Smart Growth America
Coalition for Smarter Growth (DC/MD/VA)
Partnership for Smarter Growth (Richmond)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2017

CONTACT

Stewart Schwartz, Coalition for Smarter Growth
(703) 599-6437
stewart@smartergrowth.net

Alexandra Dodds, Smart Growth America
(202) 971-3927
adodds@smartgrowthamerica.org

Andrew Moore, Partnership for Smarter Growth
(804) 283-6819
amoore@psgrichmond.org

Dangerous by Design

• New rankings show District of Columbia a significantly safer place to walk than metro region as a whole, but also finds big disparities in fatality rates within the city’s population
• Washington DC region and Hampton Roads region rank safer than Richmond and Baltimore regions
• Higher rates of pedestrian fatalities found among people of color, elderly, lower income and uninsured

<< Smart Growth America and National Complete Streets Coalition to hold a webinar at 1 pm today. >>

Washington, DC – Nationwide between 2005 and 2014, a total of 46,149 people were struck and killed by drivers while walking. That averages out to about 13 people per day. In the Washington DC region during the same period, 814 people were killed, an average of nearly one every four days.

Each one of those people was a child, parent, friend, classmate, or neighbor. People of color, the elderly, and those from low-income areas experience a disproportionate rate of fatalities. “We have a long way to go to achieve ‘Vision Zero’ in our communities – zero deaths and serious injuries – among road users,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive to Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, which works in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

Dangerous by Design 2016, a new report released today by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition ranks the 104 largest metro areas in the country as well as every state by a “Pedestrian Danger Index,” or PDI, ranking from greatest risk (1) to the least risk (104 for the regions). PDI is a calculation of the share of local commuters who walk to work (the best available measure of how many people are likely to be out walking each day) and the most recent data on pedestrian deaths.

Comparing four regions in our urban crescent

Ranking the regions in the urban crescent between Baltimore and Hampton Roads, the Washington metropolitan area ranks 69th out of 104 metro areas, and Hampton Roads 77th (better than DC region), while Richmond and Baltimore lag, ranking 44th and 55th respectively. The Richmond region, however, showed a 14 point reduction in its PDI between 2014 and 2016. “There has been an increasing focus on walking and bicycling in the Richmond region, more people living in our walkable downtown, and major public education outreach by our partners at Bike Walk RVA,” said Andrew Moore, President of the Partnership for Smarter Growth in Richmond.

DC ranks the best locally for people walking, with a PDI of 15.4, compared to the PDI for the metropolitan statistical area as a whole of 43.5. Virginia’s PDI is 41.4, but Maryland with a PDI of 77.8 lags regionally and below the national average.

“The national report shows only incremental progress in reducing the Pedestrian Danger Index in the DC and Baltimore regions, some progress in Hampton Roads (reduction of 6.5 points) and the aforementioned progress in the Richmond region (reduction of 14 points),” said Schwartz. “Of concern is the uptick in the District of Columbia’s PDI (nearly 1 point). At a time when jurisdictions across our region and nationwide are adopting ‘Vision Zero’ policies that recognize any traffic death is one too many, it’s alarming that we haven’t made more progress over the past few years. We know that better street design, slower speeds, and better reporting and enforcement make a huge impact on how safe it is to walk in a given place.”

Cities and suburbs

“With narrower streets and slower speeds, dense, walkable cities like DC tend to have safety rates better than suburbs with high-speed arterials,” said Schwartz, “That’s what we confirmed when we did a regional version of this national report back in 2008.” (Dangerous by Design 2016 doesn’t include comparative statistics for cities and adjacent suburbs).

“Wide, high-speed arterial roads in the suburbs are particularly dangerous, but can be made safer with fewer and narrower lanes, medians, signalized crossings, better sidewalks, fewer curb cuts, and protected bicycle lanes,” Schwartz continued. “State and local departments of transportation need to make safer street and arterial design a top priority.”

