Posts about Nancy Floreen

WMATA has been promoting ideas around bus priority for a number of years now. Quite simply, buses spend a fair amount of time in traffic, and that time costs a lot of money. Some of the growth in operating costs comes from more time in traffic. If buses can move more efficiently, it saves on costs and also improves the bus ride for everyone.

Traditional traffic engineering measures intersections and roads based on numbers of vehicles. If changing a signal timing would let more vehicles traverse the intersection, classic traffic engineering says make the change. But we really should be counting people. If one bus has 50 people and a change would help it move faster than 20 cars, giving the bus priority is the right move.

Montgomery County's DOT, notoriously one of the least progressive in the region, has been resistant to this thinking. When activists suggested a few intersections for signal timing, signal priority, or queue jumper lanes, MCDOT pooh-poohed them all but didn't suggest any alternatives of their own.

At a recent county council hearing on transit, MCDOT officials said that any of these fixes would "have to wait" until the county implements a comprehensive Bus Rapid Transit system, like the one being pushed by Councilmember Marc Elrich.

The council disagrees. In a letter to MCDOT and WMATA officials, councilmembers Hans Riemer and Nancy Floreen (at-large), council president Valerie Ervin (district 5, Silver Spring/Takoma Park), and Transportation, Energy, Infrastructure & Environment committee chair Roger Berliner (district 1, Bethesda/Potomac/Chevy Chase) asked MCDOT in effect to get off its butt and start doing something.

They ask MCDOT, Maryland State Highway Administration, and WMATA to generate a list of the highest priority intersections for bus priority fixes, to evaluate the possibility of changes, release that information publicly in a way that residents can review, and to generate a policy to guide such changes.

Kudos to the council for stepping up on this issue. Montgomery County is often one of the most progressive counties on many policies, but its transportation officials need some prodding to pursue solutions beyond just focusing on moving cars. They should take this letter to heart and get their staff, and the buses, moving.

Sweden, long known for its excellent road safety record, has led the way in creating a new paradigm for addressing this persistent public health problem. In 1997, the Swedish Parliament adopted the "Vision Zero" policy, which sets a goal of reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries to zero.

While there will continue to be crashes on Swedish roadways resulting in recoverable injury, the underlying philosophy of Vision Zero rests on an ethical understanding that death and lifelong suffering from severe injury are not acceptable byproducts of our transportation system.

We accept this ethical standard for our freight rail, mass transit and air travel systems but each day, our roadway system gets a pass on unnecessary tragedy. Most crashes resulting in death or serious injury, involving all types of road users, are caused not by willful negligence on the part of the road user. They often involve everyday people on roads that put them at unnecessary risk.

It doesn't have to be this way. A generation ago, we recognized the role of vehicle safety and created a vehicle-based safety culture focused on seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes. The safety culture then broadened to include operator behavior, with a focus on drunk driving, road rage, and distracted driving. It's time to systematically include roadway design in our safety culture.

At a Montgomery County Council transportation subcommittee hearing last month, council member Marc Elrich argued that the number of roadway deaths could never be reduced to zero.

"People will die as long as they do stupid stuff," Erlich said. "You can't make this world so safe that no one can be harmed."

In a follow-up, Elrich aide Dale Tibbitts added, "Of course we wish to make environment safe for everyone," listing various pedestrian safety initiatives in the county. "Despite all these efforts," he argued, "if a driver, a pedestrian or a bicyclist acts negligently, the County cannot prevent every tragic incident." Tibbitts continued, "When the police report to us that a person dressed in dark clothing stepped out in Georgia Ave on a dark night and was struck by a car traveling 35-40 mph and was killed, that is beyond the scope of what the Council can legislate and fund."

The "Vision Zero" philosophy does not envision a magical world where nothing bad happens on our roadways. Crashes will continue to happen. Suicides and reckless behavior will always lead to tragedy. But there are thousands of deaths and serious injuries each year caused not by reckless behavior but by a system that is dangerous by design, where pedestrians have to walk unreasonable distances to a safe crossing along high-speed roadways through populated areas.

At present, road users are operating within a system that encourages speeding, especially along corridors such as Georgia Avenue. As council member Nancy Floreen noted at the same meeting, "We should give greater thought to our design standards. Who's winning the speed battle? Shouldn't we do all we can to allow the pedestrians more respect than our systems currently allow?" This philosophy balances responsibility on two parties: roadway users and roadway designers.

The defeatist attitude that death and serious injury will always happen on our streets has become the conventional wisdom for our roadways, but not for our railways, airways or transit systems. We wouldn't be complacent if thousands of Americans died each year on our nation's subways or airplanes, but that's exactly what happens on our roads.

