Posts about Sidewalk Assurance Act
Budget
A toast to 2010: Top five Smart Growth moments of the year
2010 was a great year for smart growth. It was the year that biking, walking and transit communities really took off. And what a battle for Metro service we had!
Here are our choices at the Coalition for Smarter Growth for the top five smart growth achievements from the last twelve months.
1. Approval of the Tysons Corner plan: After seven years in the making, the plan will transform the infamous "Edge City" into a sustainable urban community. It's a real first for the nation, and people around the country are watching to see how it turns out.
Change doesn't happen in a vacuum, and this is no exception. It took countless phone calls, letters to elected officials and testimony by the residents of Fairfax and others throughout the region. It must have been the astoundingly frustrating traffic that kept everyone motivated to make change happen.
While the plan will take years to implement, development applications are already moving forward and the approval is the catalyst for making Tysons Corner a walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented community with a vibrant mix of homes, jobs, retail, parks and entertainment.
2. Passage of the White Flint Sector Plan: If you hang around White Flint or joined us for our walking tour, you know that White Flint, like Tysons Corner, isn't exactly a model of walkability. But with the unanimous passage of this plan (PDF), we can look forward to a vibrant, walkable center for North Bethesda anchored by the White Flint Metro station.
The plans include adding new parks and public spaces, an improved local street network, a boulevard conversion for Rockville Pike, a vibrant mix of uses, more housing choices, and better pedestrian/bicyclist access.
3. Pedestrian victories across the District: The Washington Area Bicyclist Association and Greater Greater Washington have led the way in making DC a lot more bike-friendly. But this year saw a lot of progress for pedestrians too. The DC Council passed the Sidewalk Assurance Act, ensuring that DDOT adds or completes sidewalks while they perform scheduled reconstruction of streets that have missing sidewalks. Simple, common sense.
We joined forces with Connecticut Avenue Pedestrian Action to improve walking conditions along a major dangerous roadway in the District. This grassroots-led effort, that started with volunteers in safety vests taking notes along Connecticut Avenue, concluded with the community presenting a professional pedestrian safety audit and research report (PDF) to DDOT.
Progress continued near the Minnesota Avenue Metro station with the launching of the Nannie Helen Burroughs Great Streets project. We also pushed for fixing the narrow sidewalks at the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station as part of the new development project.
4. Saving Metro service: It's been an ongoing struggle to sustain Metro service through these tough economic times, and devastating cuts were closer than ever to becoming a reality. A coalition of transit advocacy organizations, including CSG, Sierra Club, Action Committee for Transit, and Greater Greater Washington, led the way to preservation of this region's most vital asset.
Thousands of signatures sent to elected officials and the WMATA board won increased funding from the jurisdictions and avoided massive service cuts. The cuts would have hurt businesses and workers who rely on Metro every day, delivering a blow to our region's economic vitality.
Speaking of Metro, did you send your email to defend the $230 monthly transit benefit?
5. Capital Bikeshare: Strength lies in numbers, and we're thrilled with the 1,100 Capital Bikeshare bikes and 114 stations throughout D.C. and Arlington. The day the program launched, we saw tons of people on the shiny red bikes. Ridership hit nearly 37,000 trips in the first month.
Leave your bike and lock at home. Hop on a CaBi, ride to a meeting and deposit the bike at a nearby station. No worries. Combined with all the new bike lanes, it's clear that residents are increasingly choosing cycling as a mode of transportation. Just remember to wear a helmet!
Honorable mentions:
- COG reports (both PDFs) called "What Would it Take?" and "Aspirations" (the land use portion of the scenario, NOT the $52 billion in toll roads) confirmed what we've long said: transit-oriented, walkable communities are effective in reducing driving and traffic.
- Adoption of our recommendations in the Envision Prince George's report.
- Passage of the Alexandria Potomac Yard Plan.
- Passage of Arlington's Crystal City Plan.
- Governor O'Malley making transit-oriented development a priority in Maryland.
- Prince George's winning a HUD Challenge Grant for the Green Line, while the District won a large grant for affordable housing.
Wonder what else happened this year? Check out our year-end highlights.
Stewart Schwartz is Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Public Spaces
Council approves sidewalk bill with a few amendments
The DC Council passed on first reading the Priority Sidewalk Assurance Act to require installation of sidewalks on at least one side of any street being reconstructed.
Missing sidewalk in NW DC. Photo by Wayan Vota on Flickr.
Councilmember Phil Mendelson (at-large) introduced four amendments to the current bill.
The bill requires DDOT to provide notice to neighbors and the ANC, provide an opportunity for comment, and explain the construction schedule. Mendelson's amendment increases the notice period from 30 to 60 days, including 30 days for comment and 30 before.