Social disparities

People of color and older adults are overrepresented among pedestrian deaths locally and nationwide. In the District of Columbia, African-American residents account for 48.7% of the population but more than 64.7% of pedestrian fatalities and Hispanic Americans account for 9.9% of the population but more than 13.7% of the pedestrian fatalities. All told, people of color represent 78.4% of the pedestrian fatalities in DC. “It’s imperative that Mayor Bowser and her administration step up their efforts to change street design and other safety measures if we are going to achieve Vision Zero in the city,” said Cheryl Cort, Policy Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Pedestrian fatality rates are also disproportionately high for African Americans in Maryland (29.0% of the population but 38.3% of fatalities), and Virginia (18.9% of the population but 30.6% of fatalities). Even after controlling for the relative amounts of walking among these populations, risks continue to be higher for some people of color—indicating that these people most likely face disproportionately unsafe conditions for walking.

Older adults also face greater risks. DC residents 65 and older represent 11.3% of the city’s population but 21.8% of the city’s pedestrian fatalities. “There are so many ways to make our streets and neighborhoods safer for older adults to navigate,” said Cort, author of CSG’s report, Moving an Age-Friendly DC: Transportation for All Ages. “Leaders can make our region safer for walking through measures like keeping sidewalks and crosswalks in good repair, bump-outs, and protected bicycle lanes, and making sure transit is accessible and usable.”

In addition, Dangerous by Design 2016 finds that PDI is correlated with median household income as well as rates of uninsured individuals. Low-income metro areas are predictably more dangerous than higher-income ones: as median household incomes drop, PDIs rise. Similar trends bear out with rates of uninsured individuals: as rates of uninsured individuals rise, so do PDIs, meaning that the people who can least afford to be injured often live in the most dangerous places for walking.

Read the full Dangerous by Design 2016 report, released today by Smart Growth America, at smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design.

About the organizations:

Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

Partnership for Smarter Growth educates and engages the communities in the Richmond region to work together to improve quality of life by guiding where and how the region grows. It connects residents in the nine jurisdiction region and focuses on land use planning, urban design, transit, and safer streets for walking and bicycling. Learn more at psgrichmond.org.

Smart Growth America is the only national organization dedicated to researching, advocating for, and leading coalitions to bring better development to more communities nationwide. From providing more sidewalks to ensuring more homes are built near public transportation or that productive farms remain a part of our communities, smart growth helps make sure people across the nation can live in great neighborhoods. For additional information, visit smartgrowthamerica.org.

The report is released in collaboration with AARP, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates. See the full report for all partner organization information.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2016

CONTACT
Cheryl Cort, Coalition for Smarter Growth
(202) 251-7516
cheryl@smartergrowth.net
Prince George’s adopts cutting-edge urban street designs to support transit-oriented development

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY – On Tuesday, November 15, the Prince George’s County Council voted to adopt state-of-the-practice urban street design standards. The new standards break with old highway rules by allowing the construction of safe, low speed streets that foster walkable streets in business districts and around transit stations.

“We applaud County Executive Rushern Baker and the Prince George’s County Council for adopting such progressive standards to help Metro station areas and other local centers thrive. These bold new street standards will allow transit-oriented development to be served by safer, low-speed streets where walking, bicycling and riding transit are easy options. The new standards also allow on-street parking on a major roadway – a first for the county. All these innovative urban street design standards are essential ingredients to creating successful walkable, transit-oriented business districts,” said Chery Cort, Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Until now, Prince George’s, like many jurisdictions, has used outdated rural road design standards that encourage high travel speeds and difficult crossings for people who are walking. Not only are these rural road standards unnecessarily dangerous in urban areas where people are walking or biking, they are also bad for business. Creating mixed use walkable places is the key to fostering high value transit-oriented development, and thriving traditional town centers. Without streets designed to slow down traffic to reasonable speeds, and create a comfortable walking environment, business districts and Metro stations will fail to thrive as places people will want to be. These new street designs solve this problem.

The new Urban Street Design Standards are intended to be used in the 8 Regional Transit Districts and 26 Local Centers, as established by Plan Prince George’s 2035 that have the necessary transit and transportation infrastructure to support future growth as mixed use centers.

The standards were adopted by the county following a law enacted last year asking the County Executive to provide proposed urban street design standards to the County Council in October 2016.

“The Baker administration took this assignment and ran with it. They have leaped ahead of other jurisdictions with its innovative urban street design standards. This a real boost for making transit-oriented development work with streets designed to encourage more walking, bicycling and riding transit,” said Cort. “Kudos to County Executive Baker and the County Council,” she concluded.

