With your help, we can help Capitol Heights Metro station turn into a safer, more walkable, vibrant mix of housing and businesses with great places to catch the bus and Metro.
Category: Safe Streets for Biking and Walking
Joint WABA-CSG letter on Increasing Road Fatalities and Visualize 2050
The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) and the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) – two of the region’s leading advocates for walkable, bikeable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities – respectfully write to provide comment on the ongoing and disturbing traffic fatality and serious injury trends highlighted by TPB staff in their draft Annual Regional Transit and Highway Safety Targets report and presentation.
TPB Nov 2023 Board Comments
We ask TPB members to make safety investments for vulnerable road users a higher priority in your Visualize 2050 project submissions and in your local plans, budgets, and project designs. Please see our joint letter with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association in the meeting packet.
Hear updates and speak up for safer streets in Culmore
Our continued safe streets efforts in Culmore have prompted a second public meeting this Wednesday! Fairfax County and VDOT will be providing an update on safety improvement projects that were announced at last year’s packed community meeting where residents rallied for safer streets in the Culmore neighborhood of Bailey’s Crossroads.
Comments on MDOT Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP) Tour FY24-29, Prince George’s County
As a member of the statewide Transform Maryland Transportation Coalition (TMTC), we ask MDOT to flex 50% of the federal funds, as allowed by federal law, from the Surface Transportation Block Grant and National Highway Performance Program formulas towards needed investments in eligible transit, safer streets, bicycle, and pedestrian projects, and transit vehicle electrification.
Press Release: ACPS award for School Bus Electrification Project
On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments will present a Climate & Energy Leadership Award in the Educational Institution Sector to Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) for its Electric School Bus program. According to the COG agenda materials, ACPS will have 15 electric school buses, representing 12% of its fleet, and will be the second largest electric school bus fleet in Virginia and the third largest on the East Coast after Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD public schools.
TAKE ACTION: These two projects would put Prince George’s on the wrong road
We have two urgent actions we need you to take. Two massive road projects would undermine a sustainable and prosperous future for Prince George’s County.
We can’t save Downtown Largo by destroying it
Rethink the I-495/Medical Center Drive interchange project
FACT SHEET
CSG in VCN’s 2024 Our Common Agenda: Saving Pedestrian Lives
The massacre on our roadways is the result of worsening speeding, larger vehicles like SUVs and trucks with limited visibility, increases in driver impairment and distraction, and roadway design that prioritizes cars’ speed over the lives of the Commonwealth’s residents. The tools to reverse this tragic trend are as simple as sidewalks and pedestrian refuges, but Virginia needs policy and resources to make a change.
CSG Testimony in Support of the Walkable Urban Streets Act
September 8, 2023
Council Member Eric Olson
Chair, Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee (TIEE)
Prince George’s County Council
Wayne K. Curry Administration Bldg., 1301 McCormick Drive, 2nd Floor, Largo, MD 20774
Dear Chair Olson:
Please accept this letter on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG). CSG is the leading non-profit organization in the Washington, D.C. region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Our 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.
Thank you for introducing the Walkable Urban Streets Act, and our thanks as well to the eight co-sponsors. We are enthusiastic supporters of the Walkable Urban Streets Act, Council Bill 69-2023 and its companion resolutions CR 67-2023 and CR 68-2023.
This legislation updates and codifies DPW&T’s 2017 Urban Street Design Standards. These standards are to be applied to Regional Transit Districts and Local Centers as designated in Plan 2035. They will help build safer streets, especially for people walking and biking, and they will support transit-oriented development, a major priority of Prince George’s County.
The legislation is greatly needed for two reasons. First, the county’s roads are dangerous because they are too wide and too high speed. Fast, wide roads generate more severe crashes and the county leads the DC region in traffic and pedestrian deaths. The second reason to adopt this legislation is because walkable, bike-friendly street designs are necessary for high-quality and competitive transit-oriented development.
Despite prior adoption of the 2017 Urban Street Design Standards, DPIE and DPW&T have not taken advantage of opportunities to create the kinds of safer, vibrant, walkable, transit-oriented streets and places envisioned in Plan Prince George’s 2035. In fact, the streets in and near transit centers have remained overly-wide, fueling high speed traffic, making the roads dangerous for all users – people walking, bicycling, riding transit, and driving. For specific examples, see our companion fact sheet: Examples of urban street projects falling short of the 2017 standards.
One key reason is that the county’s traffic models often overpredict future traffic volumes, and do not adequately account for the increased walking, biking, and transit use in transit-oriented communities. Designing only for projected vehicle travel becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The wider and faster the road, the less inviting it is for people walking, biking or taking transit, and the more driving it attracts.
This approach gives priority to speed over safety. It also undermines the economic development that occurs in a place where cars are slower and people want to be – the walkable, mixed-use, transit-accessible centers of activity that have been so successful in other parts of the region. In fact, some congestion is an indicator of a successful local economy. Plan 2035 recognizes this and the county’s transportation review standards allow for an urban level of traffic volumes on streets around mixed use transit centers and a focus on improving access by means other than driving.
The updated Urban Street Design Standards proposed in this bill require safer streets around transit districts and local centers, and include these components:
- 25 mph design speed maximum
- 2-4 travel lanes total roadway maximum
- 10′ travel lane widths (11′ for bus routes)
- 15′ corner radii (and no slip lanes/high speed turn lanes)
- Buffered walk and bike facilities
- On-street vehicle parking with bulbouts (where appropriate)
The Walkable Urban Streets Act will ensure the county is planning and building the streets needed for improved safety, people-oriented places, and economic success.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Cort
Policy Director