In general, DDOT should develop a standardized process for comment on decisions, like sidewalks, bike lanes, tree prunings, intersection changes, and more. The absence of such a process is leaving a hole for the Council to legislate one, which isn't ideal but is appropriate in this case.
DDOT raised some concerns that at times, a construction project might suddenly find itself with some funds left over for a sidewalk, and they might have a short window to add one to a project that didn't need one (such as the second side of a street that already has a sidewalk on one side). On second reading, the Council might consider adding a provision waiving the notice requirement if the ANC has already passed a resolution asking for a sidewalk.
Many neighborhoods, especially in Wards 5, 7, and 8, lack sidewalks on many streets and are eager for them. Those ANCs could potentially move themselves up in the queue by preemptively requesting sidewalks if the process in those cases were shorter.
Still, sometimes when DDOT suddenly has funds and adds a piece to an existing project it creates chaos. Recently DDOT unexpectedly reconstructed the existing sidewalk on the 1600 block of Corcoran St, NW. Neighbors appreciated the repairs, but had wanted some tree boxes removed, wanted consideration of widening the narrow sidewalk, and knew DDOT was going to tear part of it up again for the 17th Street streetscape project, now under construction. Some process for public involvement, even a very brief one in that case, could have improved the situation.
Mendelson also clarified that ANC "great weight" applies to sidewalks (though that doesn't trump the law's requirement to actually install a sidewalk), recommends (but doesn't require) designing the sidewalk to preserve the health of existing trees, and gives DDOT an exemption if sidewalk construction requires damaging parkland or purchasing an easement.
Councilmember Muriel Bowser worried that this last amendment would push the sidewalk onto the side of the street with houses when one side has a park. As Marion Barry noted, however, residents on that block ought not to have to cross the street to walk down the street. Also, Twitter user srfrjulie also pointed out that a sidewalk adjacent to parkland, at least with current DC and NPS practice, is less likely to get shoveled.
Mary Cheh, the bill's author, added an amendment to recommend, but not require, "pervious surface" for new sidewalks, which would allow stormwater to seep through and reduce the amount running into streets and sewers.
Bowser ultimately voted against the bill saying that while she supports sidewalks, "the whole landscape of our city does not need to change." Of course, this would not change the "whole landscape," only a few streets, and often residents are not united about their opinion of sidewalks. But the sidewalk opponents in Ward 4 tend to be particularly wealthy and politically influential, as we saw when Mayor Fenty intervened against sidewalks in North Portal Estates.
Public Spaces
Speak for sidewalks
This morning, the entire DC Council will consider the Sidewalk Assurance Act, to ensure that political considerations don't stop sidewalks from going in when DDOT is already reconstructing streets.
Road without a sidewalk. Photo by Transportation for America.
Councilmembers Phil Mendelson (at-large) and Muriel Bowser (ward 4) are expected to introduce amendments (large PDF, pages 3 and 44) modifying the bil, the Current reported.
The bill's author, Mary Cheh, and supporters including Public Works and Transportation Chair Jim Graham have been negotiating on these amendments, reaching an agreement on some but possibly not on others.
Please take a moment to email or call your Councilmember to ask them to keep pedestrian safety paramount when they decide on these amendments. Neighborhood participation and debate over the sidewalk placement and design is appropriate and should be part of the process, but property owners should not get a veto over having a sidewalk on their street.
Sidewalks affect everyone who passes through an area, including nearby residents and visitors, and almost all streets not only serve those who live on that block but others who might be traveling to a park, school, bus stop, or neighbor's house. That's why we call the space on and adjacent to the roadway "public space," not private property.
The Council will consider the bill at 11:00 this morning, so send a quick email now.
Pedestrians
Sidewalk Assurance Act going to markup tomorrow
Tomorrow, the DC Council Committee on Public Works and Transportation will vote on a bill to require installing sidewalks on at least one side of any street reconstruction.
Photo by Transportation For America.
In many parts of DC, streets lack sidewalks. In many cases, these are the same areas with low rates of car ownership, large numbers of children walking to school, and large percentages of senior citizens.
DDOT had a policy to add a sidewalk on at least one side of any street if it was reconstructing or redoing the curbs and gutters on a street that had none. However, last year, Mayor Fenty intervened in some high-profile cases where neighborhoods were divided over sidewalks and some of his supporters or donors didn't want the sidewalks.
Some have called for provisions that let a majority of residents of a block veto sidewalks. However, this could lead to patchworks of missing sidewalks, or cases where residents on one block want to traverse another to get to school, a park, a bus stop or Metro station, but have to walk along streets where cars zip through at high speeds.
