Dear Mayor Bowser:
Thank you for your bold leadership in addressing climate change and your work leading the District through the COVID-19 pandemic. We applaud new measures such as implementing Slow Streets as well as continued work on essential bicycle infrastructure. We agree whole-heartedly with your statement that we should not let this “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reopen our city in a way that builds a more equitable D.C.” pass us by, and with the President-Elect’s slogan that America must “Build Back Better.”
That is why it is with great urgency we ask you to formally endorse the C40 Cities Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force statement of principles [https://www.c40.org/other/covid-task-force]. This statement has already been endorsed by 12 of your fellow U.S. mayors, from Mayor Lightfoot in Chicago to Mayor Breed in San Francisco.
The DC Sierra Club strongly supports the statement of principles as a framework for action against climate change, vulnerability, and inequity. It aligns with steps you’ve already taken, can inform future decisions (such as the forthcoming 2022 budget and moveDC 2021 update), and serves as a call to other leaders to follow suit.
To highlight several of these principles:
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The recovery, above all, must be guided by an adherence to public health and scientific expertise. This aligns with your current plan for reopening, which demands certain safety metrics be met before changes are implemented. We thank you for your commitment to public safety and policy guided by science as the right way forward. We urge you to bolster your leadership in this area by endorsing this principle globally.
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Excellent public services, public investment and increased community resilience will form the most effective basis for the recovery. A hit to city coffers and transportation revenue requires tough decisions. We believe that continued investment in public services and spaces is the best way to serve the District and the planet.
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The recovery must improve the resilience of our cities and communities. Therefore, investments should be made to protect against future threats – including the climate crisis – and to support those people impacted by climate and health risks. Actions that ease risk and damage now can also prevent future threats. For example, opening streets to pedestrians and cyclists better fosters social distancing while reducing pollution, increasing the ways people of all incomes can get to work, school and other destinations in the city, and reducing the risk of severe weather caused by climate change.
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The recovery should not be a return to ‘business as usual’. The status quo maintained in 2019 was socially and environmentally unsustainable. We must not revert back.
We ask that you continue to allow road space to be used by pedestrians, cyclists, and local businesses, and we implore you to make permanent and expand many of the traffic calming measures that have been implemented during the coronavirus emergency. Specifically, we see the closure to cars of Anacostia Drive, 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan, and Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park as experiments that have tended to improve the quality of life for residents and businesses. We also believe the removal of parking in exchange for eateries and pedestrian space (for example: on 17th Street NW and Irving Street NW respectively) has benefitted those areas and could benefit other streets as well. Additionally, we support the car-free bus lanes that are part of the ReOpen DC Plan, including the one on 7th Street NW. Ensuring space for more carbon efficient forms of transportation is an important move in the direction of sustainability.
More generally, we support the Open Streets initiative to create safer spaces for pedestrians and cyclists and the continued effort to expand it through all parts of the city with engagement of local neighborhoods. We hope to see these experiments expanded beyond the current pandemic policy and beyond the current locations so that we can learn how to better allocate public space in the long run.
We can only succeed in our climate commitments if we proactively prioritize modes of transportation and living arrangements that are sustainable for our environment. This means reevaluating the primacy of cars, allowing denser housing in areas with sufficient transportation, and providing infrastructure to improve the livability of all areas.
The principles outlined by C40 center public safety, equity, and resilience against future threats — the same principles that define your leadership. We believe this recovery task force needs your voice.