the trail program and we are coming to a phase of our work that will require more consensus building and technical work to achieve high quality results. I agree that a lot of the low hanging fruit has already been plucked, but we need to maintain an aggressive approach to bike maintenance and safety.

Leif Dormsjo: But many of the areas where we have that final block or next connection to make involved stakeholders whether they be the federal government or businesses or third parties that own property. It will require a different skill set with regard to how the department conducts itself. We’re not lowering our target in terms of increasing the bikeable mileage within the city limits, but the more simple, easier-to-implement solutions are not available to us any longer.

David Alpert: To tie together those two last points, how do you reconcile the fact that it’s now going to be even more difficult to do some things, with what you were talking about before that it takes so many studies to get anything done already?

Leif Dormsjo: Studies typically take about 12 months, but if we’re talking about a federally designated roadway — as many of the roads in Washington are — the environmental process of going through an inventory of impacts to air, other environmental resources, community and safety concerns, that process can last from 12-24 months. And then design of improvements can take 12-24 months, and then you’re in the actual implementation and construction phase. One of the imbalances is that we have a lot of study work. You can perform five studies in one year, but you can’t deliver five projects in one year.

Leif Dormsjo: In the course of some really good planning, whether MoveDC or small area plans or other plans, we have raised expectations that we can deliver solutions — and that’s good — but the timeframe to bring those improvements online can be extended based on the type of project we’re talking about. A transportation project lifecycle is five to seven years.

Leif Dormsjo: And then we’ll see a lot of improvement once those projects are brought to fruition. The key is to get our team and program set up so we can be more predictable in the delivery process. That’s an area ripe for improvement. Ideally, we can move seamlessly from one project to the next. Then we can shorten the phases of these projects to the period of time that allows us to responsibly look at everything that’s required but no dwell too long on it.

Leif Dormsjo: Getting the whole program aligned so that we’re getting repeatable successes — as we take projects all the way from concept to completion — is a re-engineering effort that is underway here, and I’m excited because I think that’s what people have been looking for.

David Alpert: Thanks. On another specific bicycling-related topic, Andrew Schmadel asked: 1) When can we expect Capital Bikeshare to resume adding new bikes and stations? Have the supply issues been resolved, and are there any plans to prevent a similar issue from occurring in the future?

Leif Dormsjo: In the bikeshare program, we have a relationship with a contractor and so one of the challenges recently is the financial difficulties that contractor has run into. There was a bankruptcy that impacted Capital Bikeshare. As they worked through that, we will have more clarity about how they expand and improve their program in the District. We don’t have a timeline for that.

Leif Dormsjo: We continue to have one of the strongest programs in the country and we are able to — I think because of the structure — we’re able to do some things that keep the rates affordable and work with memberships that you couldn’t do if it were a franchisee model.

Streetcar

David Alpert: One other travel mode I know everyone wants to hear about: The streetcar.

Leif Dormsjo: We’re in the process of developing a master schedule for the launch of the project. We had the benefit of the APTA peer review, and they issued some preliminary recommendations several weeks ago and they’re finalizing their report now, which I expect shortly.

Leif Dormsjo: I want to compare their report to the work that we’ve done internally, in terms of a risk adjusted schedule. At that time, I think it would be appropriate to commit to a public opening date. I want to get the full benefit of the APTA peer review before we set expectations with regard to the project.

Leif Dormsjo: We have been working diligently to correct some of the operational and technical issues that were highlighted in the APTA peer review and I’m very pleased with the progress that we’re making and we have done a lot to strengthen our team and make sure we have the right group to bring the project into passenger service.

David Alpert: Someone else asked about communication around the streetcar (some of which I know took place before you were here). JR asked, “Why didn’t DDOT tell the public what was and is holding up the streetcar? I learned a lot from Martin Di Caro’s reports on WAMU, which all seemed like information DDOT could have given to the public themselves.” Will there be more communication going forward?

Leif Dormsjo: Well, first of all, the information that Martin Di Caro reported on was public information and he just did a better job of reporting than his competitors. He’s a good reporter. Peer review is something we’ve disclosed as will the final report that they’re working on right now.