After months of discussion and negotiation, the Committee has created a bill which DDOT is able to support, and which addresses many of the concerns Councilmember Muriel Bowser raised on behalf of some of her constituents. The bill now requires DDOT to give notice of sidewalk plans, including opportunities for residents to comment, demands preserving trees as much as possible, and provides for certain fixed exemptions.
The exemptions allow DDOT to skip a sidewalk when the cost would be too high, a sidewalk would get no use, or the DDOT Director certifies in writing that the road with no sidewalk is just as safe to children, people with disabilities, and other pedestrians as it would be with a sidewalk. In those cases, they must issue a written report to that effect, ensuring that such decisions are out in the open as opposed to backroom political maneuvers.
Councilmember Kwame Brown (at-large) represents a key vote on the Committee for the bill, and has not yet taken a firm position. Call his office at (202) 724-8174 or email kbrown@dccouncil.us and ask him to support the bill. All streets should be safe for pedestrians, not just some streets.
Public Spaces
Sidewalks belong everywhere, even where Fenty friends live
Residents of the North Portal Estates neighborhood thought they were getting a nice, new street reconstruction, including sidewalks to keep themselves and their children safe. That is, until one politically-connected resident intervened personally with Mayor Fenty. Now, DDOT has just finished reconstructing several main streets in the neighborhood as wide roads for cars to speed, without protection for pedestrians heading to work, school and stores.
Tamarack St. Photo by thisisbossi.
North Portal Estates is DC's northernmost neighborhood, nestled into the northern corner of the city where the streets are named for trees and flowers. The neighborhood consists of single-family houses a short walk from Silver Spring, where many residents, such as Katherine Trimble, use Metro to get to work. She walks downhill along Tamarack Street to reach 16th and enter Maryland. Many cars, too, drive downhill, and often at high speed, making many residents feel unsafe in their neighborhood.
In March, DDOT representatives told the neighborhood that sidewalks would be part of the planned reconstruction of Verbena and Tamarack Streets and East Beach Drive. Many residents welcomed this news. Some others, including the leaders of the North Portal Estates Civic Association, argued that the neighborhood doesn't need sidewalks. DDOT has a policy of installing sidewalks on at least one side of every street when they do a reconstruction.
Soon after, however, pedestrian advocates learned that DDOT had dropped the sidewalks on direct orders from Mayor Fenty. According to sources within DDOT, a politically influential resident affiliated with the civic association asked the Mayor to delete the sidewalks. Without any official public notice, DDOT made the change. The crews have just wrapped up their work, finishing the curbs without sidewalks and repaving the streets. Residents will have to dodge speeding cars for decades more until it's time again to redo those streets.
Streets just reconstructed without sidewalks in red.
Sidewalks should be a part of every street reconstruction. Even in more suburban parts of the city, people walk, and our street designs should encourage them to. Where neighborhoods have no sidewalks, the streets are almost always plenty wide to add sidewalks on at least one side without shrinking anyone's front yards or destroying trees.
Last year, Councilmember Mary Cheh introduced a bill to require sidewalks on at least one side of every street when DDOT reconstructs a street. The Council didn't act on the bill last year, because DDOT assured them it already had a policy in place. Now that we know the Mayor will waive the policy for friends, it's time to pass the bill. The Council is holding a hearing this afternoon on this year's version.
However, the draft bill still leaves too much wiggle room for exceptions based on politics. It lets DDOT "issue a finding that it is impractical or unnecessary to install a sidewalk if the Director determines that the physical site conditions would make it impossible or unduly expensive to construct the required sidewalk, or if it would lead nowhere and would be highly unlikely to serve any pedestrians." That's a loophole big enough to drive a road crew through.
Instead, the bill should set specific, objective standards for those situations where a project may continue without sidewalks. Those standards could factor in the zoning classification (commercial street should always have sidewalks), the street classification (collector streets should always have sidewalks), the number of residences (even more than a handful is enough), and whether a street is dead-end or is near a school or park.
The bill should also require public notice and hearings before any project proceeds without sidewalks. If DDOT fails to meet these standards, the bill should prohibit spending any money on the project. It's too bad DC laws need such clear measures, but as we've seen from inclusionary zoning or fire trucks on cable TV, Mayor Fenty has shown few qualms about flouting the expressly stated wishes of the DC Council.
Pedestrians
Missing sidewalks stir debate
Streets in DC that lack sidewalks often coincide with high concentrations of seniors, who need sidewalks all the more. At a recent hearing on DDOT's budget, Marlene Berlin, head of the DC Senior Transportation Initiative for IONA Senior Services, presented maps showing the sections of DC with the most senior citizens, many of which are also the most lacking in sidewalks.
