Testimony of
Aykut Yılmaz
Sierra Club, Washington DC Chapter
Committee on Transportation and the Environment Oversight Hearing District Department of Transportation
Friday, February 26, 2021
Introduction
Thank you, Councilmember Cheh, for the opportunity to testify today about the performance of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). My name is Aykut Yılmaz, and I’m the Chapter Vice Chair of the Sierra Club DC Chapter. The Sierra Club is the nation’s oldest, largest and most influential environmental advocacy organization. We have about 3,000 dues-paying members in DC, and we work to reduce greenhouse emissions, expand sustainable transportation, reduce waste and ensure safe and clean water.
We would like to thank former Director Jeff Marootian for his service to Washington, DC and DDOT over the past four years and wish him great success in his new role in the Biden Administration. We appreciated his willingness to meet with us over the years and expansion of the District’s alternative transportation options, and we look forward to working with Interim Director Lott and the eventual permanent director to advance these same goals.
COVID-19 Response
We appreciate the work DDOT has done while the pandemic has completely changed the nature of transportation and our roads. We appreciated the quick work undertaken last year to implement the Slow Streets initiative and for continuing to develop and expand this program further. We support the streamlining of rules to allow more and quicker access to public spaces currently occupied by motorized vehicles during this emergency. We also thank the Council and the leadership of this committee and Councilmember Allen for passing the Vision Zero Enhancement Omnibus Amendment Act of 2020 to further the goal of making streets a safe place for bicyclists and pedestrians during the ever expanding demands for safer shared spaces. We believe that this flexibility and transfer of public space from automobiles to more sustainable forms of transportation and other uses should continue beyond the pandemic with community feedback.
We also appreciate DDOT for making the DC Circulator free during this period. While studies have largely shown the safety of public transportation with the COVID-19 measures already put into place, this measure provides added separation for passengers and drivers. A free Circulator also provides financial relief to populations who continue to rely on it during this challenging time.
We also appreciated the acceleration of several projects, namely completion of the Crosstown Cycletrack, during the time when road use had slowed down.
Vision Zero
Unfortunately, the news isn’t all good. While we recognize that there have been some successes in the adaptability of the department, and we recognize that the pandemic has caused financial and logistical difficulties, we are disappointed to see many of the basic targets of the department are far from being met. Among them:
● Reducing the number of vehicle fatalities
● Reducing the number of pedestrian fatalities
● Increasing the percent of Circulator buses arriving on time
● Increasing the percent of sidewalk blocks completed in the sidewalk plan
● Increasing the miles of bike lanes installed
● The percent of pothole service requests filled and closed out within 72 hours
The failure to meet these targets is a failure in the fundamental goals of this department and should not be swept aside or ignored because of the circumstances of last year. In order to improve the safety, mobility, and sustainability of transportation across the city, the department needs to evaluate in detail the ways in which it has failed and how it can improve in these very basic measures of our transportation system.
Equity
Vehicular violence disproportionately affects Wards 7 and 8. According to DDOT’s 2020 statistics, the combined number of deaths in these two wards outpaced the rest of the District, combined.1Infrastructure is lacking in these areas. We were disappointed that Ward 8 specifically was excluded from requirements to expand bike lanes and Safe Streets. While this was neither DDOT’s goal nor its ultimate doing, unfortunately it reflects a distrust of the agency’s motives in certain quarters. Clearly, more work is needed from DDOT and the advocate community, and we are interested in working together to this end.
This isn’t merely a safety issue. Economic equity also centers around access to public transportation. One study found that a short commute was a stronger indicator of upward economic mobility than many other factors studied, including race.2 Strong and reliable transportation, especially to jobs, is an important way to address inequality in combination with smarter land-use policies.
Communities east of the Anacostia River are clamoring for more resources to address these inequities. Many Ward 7 citizens recently signed an open letter asking for more resources to bring bike and bus lanes to their ward, as well as asking for more bus shelters.3 Despite the reliance on buses, only 10 percent of bus stops in Ward 7 have shelters compared to 16 percent District-wide. Meanwhile, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of the general failure to promptly address missing stop signs, unsafe intersections, and broken sidewalks in a timely manner. Residents are also asking for transit priority lanes for H St NE and East Capitol St. Addressing these shortcomings doesn’t require equal funding, but instead greater funding to these communities to both make up the infrastructure gap and to develop meaningful outreach and community input for specific projects. We urge DDOT and the Council to support the talk on equity with the funds to match it.
