#vmhtxing

Tom Walker, above, provided written testimony in support of Senator Manno’s Crosswalk bills.  Tom holds a picture of Frank Towers who died at #VMHTXING on December 28, 2015.

Last week (Feb 7th), we kicked off the legislative part of the #VMHTXING Action Plan which seeks to fix deficiencies in the state’s transportation statute which save lives. The bills’ aim is to give bicycles and pedestrians equal right of way in crosswalks and redress if motorists hit them (SB0337), and, the option for Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons (PHB) aka HAWK signals to be deployed in Maryland (SB0338).   

The Good:  Between BikeMaryland and Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), we gave strong support to the bills providing about 10 written statements and fielding 8 panelists who provided oral testimony to the Senate Judiciary Proceedings (JPR) Committee.  I am sincerely grateful to the surviving family and friends participating in the hearing for sharing their grief, sorrow, and anger from the deaths of their loved ones and their frustration with the current state of crosswalk safety.  We were very happy to see our Montgomery County Police Department officers (Capt Didone) supporting both Crosswalk bills, with suggested amendments. 

The Not so Good:  SB0337 and SB0338 bills had the unfortunate circumstance of being the final bills to be heard after a 3+ hours of other bill’s testimony.  Everyone was tired.  By example, you never want to be the LAST person to be interviewed for a job.  To speed the process, Senator Manno agreed to combine the testimony for SB0337 and SB0338 which compressed time available to each panelist from 6 minutes to 3 minutes. As a result, I think all people giving testimony felt rushed.  In hindsight, I suspect a technical discussion on the difference between traffic signals, HAWK signals, and Flashing (Yellow) Beacons should have been provided to the committee as background information to aid the committee’s understanding of the issues the bill will resolve.

The Bad:  The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) sent two letters the Crosswalk bills to the committee in the hour before the hearing: (1)  “Opposition” to SB0337 (2)  “No Position” to SB0338  

These letters were submitted despite supportive statements for HAWK signals made by State Highway Administration Director Greg Johnson who said, “they (HAWK signals) are used across the country, and, so we are looking to get that resolved and have that as a tool in our tool box.”  

MDOT made absolutely no attempt reconcile bill language prior to transmitting their letters to the committee, neither Senator Manno’s staff nor bill advocates were contacted despite MDOT’s legislative staff being encouraged to support the Crosswalk bills weeks before the hearing convened.  MDOT staff were, however, in attendance early in the hearing when Governor Hogan’s drunk driving increased jail sentence bills were being discussed, but they left long before SB0337 and SB0338 bills discussed. Maybe they had no desire to face grieving survivors who have lost loved ones on their roads?  I find MDOT’s behavior to be cowardly, arrogant, and shameful.  Sarah Hoyt and MDOT’s legislative team poorly serves Governor Hogan’s policy priorities and certainly does not appear to care about public safety. 

I urge MDOT reconsider their position prior to the House Environment and Transportation committee hearing on February 23rd.  The best possible resolution for all parties is for MDOT to work with Senator Manno to amend bill language to everyone’s mutual satisfaction and in the best interest of public safety.

“It's a new day. Yesterday's failure is redeemed at the sunrise” ― Todd Stocker, Dancing with God: First Year Thoughts on the Loss of My Daughter

Closing out 2016, I can say it has been a year without a significant change in pedestrian or bicycle safety, at VMHTXING, in Montgomery County, or in the State of Maryland.  The increasing # of crashes and deaths echo this inaction.

Little progress, despite the lost lives of Frank and Oscar and subsequent calls for action by families and friends, safety advocacy groups, and the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, Council, and State Delegation to the Maryland Department of Transportation (Secretary Pete Rahn) and State Highway Administration (Director Greg Johnson).  

Montgomery County Council adopted VisionZero, ***with the goal of ZERO deaths on our roadways***, in January 2016 and called for the County Executive, Ike Leggett, to deliver, by October 2016, an Action Plan to implement VisionZero.  Mr. Leggett’s team, led by Mr. Michael Subin, missed the deadline and we still don’t have a draft released for comment by Stakeholders.  

Let me be blunt:  

1.  We know how to save lives, just slow traffic and re-engineer roads and signals where vulnerable users (peds&bikes) are in the mix.  There is no excuse for delay and inaction.

2.  Instead, we get a stale mantra (obfuscation?) of the “3 Es” (or 4th “E” when the first “3 Es” fail), despite a shocking three-year trend of increasing crashes and fatalities.  Sadly I must invoke the cliche, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”  

3.  We find ourselves in a “do-loop” of roadway carnage as a consequence of failed Executive Leadership, inappropriate priorities as a society, and a passive acceptance by the public (that’s you and I) of a steady stream of funerals in exchange for “efficient” transportation.  