 

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2016

CONTACT
Chery Cort, Coalition for Smarter Growth
(202) 251-7516
cheryl@smartergrowth.net

GreenPlace program launches to show transportation benefits of new transit-oriented development

WASHINGTON DC – Today, the Coalition for Smarter Growth announced the launch of a new program to help decision-makers and consumers understand the positive impacts of living in new transit-oriented housing in the DC region.

The program, called GreenPlace, has already evaluated five District of Columbia projects during its pilot phase: 90-91 Blagden Alley, 15 Dupont Circle, 680 Rhode Island Avenue NE, 327 Cedar Street NW, and 1005 North Capitol Street NE. The project team hopes to evaluate more projects as soon as this November, according to Cheryl Cort, Policy Director at the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

GreenPlace offers people better information about the potential impact of new housing – encouraging locations, designs, and traffic reduction measures to reduce increase walking, bicycling and riding transit, and reduce traffic and pollution.

Through its certification process, GreenPlace provides people with objective, systematic evaluations of residential developments that significantly outperform regional averages in terms of:

• CO2 emissions (the leading cause of climate change)
• Traffic (vehicle-miles traveled)
• Active transportation alternatives (encouraging walking, bicycling and transit use)
• Health benefits to residents.

Households living in a GreenPlace-certified home drive only 56-67% of the regional average for daily driving (45 miles/day).

“Our region is growing. The question is how to create more homes in the right place and protect our environment,” said Cort. “GreenPlace helps answer this question by objectively assessing how much new residents will drive and how much C02 will be emitted from a new housing development. We measure the environmental performance of this new housing versus the region’s average.”

Along with community members and developers, decision-makers benefit from GreenPlace’s objective assessment. Public officials such Planning and Zoning Commissioners, Board of Zoning Adjustment members, City Council and County Board members, and other public officials need better tools for objectively evaluating the traffic and pollution reduction potential of more housing in transit-accessible locations. GreenPlace’s use of a validated land use and transportation model gives these decision-makers greater confidence in the benefits of approving more housing near transit, with the right features, making our communities and region more sustainable.

“This certification program empowers decision-makers and communities with a tool to objectively evaluate new housing. It helps assess if it’s in the right place and offering the right kinds of benefits to reduce traffic and pollution, and build a more sustainable and walkable community,” concluded Cort.

A full report detailing the methodology used to develop the program, as well as consumer-friendly one-page summaries of several pilot certifications, and information certification opportunities are available on the program’s website, smartergrowth.net/greenplace.

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth
The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 19, 2016

CONTACT
Pete Tomao, Montgomery County Advocacy Manager
(516) 318-0605
pete@smartergrowth.net

Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director
(703) 599-6437
stewart@smartergrowth.net

Smart growth advocates push back against campaign for HOT lanes on Maryland’s I-270 with alternatives that acknowledge induced travel exists

MARYLAND – Today, as part of a mounting campaign for high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on Maryland’s I-270, the Suburban Maryland Transportation Alliance (SMTA) proposed significant expansion along the entire highway from the American Legion Bridge on I-495, north into Frederick County.

In response, advocates at the Coalition for Smarter Growth voiced concern over the approach laid out by SMTA’s Richard Parsons and released a package of more effective alternatives for the I-270 corridor.

“Mr. Parsons has effectively claimed that induced travel – the basic economic principle that building more roads causes more traffic – doesn’t exist, and that’s simply wrong,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Widened highways in metropolitan areas can fill up again in as little as five years.”

“We are releasing a package of approaches for the I-270 corridor in response to Mr. Parsons’ aggressive expansion campaign,” continued Schwartz. “Over two years ago, we were the group that recommended the first-ever summit of the Montgomery County Council and Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, with the express purpose of addressing problems at the American Legion Bridge. So we’ve long been focused on smart fixes for this major commuting corridor.”

The Coalition for Smarter Growth recommended the following alternatives to end-to-end widening:

1.  Near-term extension of the I-270 bus and HOV lane to and across the American Legion Bridge to provide an important option to driving alone and move more people, more quickly through the corridor.
2. Expansion of MARC service from Frederick in accordance with the MARC investment plan, taking Frederick County residents to jobs in Montgomery and DC.
3. Expanded commuter bus service on I-270 from Frederick County, and bus rapid transit along Route 355 from Bethesda to Clarksburg. Expanded express bus service from Clarksburg to Shady Grove Metro.
4. Transit-oriented development along the Red Line in Montgomery County to handle population growth without increasing regional traffic, and enhancing the county’s competitiveness.
5. A smart growth comprehensive plan for Frederick County, to create walkable development with good access to transit, while conserving farms and forests and reducing the amount residents have to drive.
6. Continued protection of Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve and major drinking water supplies.
7. Longer-term connection of Metrorail or light rail between the Silver and Red Lines, after Metro’s rehabilitation is complete and the system is adequately funded.