Leif Dormsjo: I completely agree with the suggestion that we be open and informative and transparent as information is brought forward. I’ve been very clear about some of the issues about the legacy program we’ve inherited. I’ve spent hours in front of the city council testifying before the city council and it’s there in transcripts. Looking forward, there will be legislative oversight and robust disclosure and availability to the press so people know what’s going on.

David Alpert: August 4 asked: “And if the streetcar ever starts running, will it be extended to Gerogetown and become really useful?”

Leif Dormsjo: As the mayor stated in her State of the District address, our commitment is to take the necessary steps to expand the streetcar service from Benning Road Metro in Ward 7, all the way across the east-west corridor of the District, to Georgetown in Ward 2.

David Alpert: It doesn’t have funding in the 6-year capital budget, however. What will it take to make that extended line possible?

Leif Dormsjo: There is funding in the six-year capital budget. There’s $335 million for the streetcar project along with the bulk of the funding for the H Street bridge replacement so we have a very significant funding commitment in the mayor’s funding proposal to Council. So right now we’re in the process of bringing the relevant components of the extension to 30% design.

Leif Dormsjo: When we move into the more detailed design work that will allow us to refine the budget and the schedule. We will work with Amtrak and Union Station Redevelopment Corporation to get the connection with the railyard there on the H Street bridge.

Leif Dormsjob We have some environmental work to get to the point where we can further refine the scope should and budget for the overall project but I would say that there’s a very strong commitment reflected in the mayor’s budget for this type of transit initiative.

David Alpert: Let’s talk a bit more about safety and Vision Zero. A few people on Twitter were nervous about the way you focused on impaired driving. I wanted to give you a chance to follow up.

Leif Dormsjo: Well first of all, maybe I was a little bit mistaken in assuming most people knew how strong the District’s commitment to speed enforcement and road geometry have been. The District’s speed enforcement has been one of the most aggressive in the country and there’s no retreat in that.

Leif Dormsjo: Speed enforcement has to be at the top of your list in terms of safety focus. I believe, based on the plans that we have within our design capital program, that we’re doing a tremendous amount in improving corridors from an engineering perspective.

Leif Dormsjo: Maryland Avenue is a good example. It’s been perceived as perpetual study, but we’re moving into a block-by-block design process to reduce the travel lanes along Maryland Avenue and improve the intersection characteristics and safety features of that corridor.

Leif Dormsjo: So I agree with the questioner: Speed enforcement, highway geometry are key tools in the tool box. I was just saying that with my experience in Maryland on an annual basis, the department was working with the safety committee to expand relevant laws and statutes to cover impaired driving and I think that needs to be part of the continuing dialogue in the District.

Leif Dormsjo: In many jurisdictions, the trial attorneys have a very robust lobby and will quiet those conversations. And being the son of two trial attorneys, I’m not afraid to push back on trial attorneys.

David Alpert: Thanks very much. I know some readers had wanted to hear about Maryland Avenue (like the below tweet), so thanks for touching on that.

David Alpert: A few people asked about other neighborhood-specific safety challenges: Ward Circle, Florida Ave NE, and South Dakota Avenue.

Leif Dormsjo: Ward Circle: I had spoken to that indirectly earlier in the chat when I was talking about American University. So we’re in the process now of trying to achieve some consensus with the community to improve the crosswalks, the signage, signals. There’s particular concern on nighttime conditions and visibility through that area with so many students walking to and from campus facilities.

Leif Dormsjo: So that is an area where we want to try to do as much as we can on the traffic engineering side. We work with school officials to make sure students are paying attention to motorists and people aren’t looking at their smartphones or have their earbuds in and don’t understand what’s going on around them.

Leif Dormsjo: Florida Avenue is an area where we’ve done some study and we need to move into the more formal environmental review process because it’s designated as a federal highway. We need to go through the steps of taking account of what impacts would be caused by a roadway project there so that when we work on projects that have federal funding in them.

Leif Dormsjo: We have to study an area as exhaustively as we do, but he who has the gold makes the rules, and in this case the federal government has the gold that we’re looking for, so we’re going to make sure that we get through that environmental process responsibly. Maryland Avenue is ahead of that — it got a categorical exclusion from a much longer environmental process.