Left: streets without sidewalks (red) as of May 2007. Image from the DDOT Sidewalk Gap Analysis.
Right: census tracts with the highest concentrations of senior citizens. Image from Marlene Berlin.
Berlin explained that many seniors rely on walking for transporation (as do many non-seniors), and missing sidewalks, especially between their homes and the nearest shops or bus stops, create dangerous situations for people already more vulnerable to being hit and killed by vehicles. She urged the Council to fund sidewalks and close the gaps.
DDOT's general policy calls for adding sidewalks when reconstructing a road without them. However, neighbors don't always agree. Some have organized to oppose sidewalks in Hawthorne, a small triangular neighborhood at DC's northern border on the west side of Rock Creek Park. DDOT plans to install new sidewalks on Beech Street this year. Some opponents have posted lawn signs reading "No Sidewalks in Hawthorne". Resident Elliott wrote,
If the people in Hawthorne don't support sidewalks, then let's honor their choice. Personally, I live in Hawthorne, there are no sidewalks on my street, and I like it the way it is. In fact when I moved here and saw there were no sidewalks, I felt as if that was a plus.Others on the Chevy Chase email list, however, disagree. Resident Jim wrote,
Whether to have sidewalks should not be left up to the residents of the block, any more than whether to have streetlights or, for that matter, paved roads. A network of sidewalks is not built primarily for the residents of any one block, but rather for all of us who want to go safely from one place to another by foot.Sidewalk supporters pointed out that the edges of roads without sidewalks are often poorly paved, and cars often speed. Residents with children or dogs especially cited feeling unsafe walking on streets lacking sidewalks. Another pointed out that sidewalks do improve property values (while simultaneously urging residents of the area to refer to it as part of Chevy Chase, rather than as Hawthorne).
One issue about adding sidewalks involves where to place them. Currently, homeowners have landscaped and sometimes planted flowers in the "public park(ing)" area beside each street. They understandably hesitate to pave over these gardens. Where space permits, we should place the sidewalks inside the current roadbed, which would also slow traffic by narrowing the streets. Fortunately, according to resident Katie, most of the streets in Hawthorne are already fairly wide, allowing for new sidewalks that don't disturb existing green spaces.
Update: Here's DDOT's sidewalk policy. It says, "There shall be a sidewalk on at least one side of every street or roadway where pedestrians are legally permitted in the District of Columbia, and all new street designs shall include sidewalks on both sides of the street."
Pedestrians
Assuring sidewalks vs. assuring good sidewalks
At the beginning of 2007, Mary Cheh introduced a bill (cosponsored by Barry, Brown, Wells and even, yes, Schwartz) to require sidewalks be installed on at least one side of a street when it's being reconstructed or resurfaced.
11th and M, SE. Photo by David Alpert.
Yes, there are streets in DC without sidewalks, and sometimes it's even controversial. For example, Ordway Street in Cleveland Park lacked a sidewalk on one side, a particularly glaring omission given that the NCRC nursery school is on the sidewalk-free side. When, recently, the school fought with neighbors over plans to increase enrollment, some opposed adding that sidewalk in the hope that by keeping the area unsafe for kids, it would make it easier to oppose more kids.
Fortunately for the kids, DDOT believes in sidewalks, and put the second one in on Ordway. That might be an argument why we don't really need the Sidewalk Assurance Act of 2007. (Besides, since Ordway already had one sidewalk, this bill wouldn't have applied.) The bill would be really useful, however, if it required not just sidewalks, but pedestrian-friendly ones.
Remember the 17th Street reconstruction, where the intersections with Q and R Streets widen (and the sidewalks narrow) near the corner? If we want a real sidewalk law, it could require DDOT to remove any of those anti-bulb-outs (bulb-ins?) when redoing a street, or provide a written explanation as to why that's impractical. Likewise, we could even require bulb-outs on any corner where the curb lane is used for parking 24-7, or a written explanation why not.
We could have a minimum sidewalk width, with justification needed to build or keep anything narrower. We could require a minimum number of street tree boxes. Really, what we need is a comprehensive set of road standards that contain pedestrian improvements by default, instead of having to push each time to add suitable pedestrian facilities after engineering designs are already partially complete.
Ideally, DDOT would develop a good set of standards themselves, and follow transparent decisionmaking practices to give communities clear explanations when they're not feasible (if the turning radius might have to be larger for emergency vehicles, for example). But we don't have that, and unless we get a visionary leader to run DDOT, perhaps legislation is the only way to fix what ails our street designs.
If you're interested in bringing up this or other sidewalk issues at the hearing, it would be great for Jim Graham to hear from residents. (I'll be in Charleston, South Carolina.) It's at 10 am tomorrow (October 31) in the Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW), Room 500.
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