Written Testimony
of
Mike Litt, Sierra Club DC Chapter
For the District Department of Transportation Performance Oversight Hearing
Before the Council of the District of Columbia’s
Committee on Transportation & The Environment
27 February 2023
Chair Allen, thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony for the performance oversight hearing on the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). My name is Mike Litt. I am a car free renter in Ward 6 and Chair of the Sierra Club DC Chapter’s Clean Transportation Subcommittee. Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. Here in DC, we have 3,000 dues-paying members and many thousands of supporters.
According to the District of Columbia's Multimodal Long-Range Transportation Plan, also known as “moveDC”, transportation is the District’s second leading source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for 21% of such emissions.
DDOT, therefore, plays a critical role in meeting the District’s goals for a 60% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2045, as required by the Climate Commitment Amendment Act.
Our national and local carbon reduction goals require both shifting more trips away from vehicles, and making sure that vehicle trips—including those on transit vehicles—are powered by clean energy. The District should continually prioritize those areas of highest needs in order to improve the city as a whole.
Please find our recommendations for making this shift through increased electrification, improved transit service and infrastructure, and bike and pedestrian safety.
Electrification
The Department of Energy & Environment (DOEE) released its long-awaited Transportation Electrification Roadmap (TER) last August to help the District transition its local transportation modes to zero-emission vehicles by 2045.
We appreciated seeing a comprehensive set of recommendations that were time bound in the roadmap. We would like to see an update from DDOT for the recommendations it is responsible for, including expanding curbside charging by 2024, developing public messaging around the public health and air quality benefits of electric buses by 2024, and identifying opportunities to share electric bus infrastructure with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
We commend DDOT for its early leadership in electrifying Circulator buses and congratulate DDOT for securing nearly $10 million in federal funds last August for 17 electric buses. We encourage it to continue securing and allocating funds for its transition to an all electric fleet by 2030. The DC Circulator Electric Bus Pilot report indicated that DDOT was developing a DC Circulator Sustainability Plan for electrifying its fleet and facilities that was anticipated to be completed in 2022. As it does not appear to have been published yet, this committee should ask for an update about the plan.
Thank you for introducing the Comprehensive Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Access, Readiness, and Sustainability Amendment Act of 2023, which would increase the number of EV chargers in the District from 250 to 7,500 by 2027 across all parts of the District. The faster Council acts to facilitate the transition to EVs the better. DDOT also can facilitate this process by identifying sites within its extensive property inventory that would be suitable.
In the meantime we look forward to updates from DDOT on the various time bound activities for FY23 listed in the District's National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Deployment Plan for using funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).
Service and infrastructure improvements
Bus Priority projects
We support continued resources for DDOT’s Bus Priority Program and its plan for up to 51 projects to improve bus speeds and reliability across all wards. Bus priority is the easiest, fastest way to improve connections between DC neighborhoods. While we appreciate the individual pages for each ward and for each project, we recommend the following:
- Up-to-date statuses on project web pages
- Brief descriptions and timelines for each project on the projects map
- A list of all bus priority projects, with brief descriptions and timelines for each to help the public assess bus priority progress across the District
We would also like to see an update on DDOT’s program to replace all of the bus shelters in the District with new, modern shelters.
DC Circulator
As moveDC explains, transit’s convenience and attractiveness to the public is determined by high-frequency service, defined as an average of every five minutes or better for rail and 10 minutes or better for buses.
We are, therefore, concerned about recommendations in DDOT’s DC Circulator 2020 Transit Development Plan Update, released last July, to change the current service level from every 10 minutes to three different service levels, ranging from 10 - 20 minute frequency. We are wary of moving in the opposite direction of high frequency service, toward hard-to-remember schedules and longer wait times. Increasing transit ridership requires improving service and reliability.
Metro for DC
We commend the Council for passing Metro for D.C., which would provide free Metrobus fares in the District and 24-hour Metrobus service on at least 12 lines, greatly benefiting many residents and increasing ridership.
We urge the Council to work with the Mayor and other stakeholders to ensure there is sufficient funding for Metro for D.C., and encourage DDOT Director Lott to enter into discussions for a buydown agreement with WMATA.
Infrastructure projects
Thank you for funding the Benning Road Reconstruction and Streetcar Extension project, which will replace and rehabilitate bridges along Benning Road, providing a much-needed transportation link for Ward 5 and 7 neighborhoods by extending the DC Streetcar to the Benning Road Metrorail station. The rebuilt Benning Road will also make it safer to walk and cycle along what is now a forbidding highway. We look forward to updates, as both its final design phase is anticipated to conclude and its project implementation is anticipated to begin this year.
The H Street Bridge NE Replacement project is needed to address safety concerns about the Hopscotch bridge, which handles streetcars, intercity buses, and crosstown traffic. We urge DDOT to prioritize completing the replacement of the H Street Bridge safely, on time, and within budget. The project website currently appears to be offline. We request bringing it back online and providing timely updates.
This committee should also ask DDOT to make sure the statuses for each of its Capital Infrastructure Projects are updated on each project’s webpage.
Bicycle and pedestrian safety
The Sierra Club welcomes DDOT’s progress and continued investment in safety measures for bicyclists and pedestrians in the form of traffic calming streetscapes and protective barriers. We thank DDOT for recent progress in installing protected bike lanes on north-south routes across the District and urge it to also ensure such protection on east-west routes.
These physical changes to the right of way play an integral part in drawing riders and walkers to trade car trips for zero-emissions modes of travel, protect those travelers who are most vulnerable to injury and death, and improve quality of life for District residents.
To date, DDOT has seemed to treat Vision Zero as an add-on, rather than the life-or-death matter it actually is. We are hopeful that the Vision Zero 2022 Update will sharpen DDOT’s focus on creating a safe system as needless traffic fatalities continue to rise. We urge dedicated resources for infrastructure and education to reduce car speeds, improve visibility of cyclists and pedestrians, and reduce the number of miles traveled by vehicles – and will support DDOT’s budget request for implementation needs. We also support the focus on the areas with the most serious crash rates and historic neglect.
Additional resources can expand both our network of on-street protected bike lanes, which keep bikes separated from cars with barriers, and our trail network, which will make it possible to bike lots of places without needing to share the road with cars at all. We wholeheartedly support the vision of a city that is accessible to cyclists of all ages and skill levels and we believe that protected cycling infrastructure will allow people to significantly reduce their reliance on cars.
We would like an update about the District’s pledge last year to create 10 miles of protected bike lanes and exceed its original goal in 2020 to build 20 miles of new protected bike lanes over three years. We would also like more timely updates about planned trail projects.
In addition to the above multimodal improvements, DDOT should give serious consideration to what it would take to make car-free streets and car-free zones across the District a reality.
Please let us know how we can help this committee work with DDOT so that sustainable public transportation, cycling, and walking in the District can take on a greater share of the trips that people make every day.
Thank you again for the opportunity to submit this written testimony.