In 2017, let’s commit to channeling our collective grief and anger into a conduit for positive action:

-  Be Present:  Engage with Leadership, be heard on issues you can make a difference with the County Council and Executive in the soon to be announced VisionZero hearings and State Legislature for enacting public laws that enable action, such as Senator Manno’s HAWK signal, Crash Data, and Bikes in Crosswalk bills and Delegate Korman and Delegate Moon’s maximum speed limit bills. 

-  Hold Leadership Accountable:  Whether it is a deadline for the Vision Zero Action Plan, the Bicycle Master Plan update, reducing pedestrian and bicycle crashes and deaths in the State, or addressing chronically unsafe roadways and crossings, demand corrective action or seek new leadership that is responsive to public safety.

U.S.DOT “Road to Zero” Safety Conference October 5, 2016 https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/symposiums/october2016/index.html

Selected Transcribed Statements Focusing on Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Issues By David Helms from NHTSA video

At this day-long conference, NHTSA will follow up on a series of meetings held earlier this year to address a nationwide increase in traffic deaths. The agency will be joined by the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Safety Council to lay out countermeasures and behavior-change strategies that will cut traffic fatalities and put the United States on the road to zero traffic fatalities.

Statements BOLD below for emphasis

3:00 Victor Mendez, U.S. DOT Deputy Secretary 

Time goes by quickly, so we need to stay focused towards zero deaths

We want to eliminate deaths, that’s our goal

Our spike in 2015 was actually the highest spike in the past 50 years (since 1966), that surprised a lot of us

10:41 Mark R. Rosekind, Ph.D., NHTSA Administrator

Fatalities are on the rise

We can’t keep doing more of the same and expect different results

There are new innovative solutions out there but we need to work for them

Final 2015:  35,092 lives lost on roads, a 7.2% increase since 2014

In the first six months of 2016, we estimate that fatalities are up 10.4%

We have a media crisis on our hands

Strategies:

Pro-active vehicle safety

Automated Technology

New Solutions to Human Behavioral Solutions - 94% of deaths from human decisions

27:00 Debbie Hersman, Director, National Safety Council (NSC)

Why are we here?  Why now?  What is your role?  Zero is possible

We go for years in aviation with ZERO fatalities, because, to them…  ZERO is the only acceptable answer

What needs to change is how we work together… we need commitment to the goal from everyone

We have to do things differently, we have to challenge the status quo, we have to make the changes we know must be made

We are in the midst of a public health crisis and it isn’t Zika

Collectively, we have been too passive in accepting the death toll on our nation’s roadways

100 fatalities per day is the equivalent of 2 regional jets crashing every day, that would be 14 plane crashes a week… if we had 14 plane crashes a week our hair (DOT) would be on fire and no one would set foot on an airplane.  Why do we accept the fatalities that occur on our roadways?  Because they happen one, or two, or three, or four at a time.  

The U.S. is lagging behind our counter-parts in the world.  According to the CDC, almost 20,000 lives could be saved each year if U.S. crash death (on roadways) equaled the rate of deaths in 19 other industrialized countries.  20,000 saved if we were just as good as countries who are in our same class.  

We can do better.  I know it.  We just haven’t done it yet.  But starting today we will.

Zero is possible, but you must own your number.  

1:50:20   Leah Shahum, Vision Zero Network

At local level, people are:

Implementing complete street designs

Managing speed using automated speed enforcement, by lower speed limits,

Asking voters for resources to implement changes

We are increasingly recognizing at the local level this issue as a public health crisis

How does Vision Zero differ from the traditional traffic safety approach?  A commitment to a Safe Systems Approach

Strengthening our data-driven approach to traffic safety, to use these data to do what matters most

Bringing more diverse stakeholders to the table

Most importantly, emphasizing attention on the systems in place which influence behavior:

Focusing more on the built environment

Focusing more on policies

These are the foundation of the transportation system which influence the choices people make

We are recognizing that we need to do more work around designing our streets with the safety priority and in the policies we set, particularly in the case of speed management

Policy makers and system designers have huge influence in speed.  We know that speed is the greatest influence on the severity of crashes and injuries; we have to be talking about this and doing more on this front.

The tools exist, the strategies are out there.  It is a matter of bringing forward the public and political energy to make the commitment to employ those tools.

In local efforts, public health is REALLY at the table in a way they haven’t been.  

We are seeing a really strong horizontal collaboration in a great way.  We also need to see more of the vertical collaboration (local, regional, state and federal)

We are building a culture of safety, and it starts here, this is the time.

3:17:00 Juan Martinez, New York City DOT Director of Strategic Initiatives

Was at a non-profit, Transportation Alternatives, 2011

Initial attempt to gain adoption of VisionZero was a loser, politically.  