We did want to acknowledge several key commitments from DDOT on equity issues. First, they have finally started the process for updating the District’s moveDC comprehensive transportation plan while committing to focus on equity within the feedback and planning processes. We are pleased with the outreach so far and look forward to continuing to work with DDOT on the update. Second, DDOT has continued to progress on projects important to Ward 7, including the DC Streetcar expansion to Benning Road. We hope that DDOT and Council share our vision for eventually making this a holistic transportation system by continuing its expansion west, giving Ward 6 and 7 communities access to the downtown core on a single trip.
Implementing the Transportation Benefits Equity Amendment Act
Thank you, Councilmembers Allen and Cheh, for your leadership to enact the Transportation Benefits Equity Amendment Act of 2020 last year. The Sierra Club supports incentives for commuters to use alternatives to single-occupied vehicles. Once implemented, this Act will provide an important counterbalance to the millions and millions of dollars spent by District employers to subsidize single-vehicle parking.
Unfortunately, DDOT is overdue on issuing rules to implement this Act. The Act required DDOT to issue regulations to implement its provisions within 90 days of its enactment, which occurred on June 24 last year.4 That deadline has long since passed, and it is unclear when a rule will be forthcoming. At the same time, the number of commuters using public transportation has plummeted due to the pandemic and remains quite low, while driving conversely has rebounded significantly. We urge DDOT to issue this rule without delay.
Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
With the automobile market shifting toward electric vehicles, the Sierra Club wants the rules surrounding electric vehicle charging stations to promote the use of clean energy by creating a robust market for these stations that is affordable and easily understood by consumers. We support DDOT's commitment to creating a rules framework that promotes the disbursement of charging stations in an equitable manner throughout the District while still making them a profitable investment for companies to install. We want those people who purchase cars in the District to feel confident that they can buy an electric vehicle and affordably charge it in public spaces.
Street Lights
Since the committee's last DDOT performance hearing, the agency has taken significant strides toward converting all the District's street lights to energy-efficient LEDs. Most notably, in December DDOT published a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) that covers both financing and technical specifications for the conversion project.
DDOT published the draft RFP during the busy holiday season and allowed just 28 days for public comments -- a remarkably brief period for an 1,800-page document that was years in development. Given these circumstances and the environmental impacts of a citywide lighting system, the draft RFP deserves close scrutiny by the committee.
We strongly support the LED conversion project for its potential to reduce energy consumption. A key advantage of LED fixtures is their highly focused beam that reduces wasteful extraneous light. On the pavement itself, however, DDOT's proposed approach to illumination – and therefore the amount of energy used – is deeply flawed because the agency plans to replicate the District's existing light levels, which are often excessive. Some streets have up to seven times the amount of light sufficient for traffic and pedestrian safety according to nationally recognized standards.
DDOT has responded to concerns about overlighting by noting that LED fixtures can be dimmed in response to neighborhood requests. But that assumes the entire city will be overlit when the LED streetlights are installed, with piecemeal reductions in light possible on an ad hoc basis in the future.
To avoid a legacy of wasteful excessive light on District streets, DDOT should limit light levels to the minimums recommended by the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) or the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
DDOT's technical specifications reduce the amount of wasted "uplight" from the ubiquitous Washington globe fixtures but still allow the globes and teardrop fixtures to emit a certain amount of light upward into the sky, where it serves no purpose. The specifications for both of those fixtures should be revised to prohibit all uplight.
Compared to existing street lights, LED fixtures will emit more blue-wavelength light, a critical factor in their environmental impact. Blue light is the most biologically active; it causes more dangerous glare than traditional lighting and plays a major role in suppressing the hormone melatonin, which regulates our circadian cycles. It impacts humans and wildlife.
DDOT has taken a laudable step by proposing that residential streets have warm-white LED fixtures rated at the relatively low correlated color temperature of 2700 Kelvin. (Lower Kelvin ratings mean less blue light is emitted.) The agency also has stated it will employ low-Kelvin lights on park trails.
Unfortunately, though, DDOT's technical specifications propose higher 3000-Kelvin LEDs on busier streets, including some with residential housing. The specifications should be revised to call for warm-white 2700-Kelvin fixtures on all streets, regardless of their traffic volume or surrounding land usage. This would follow the example of environmentally progressive cities such as Phoenix, which already has installed 100,000 warm-white 2700-Kelvin LED streetlights citywide.
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to answer any questions you may have.