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

[Margaret Rafferty]

Nicely stated Yanis. Thank you.

Margaret

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 8, 2021, at 1:44 PM, Yannis Labrou <labrou at gmail.com> wrote:


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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