When it comes to preventing death and serious injury, we too often focus on individual behavior and vehicle safety but ignore the crucial role of roadway design, which leads to one of the deadliest ingredients in any crash: speed. Road design changes, such as traffic calming, have proven effective at improving road safety.

Most roadway deaths and serious injuries are preventable. Why have we convinced ourselves that they are not?

Cross-posted at Struck in DC.

Marc Elrich has been a strong proponent of a Bus Rapid Transit network, pushing the idea tirelessly and making it a signature issue. However, he's also the strongest defender of traffic-based tests that in effect hinder walkable development.

Nancy Floreen pushed through the White Flint plan, one of Montgomery's biggest opportunities for meaningful transit-oriented development, and opposes the traffic-based tests that Elrich likes. On the other hand, she also opposes most rules that would limit development in rural areas far from transit. She generally advocates building in the county and is less discerning about what or where.

George Leventhal has been a leader in the fight for the Purple Line, and for transit in general in the county. Yet he also strongly supported widening I-270, and basically favors any transportation project of any kind in any location. Duchy Trachtenberg has been good on the environment and transit issues as well and not a road booster, but hasn't shown as much leadership on growth and transportation issues generally.

I'd recommend Montgomery residents (like my in-laws) vote for Mr. Riemer and decide among the other candidates based on the other issues, like schools, budgets, labor relations and many more. If you're not sure of some of the candidates, it's also fine to vote for only two or three. Leaving a blank or two on the ballot makes the votes you do cast count even more, as the top four total vote-getters win the seats.

Two district seats are also contested, which happen to be the two that had Montgomery's greatest development debates in the last few years. District 1 includes Chevy Chase, Bethesda and Potomac, and has significant numbers of residents who oppose the Purple Line and/or White Flint. Roger Berliner, the incumbent, has championed both projects a good future for his area despite the short-term political risk. Meanwhile, his challenger, Ilaya Hopkins, has chosen to throw her lot in with the antis. Mr. Berliner should be reelected to prove that anti sentiment doesn't drive Montgomery politics.

In District 2, the suburban and rural northern part of the County, former Planning Board Chair Royce Hanson is the best choice for the open seat. He's been a strong proponent of Smart Growth on the Planning Board, and was largely responsible for the Agricultural Reserve, the large belt of (mostly) protected land at the County's edge, much of which is in that district. His support for the sprawl development at Gaithersburg West was more of a disappointment, but his multi-decade track record warrants your vote.

The other district members, Phil Andrews, Nancy Navarro, and Valerie Ervin, do not have primary challengers.

In this particular case, many people in the community support the plan. And for many Councilmembers, including Floreen, that makes a big difference.

Floreen said (as transcribed by FLOG:

I love the White Flint Plan. Because the community defined what it wanted and said the community character is what matters most. I have come to say that's how you should find out what matters.

I will lie down in the middle of Rockville Pike if you make the intersection at Strathmore any bigger. People can't walk across Strathmore because of the speeds drivers think they're entitled to. ...

We're letting the wrong standards drive us. I can't explain the difference between 30 seconds and 40. People who live within WF want to see some real improvements.

Based on comments, Councilmember Marc Elrich (at-large) seemed most hesitant to change the rules, while Councilmember Roger Berliner (District 1, which include the area) and Duchy Trachtenberg (at-large) support approving the White Flint plan.

They might also end up complaining about traffic jams. According to the report by MdTA's consultant for toll rates, maximizing revenue on I-270, as they are on the ICC, depends on "operational failure"—traffic jams. In short, despite officials' pronouncements that this project will relieve congestion, most likely the road will end up with jammed free lanes and free-flowing yet expensive HOT lanes which local politicians will again denounce as inequitable "Lexus lanes" or "highway robbery."

With the ICC, opponents repeatedly warned residents and leaders that this "sticker shock" was likely. Their claims fell on deaf ears, but now are turning out to be spot on. How many members of the Montgomery Council will suddenly discover problems with the I-270 HOT lanes once it's too late? Their best hope is that it will take so long to build the road that they won't be around any more.

Frequent candidate Robin Ficker has joined in the ICC toll whining. He wants Maryland to divert some of its statewide sales tax and upcoming slot gambling revenue to make the ICC free. Michael Dresser notes that the sales tax pays for other services that benefit more Maryland residents, like education, and Montgomery isn't welcoming any slots within its boundaries.

But if Ficker is so eager to use sales tax and slots money for transportation, why not advocate using some of the money to make Metro and the Baltimore transit systems free? Or, better yet, use it to improve MARC? Why do leaders, including anti-tax crusaders like Ficker, want public money to keep driving free but don't bat an eyelash at the rising costs of transit?