J. I. Swiderski, MURP @swiderski@transportation.social
- https://twitter.com/swiderskiji
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/erskiji/
active & public transportation advocate and planner; lifelong walker and somewhat-more-than-occasional bike rider.
fan of maps, transit, & cities; baseball, hockey, and football; puns; oxford commas; semicolons; and, above all, bus stuff.
Joined Nov 2022
This year's #RideofSilence will be May 15. Mark your calendars and plan to take a moment out of #BikeMonth to honor those who are no longer with us.
#BikeDC details TBD, tentatively same as 2023. https://rideofsilence.org/locations-domestic.php?s=DC
Not in DC? Find or list yours at https://rideofsilence.org/
🌻
“Including a few design features for pedestrians and cyclists is not enough. Following a Complete Streets approach means prioritizing the safety of all road users and designing for safety over speed.”
Yes, even in rural areas people walk, roll, and ride bikes, and deserve to be safe doing so.
https://smartgrowthamerica.org/what-it-means-to-follow-a-complete-streets-approach-in-rural-america/
J. I. Swiderski, MURP
boosted
Looking for a last minute gift? Give a bicycle to someone in need in Ukraine!
Bikes4Ukraine ships used, fixed up bikes to Ukraine. There they are used – without fuel, able to go past "potholes" from bombs and rubble from toppled buildings – to deliver food, water, medicine, etc to those in need.
Everybody needs transportation. And in a crisis a bike can be the perfect tool!
You get a gift card to print/email as a gift.
https://bikes4ukraine.myshopify.com/products/give-a-used-bike-to-ukraine
20-49 also mandates that "The Mayor shall require permittees blocking a…pedestrian or bicycle path to provide a safe accommodation for pedestrians and bicyclists" and "treat the blockage of a…pedestrian or bicycle path the same as the closure of a lane of traffic, and…apply similar regulations…."
In your second decade, may *all* your provisions be implemented and effective!
Happy tenth anniversary to DC Law 20-49, the “Bicycle Safety Amendment Act of 2013,” effective Dec. 13, 2013.
https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/20-49
20-49 allows bikes to proceed on LPI, allows bike riders to not have a bell and give warning by voice, and establishes fines for drivers not yielding to and hitting bike riders.
this might work for established professionals, but early-career people are the _least_ likely to be able to get their companies to pay for something like this, _or_ to be able to do it on their own.
even those who work for private-sector consulting firms.
"The program fee is $2,000 for private sector participants" 😹
"Applicants are welcome from any location; however, we are unable to subsidize travel or lodging for participants." 🤣
https://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/2023/11/emerging-leaders-transportation-2024-applications-open
i make pretty good money as an early-career professional at a private firm, but there's no way i could afford to take time off, pay more than an entire paycheck (more than twice the cost of TRB!) for a half-week-long program, and pay for a hotel in NYC besides (on <6 weeks' notice!).
‼‼
Christopher Taylor is possibly the first mayor of any city I've lived in to become a regular bike rider, let alone year-round commuter…almost certainly the first to do so _while in office_.
IMO he may even have picked the best time of year to start. (Even in MI nobody gets to ease gradually into the cold, but I think it's easier if you start and get your levels set in the fall while it's pleasantly cool out, then ramp up your layering as the weather goes downhill…)
The Transportation Research Board magazine TR News becomes freely available 4 months after publication, so this summer’s accessibility-focused edition, “Addressing Transportation and Accessibility for All” (TRN 346, Jul-Aug 2023), is now unlocked....
PDF: https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/trnews/trnews346.pdf
DC ANCs and others that host public meetings who are moving to hybrid meetings, or thinking about it, might benefit from this upcoming US Access Board webinar on how to make sure they're accessible.
https://www.accessibilityonline.org/cioc-508/session/?id=111085
“In the car, you drive down the street, and you look, but on the bike you have an intimate relationship with what’s going on on the street…”
https://www.washingtoninformer.com/dc-e-bikes-safety-vision-zero/
Per https://twitter.com/ZachBIsrael/status/1714083443334602974, DC has reached 40 traffic fatalities for the year, matching 2021 for the worst total since 2007—with two and a half months left to go.
16 pedestrian fatalities trails only 2021 & 22 for the most on record—and, given we're only one behind 2021, we'll likely top that.
Finally, and (at least to me) most excitingly, the Prioritizing People in Planning AA/2023 would "prohibit the use of level of service as a metric for transportation projects" & require DDOT to adopt "alternative metrics that account for transit users, pedestrians, cyclists, …and change in [VMT]".
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislation/B25-0296
Car LOS is an outdated metric that led directly to many of our massively oversized superroads where the greatest numbers of people, esp. pedestrians, die. Let's bury it.
The Access to Home AA/2023 changes regs for reserved accessible parking (DCMR 18-2710) to grant spaces to those who have off-street parking that isn't accessible + allow an accessibility grant program (DC Code § 7–551.01) to cover making off-street marking accessible.
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislation/B25-0258
The Trick-or-Streets bill would create a "Halloween safety streets" program to let residents close streets to traffic on Oct. 31 in order to facilitate trick-or-treating safely.
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislation/B25-0283
DC Council's Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on 10/26 on a trio of bills from @brianneknadeau: The Access to Home Amendment Act of 2023 (B25-0258), Trick-or-Streets AA/2023 (B25-0283), and Prioritizing People in Planning AA/2023 (B25-0296).
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/downloads/LIMS/53141/Hearing_Notice/B25-0296-Hearing_Notice1.pdf?Id=177065
To testify, sign up by the close of business October 24 at https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hearings/132 — if you can't testify on Oct. 26, you can submit written testimony at that address until COB November 10. (1/)
What is a mncppc, anyway?
How do you work with ANCs?
Who owns that road?
APBP-DC + @ggwash present
DMV Local Gov't 101,
sponsored by Toole Design and RK&K,
Oct 4 at Metrobar
Lightning presentations by & for planners + advocates on local govt, how it works & how to work it.
“We believe that [The E’s framework of traffic safety] approach to transportation design and planning has limited engineers’ and planners’ understanding of how their work impacts health and safety.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198223001525
[open access/no paywall]
J. I. Swiderski, MURP
boosted
For those of you who need him, may I present smooshy-faced Nigel.
6.7 yrs of DC traffic deaths, by ward and mode.
a couple things stick out:
- W6 & esp. W7 have actually gotten better the last few years. W8 *had* been, until 2023.
- W2 had dropped quite a bit, until the pandemic.
- With a third of the year still to come, W2 and W8 are already well above recent yearly totals.
- W5 is shockingly consistently deadly. The particulars change year to year, but the same number of people are killed, year after year.
- "Vision Zero isn't a cycling program."
- https://twitter.com/swiderskiji
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/erskiji/
active & public transportation advocate and planner; lifelong walker and somewhat-more-than-occasional bike rider.
fan of maps, transit, & cities; baseball, hockey, and football; puns; oxford commas; semicolons; and, above all, bus stuff.
Joined Nov 2022