“Induced travel is a very real problem. It can mean billions of wasted tax and toll dollars spent on road expansions that don’t provide long-term solutions,” said Schwartz. “That’s the path Parson’s wants to lead us on. So, while we can focus on fixing key road bottlenecks, we need to apply the rest of our resources to providing transit options and ensuring more efficient patterns of land development. Linking walkable communities with transit is the only long-term effective way to improve access to jobs and daily needs and maintain our economic competitiveness.”

In 1999, the Washington Post published a groundbreaking article documenting the induced travel effect of a previous expansion of I-270 from 8 lanes to 12 lanes. A huge volume of academic research has documented induced travel. Much of it has been compiled and summarized by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute in his paper Generated Traffic and Induced Travel, Implications for Transport Planning, 12 September 2016.

“We understand that Mr. Parsons may be talking about a public-private partnership (P3) for HOT lanes, like those in Virginia, but we don’t like to see the P3 tail wag the transportation dog. Before jumping to the conclusion that HOT lanes, and private ones at that, are the way to go for I-270, we need to look at the effects on land use and long-distance commuting, the fact that transit routinely gets the short end of the stick in these deals, and evaluate the more effective long-term approach of smart growth with transit,” said Schwartz. “P3 deals concern us because they divert significant resources — usually in large federal loans — away from transit investments, and often give all profits to the private contractor for 75 years.”

“In short, we support a package of short-term transit and HOV investments like those at the American Legion Bridge, long-lasting transit investments like Marc, Metrorail, and BRT combined with more efficient land use, and a very deliberative approach to studying the issues with full recognition of the problem of induced travel,” concluded Schwartz.

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth
The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 4, 2016

CONTACT
Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director
(703) 599-6437
stewart@smartergrowth.net

Aimee Custis, Managing Director
(202) 431-7185
aimee@smartergrowth.net

Statement on Ruling delaying the Purple Line

WASHINGTON DC—Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ordered that the “Record of Decision” for the Purple Line be set aside and that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement be conducted to update ridership numbers in view of Metrorail’s current maintenance and ridership challenges.

“We are strong supporters of the National Environmental Policy Act, and have ourselves fought for Supplemental Environmental Impact Statements when merited, but we believe that the judge’s decision is in error, and hope that the FTA and State of Maryland quickly file an appeal requesting expedited review,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “The entire project is at risk, because the delay could mean higher construction costs that undo the negotiated public-private financial structure.”

“Yes, Metrorail is facing challenges over the next few years, but the Purple Line is a long-term investment and ridership forecasts are for 2040, by which time the Metro system will have completed major rehabilitation. Therefore, there is not a ‘substantial change’ in information related to the decision to advance the Purple Line,” said Schwartz

“Certainly, our region cannot survive without Metrorail, and with coming population growth, its ridership will certainly rebound many years before 2040,” said Schwartz. “Yet it seems that the judge is presuming that Metrorail is in permanent and irreversible decline. The judge appears to be making a substantive, rather than procedural judgment and substituting his opinion for that of the experts, something judges typically seek to avoid,” Schwartz continued.

“The judge’s opinion cites case law that the ‘arbitrary and capricious standard of review is narrow and a court is not to substitute its judgment for that of the agency,’ but that’s certainly what’s happened here.”

“In addition, the relative environmental impact of the project isn’t changed by the near-term challenges at Metro. On its merits, the Purple Line will contribute to shifting trips from polluting cars to light rail with much lower emissions per passenger. It will incentivize walkable living near transit further reducing vehicle trips and pollution. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Yes, we will lose mature trees and we don’t like to see that, but the environmental benefits far outweigh the environmental costs.”

“Perhaps most unfortunate here, is that wealthy residents of one community continue to stand in the way of a transit project which would provide significant economic and social benefits to lower income residents in dozens of communities to the east,” concluded Schwartz.

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth

The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

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