3 weeks after getting elected, Mayor de Blasio announces our city is pursuing of VisionZero

From the beginning, the mayor has been standing with survivors, and from the beginning, he has had a really clear moral urgency behind it.

At the NYC Vision Zero kickoff event, he announces he wants a plan in a month from NYC DOT, NYPD Commissioner, City Fleet, Dept of Health

Why did he come to this conclusion when other didn’t?   I have thoughts on that:

The fact that the goal is big and ambitious was what intimidated other individuals, but it’s what sold Mayor de Blasio on the idea because he understands what’s big and ambition goal is how you get fast action, you get creative action, and that is what was recommended in the VisionZero Action Plan, and that’s what he got.  A BOLD plan.

He knew that having that goal made those fights (in the Action Plan) winnable.

We would have been crushed if we didn’t have the major up there talking about why this was the city’s’ priority.  Example:  Speed camera program - over two million violations issued since 2014.  That’s a huge, huge number.  Good news is, at locations of speeding cameras, speeding drops by 50%.   It works, it works really well.  It is a surprisingly popular program.  

Opposite example:  Long Island speed camera program implemented, for 3 months, justified on the rationale “because we are broke.”  They did not show they were being responsible and careful with the awesome responsibility they had.  They didn’t have the VisionZero narrative behind them.  Things that are politically popular become popular when you explain the context.  

Other aspect that makes this transformative in New York City is the fact that it is the Mayor’s commitment and he is accountable for it.  And so, he is expecting us to deliver on the promises we made.  

City hall is deeply involved, they convene six inter-agency meetings per month, to report on are progress, to talk about progress towards implementation.  But it is not just about collaboration, it goes a bit further, it is a real integration of agency efforts that is not possible until you are spending that much time in each other’s space.  Small example:  Side-guards, really effective at keeping people safe from turning trucks.  It's a good thing for private companies to have them.  Putting together DOT and City Fleet operators with private companies is a no-brainer, but before VisionZero, it would have been months and months.  But it came together in an incredibly short amount of time.

In addition to Mayor’s political leadership, but the story of VisionZero in NYC is also about the family members who have been advocates and who have propelled us going forward.  This is the Cohen family who are standing at the spot where there son was Adam was struck and killed by a driver who was going the speed limit.  Other families identified as well.   What these families did, they got together and formed this organization called Families for Safe Streets.  They have been instrumental in every significant victory, legislative victory in particular in VisionZero.  

I just talk about that quickly.  When we started VisionZero Mayor Bloomberg just finished winning right before his term ended the ability to get the 20 speed cameras in NYC.  These folks when up to our state capital and, that ten year fight, they increased the speed camera seven-fold through their advocacy in a few months.  The city speed limit was set in state law, 50 years ago New York State said you cannot have a speed limit lower than 30 mph, you were PROHIBITED from doing that.  Again, within a few months of concentrated organized advocacy, they convinced the state legislature to change their minds to allow the city to lower the speed limit to 25 mph.  

Why were they successful when the best lobbyists, I spent two years going to Albany to get the speed limit cameras, and it was incredibly difficult, so why did they succeed when I failed?  I think it is a couple things.  One is, every human, and not necessarily the human in this room, but every other human is enumerate: we don’t understand numbers, we don’t understand orders of magnitude, we don’t understand percentiles.  The 90% of pedestrians struck at 40 mph… like, that makes sense to us (e.g., the DOT data wonks), but we’re not “ordinary” humans.   And beyond that, legislators are not ordinary humans.  A lot of us have worked in legislative offices, right?  We know legislators are lied to ALL DAY LONG.  Every interest, every lobbyist says I’ve got the facts to convince you the world is exactly as I see it.  So you have to believe everybody is shading the truth.  Everybody is lying a little bit.  Right.  What’s the result?  If you are trying to convince legislators using statistics and data, you are at a deficit, right?  But what can they do?  

Humans are not good with numbers, but we understand anguish.  We understand grief.  I could not understand the math, but I can understand Judy Banis’ face (a mother’s face) when she is explaining to me what happen to her daughter.  And what happened to her daughter is not necessarily related to the speed limit, but that sudden grief, that absence, that anguish is that universal and it is a big part, an essential part of our success in VisionZero.  

So, VisionZero is an ambitious goal, right, we’re taking advantage of trends that were present before we started, that city has been getting safer for quite some time.  But, last year was the safest year in the city’s history.  How did we get there, how did we get the speed limit lowered, how did we roll out the speed camera program and manage it so well?  Three elements:

Data tell us that there is a problem, but the experience of a person who lost a loved one is what persuades real people that the problem is real.