Leif Dormsjo: That might be the result for Florida Avenue, but you can’t predict what the federal interest and triggers might be. It has to be neutral from the beginning. It’s clear that you have issues with narrow sidewalks, challenging slopes, heavy traffic demand through that corridor, important community stakeholders like Gallaudet University, a growing number of residents and retail shoppers at Union Market, layered on top of some busy bike lanes in that area.

Leif Dormsjo: So you’ve got an intersection of a lot of important transportation issues along Florida Avenue and we have to methodically move through that process if we’re slow to make improvements. A lot of the development and travel demands through that corridor is going to be way far ahead of anything we’re able to do to the physical infrastructure.

Leif Dormsjo: I think that’s a great example of where we’ll have to make some down-payments on time and money to build something of permanent benefit.

David Alpert: Let’s talk about the Circulator. 3 people asked about expansions — and different ones, which perhaps illustrates the challenge.

charlie: Where is DDOT getting the new hybrid Circulator buses? When is the expansion to U st?

drumz: When can we expect circulator service on the mall?

GP Steve: When will the Circulator expand to the Cathedral?

Can you talk about the Circulator vision and plan?

Leif Dormsjo: Sure. The Circulator program has been very successful over its decade of existence and we want to make sure we continue to invest in it and it’s a high quality service that has a clear brand recognition and maintaining the 10 minute service headways is important to that.

Leif Dormsjo: We’ve run into some issues because the fleet has aged. We have replacement vehicles that are in the pipeleine. Right now our fleet is 49 vehicles — 29 are beyond their useful life — so the next priority is taking the new flyer vehicles, which are manufactured in Minnesota, and accomplish some replacements so we don’t have as many replacement issues with the fleet and traffic conditions and development, and making sure that we can really stabilize the performance, the next call on the vehicles is to selectively introduce vehicles into a route to make sure that the quality of service is really of a high standard.

Leif Dormsjo: We do have an expansion planned for the National Mall, and that’s something that you should stay tuned for. We’re going to be making some news on that in the coming days. We have the vehicles for that, and have the operators hired, in the process of going through their training to be ready to launch that this summer.

Leif Dormsjo: In the order of priority, we’re replacing the aged vehicles that have done their service. We’ll look to stabilize some of those routes — we want to arrest that schedule deterioration. Then, expand the Nationall Mall service — we think that will have great ridership and that’s going to provide a really great service to institutions that get so many visitors.

Leif Dormsjo: And we’ll look at some route extensions: the Cathedral connection and the extension from Navy Yard to Waterfront. That’s the hierarchy of how we’re thinking of the new vehicles.

David Alpert: Ask you talk about all of the things that have to be done to essentially ensure you are doing service better, what comes to mind is that this sounds great, but also, at the same time, continues to mean more steps before service can start. Is this a short-term situation, in that you have to clean up some messes but the future, leaner, DDOT will be able to launch service more numbly and quickly, or has DDOT (and maybe residents) just been unrealistic in the past about how long it takes to start up a new bus or Circulator or streetcar line?

Leif Dormsjo: I think it’s probably a bit of both. I think the department has a responsibility to address both issues. There are things we can do to improve how we function as a business. I’m seeing opportunities across the board. But in transit, we’ve been overly reliant on consultants and outside contractors. I’m purposefully trying to improve our in-house expertise so we can benefit from outside professionals — but in a way that protects our financial investments, responsibility to the public and the mission to our efforts.

Leif Dormsjo: I agree with the comment that DDOT needs to do more to improve how we tee up these projects for delivery. That’s getting better, I think. It’s growing a team and strengthening our team. I’m excited about that.

Leif Dormsjo: I think the public has had expectations that need to be informed by facts, and by good reliable information form the government, and that is at the end of the day our responsibility as public servants. So, I think that being candid, being clear, being informative about what can be done, what can’t be done, what needs to be corrected before you move forward may not be as emotionally satisfying as a hollow pledge to do something, but an earnest, sincere, realistic pledge is what the public ultimately is looking for, and that’s really the attribute I want our team to embrace — to be more open, to be more clear, but to be realistic about what we’re able to accomplish.

