[Lincolnparkdc] FINAL PLANS and DDOT's eventual solution to safety

[Yannis Labrou]

Reading a recent posting citing 2 awful incidents where the vehicle
operators did not observe current laws (and then some), I sense that DDOT's
solution to public safety is to address whatever vehicle operators do even
when they do not observe signs and traffic laws. Hence, the solution is to
make it harder and harder to own and operate a vehicle in Washington DC.
Fewer cars, fewer drivers, fewer miles driven, fewer incidents ... thus
goes the reasoning. Let's call a spade a spade. Our lost parking spots,
no-data decisions, no data-based assessments, traffic-calming eye-sores all
over the Hill, etc. are just collateral damage to a flawed thinking in
my opinion.

Incidentally, the mentioned horrific incident of the 4 year old boy being
struck by a car (and killed) happened in NW. In terms of relevance to our
street's bike lanes etc., it might as well have happened in MD or VA. It is
not relevant to the specifics of our street in terms of improving safety.
Here is a link to the accident

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/4-year-old-boy-struck-and-killed-by-suv-in-northwest-dc/2627621/
Indicative of the current thinking, is the following excerpt from the story:
           "Many residents, including Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner
Erik Lindsjo, have been pressing to make Georgia Avenue safer for
pedestrians and bicyclists.
            There’s no reason in a city where you shouldn’t drive over 20
mph anyways to have this many lanes dedicated to traffic,” Lindsjo said.
“You’re inviting tragedy.”

Yes .. take the lanes away (hmmm, Georgia Ave has two lanes in each
direction at that intersection... make it a single lane each way?) ...
Well, unless there are fewer cars, the same cars will "spread" to other
lanes, presumably not intended for that many cars. Oh ... no worries ...
DDOT will make these other lanes undriveable. Hold on ... won't drivers do
stupid things because they do not want to spend twice the time as before
trying to go from point A to point B? One can easily see that this plan of
endless (new) restrictions only works if there are fewer cars being driven
around, which appears to be  DDOT's eventual solution to safety. Never mind
the fact that Active Vehicle registrations in DC (per DC's DMV) have
increased from 275K in 2010 to 360K in 2019 (a 30% increase over 10 years)
per
https://dmv.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dmv/page_content/attachments/Historical%20Registration%20Data%20FY2010-FY2019.pdf


To sum it up: DDOT's approach to safety is to reduce parking availability,
driving lanes and miles driven at the same time that vehicle registrations
are on the rise. Does this make any sense?

Zero accidents will eventually happen when we all own autonomous vehicles
that always obey traffic laws and protect pedestrians/bikers, even when
they (pedestrians/bikers) do not obey the traffic laws; I give it 10 years
until it happens.

Until then, influencing who our elected officials and representatives are,
is the only path for those who would like to see a different approach to
safety that does not reduce safety to a war on cars at a time that more DC
residents own and operate cars.

Finally, the zoom call with DDOT back in January was a stunning display of
tone-deaf attitude and utter disregard for any viewpoint other than DDOT's.

Thank you for your time reading,
Yannis
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