Leif Dormsjo: I don’t think that it’s a lack of ambition or achievement that will affect our work. I think it’s a matter of not trying to say popular things so that people will applaud our press releases. We want people to applaud our results.

David Alpert: As we wrap up, I wanted to ask one other question that several people brought up: MoveDC.

Chris Slatt asked, “Will DDOT be implementing MoveDC or will all of that extensive community engagement be tossed out the window?”

Or Randall M: “We have something called MoveDC. We’ve spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours developing it. Will the current DDOT Director and Mayor implement all, some or none of it?”

What’s the future of MoveDC?

Leif Dormsjo: I think the direct answer is that we’re going to implement some of it. That plan was the product of great community engagement and there’s no doubt that it established a blueprint for the city in terms of planning for the future growth and travel needs for the population and its community and its businesses. It was a plan. It’s not funded. It was not constrained by any budget and therefore it’s not going to self-actualize.

Leif Dormsjo: We need to be very thoughtful about which elements of the plan can be prioritize and put in the right sequence. There are billions of dollars of investments called for in the plan, but the last time I checked, I didn’t see billions of dollars flowing into the DDOT budget or the WMATA budget. I think that’s a classic example of needing to be very clear and direct about what factors contribute to the feasibility or practicality of getting things done.

Leif Dormsjo: I think there are some great elements to the MoveDC plan. It shouldn’t be abandoned. We should be thinking about how we strategically achieve as much of the program as we can — and think about how that process worked and think about future community engagement. There is a need to continue to refresh that planning but we need to have a relevant period of time to compare our future planning efforts. That is something that as we look at projects or issues that come up in our day to day work.

Leif Dormsjo: As we reorganize our capital program, we ask, “how does this fit into MoveDC? Is this helping us advance some of the priorities spelled out in MoveDC?” As a blueprint and reference point, it’s a great, great product.

David Alpert: Thanks. Just wanted to hit a few more specifics people asked about.

Corey H and tondo wanted to hear about the Southeast Boulevard. DC just reopened a freeway segment while a study is or was underway to put in a boulevard (and maybe some development) instead. Is that going to happen? How are DDOT and the Office of Planning interacting on this?

Leif Dormsjo: That’s a great question and a great issue. OP has been doing some good work in terms of alternatives analysis for that stretch of the freeway. I think the work that DDOT had done previously was more limited in its scope. It was simply looking at that highway from a transportation perspective and I’m glad OP has gotten engaged because their charge is to broaden the view to access to the river, potential development within that area, and ways to address the CSX right-of-way, which is a real barrier to the community.

Leif Dormsjo: I think we’ll work with them in partnership to complete conceptual planning and move that project into the more technically driven federal process. The work that’s being done now is really a movement away from the more transportation specific work that our department had done in the context of the 11th Street Bridge project. It’s a good sign that our agency has studied it and is open to a different way of thinking about it. I think this will be one of many examples of our agency working with OP to look at a more holistic approach.

David Alpert: Final question, from Jasper: “When will the Georgetown-Rosslyn gondola open?”

Leif Dormsjo: I think this is a project that right now is under consideration for some feasibility funding with the Council. I know there is an effort to pool some resources with Virginia to get through the basic tests of whether something like this could be done. I think I’ll have to wait and see how the Council reacts to this proposal. But in the spirit of being multi-modal I would say that we should always be open to decent ideas as long as they effectively move people at the right cost. I’ve not worked on a gondola project but that’s not to say that I won’t in the future.

David Alpert: And that’s all the time we have. Thanks so much for spending the time to talk to us!

Leif Dormsjo: Thank you, thanks for coming.

David Alpert: Thank also to all of the readers who submitted questions in comments and on Twitter; to our hardworking team of typists, Eric, Tracey, Payton, and Abigail, and everyone for reading!

David Alpert: Please post your thoughts and reactions on the comment thread for this post. And stay tuned for more live chats in the future!

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Tagged: dc, ddot, leif dormsjo, live chat, roads

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.