Having strong executive leadership: As we are encouraging localities to get on-board VisionZero, there is a big role in guaranteeing that the local mayor is taking the commitment, not (only) the DOT (pointing to himself)

Frank Lawrence Towers 12.09.96 - 12.28.15

This is my best friend, Frank.  He likes Golden Girls, Scream Queens, painting his nails, old ladies, reading, cooking, tea, and a slew of other things.  I have known my best friend for 6 years. We played video games together.  He had a hard life with his family.   He lived in the south where racism and other prejudices were prevalent.  He was never truly happy until he moved here.  He loved all of you.  He loved his job, he loved his blossoming gymnastics skills, but most of all he loved the love and acceptance he received here.  My best friend Frank was riding his bike home from work at Dynamite Gymnastics in Rockville.  He was almost home from work, probably 5 more minutes.  He was hit by a car even though he was in this crosswalk.

Please help us make a difference and prevent further injury and death at this crosswalk and others like it all over the county.  If you see an unsafe situation the county or the state created please contact your local representatives and help make your voice heard. My best friend was only 19 years old. He had his 19th birthday only a few weeks before he died.  If this was a red light instead of a blinking yellow; an arbitrary decision to stop maybe he’d still be alive today.

Please wear a helmet and reflective gear so drivers can see you when you’re biking.

Drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike can prevent tragedies like this.

Frank’s Ghost Bike Plea from Alyx Walker Frank was killed at Veirs Mill Road (State Road MD 586) / Henson Trail Crossing (VMHTXING)

Consolidated Transportation Program Presentation "Road Show" by Maryland Department of Transportation Presentation to Montgomery County November 10, 2016

Extracted Statements Focusing on Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Issues

20:17 - 22:30 Sec Rahn Opening Remarks

The 521 roadway fatalities we experienced in 2015 is unacceptable and it is up to all of us as state and local leaders to target the most common causes of roadway fatalities in Maryland, impaired driving, speeding, not wearing seat else, distracted driving, distracted walking, and not using crosswalks.

I'm flabbergasted when I see the fatality numbers for Maryland and see that pedestrians make right at 20 percent for our fatalities in a consistent basis.  We have got to do something about these and we can.  I need to point out that one of the tools at the state level is a Strategic Highway Safety Plan that targets these areas by incorporating input from the very best minds from the 4-Es of highway safety: that’s the Engineering, Enforcement, Education and Emergency Response Services.  Those 4 “Es” are what drive down fatalities within a state.  It's surprising to me that only two counties have Strategic Highway Safety Plans of their own, and that I would let you know that we would very happy to work with Montgomery County to develop a county-based Strategic Highway Safety Plan.  I make that offer and we will dedicate the personnel necessary to help you implement that plan.  

44:00 - 45:00 Councilmember Roger Berliner (RB) Statement and Questions to MDOT/Sec Rahn

RB:  You mentioned something with respect to offering the county a highway safety analysis for pedestrians.  I don’t know if you are aware our county may be the only county in the state that has adopted Vision Zero in which we have pledged ourselves to zero pedestrian deaths and in that context I would say to you one of the things we have found curious about the State of Maryland is that there are pedestrian crossing mechanisms like the HAWK system that are quote “not in the Maryland Manual.”  They are in the Federal manual, not-in-the-Maryland Manual.  I believe that Senator Manno among others is going to be putting in legislation to put it in our manual.

We just don’t understand why we have to struggle so hard for a system that we have seen work in other communities, works VERY effectively, works in the District of Columbia, and it one of the things that will make sure that people know when somebody is walking across a crosswalk.  

45:00 Councilmember Roger Berliner continues his statement to MDOT/SHA

So I just say to you (raises hand in air in frustration), it just leaves us befuddled as to how it is that you embrace pedestrian safety and not have some of the very best devices out there, that have been approved by the federal government, but somehow not good enough for Maryland.  

<<Camera on Sec Rahn, looking to his right at his Director at the State Highway Administration, Gregory Johnson>>

45:23 - 46:20  Gregory Johnson (GJ) response to Roger Berliner Question concerning HAWK Signals

One of the issues with HAWK signals, it's not a philosophical ‘we don’t like HAWK signals’.  There is currently language in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Devices in Maryland that speaks to, um, “dark signals”, and non-functioning signals; a HAWK signal when it is not activated it is “dark” and there is language that says ‘a non-functioning signal, you don’t have to stop for.

So, we are trying to resolve that language issue. As a matter-of-fact, I just had conversation with our Attorney General earlier today to, once again, get that cleared up, and, the insertion of HAWK signal, and you are right, they are used across the country, and, so we are looking to get that resolved and have that as a tool in our tool box.  

46:20 Roger Berliner response to Director Johnson and Sec Rahn

Thank you.  I urge you to resolve that one because it simply doesn’t make any sense to people like myself.

1:40:00 Delegate Gutierrez

I’m very interested in your comments on pedestrian safety, that’s a huge interest for mine.  Anecdotally, every time I read in the newspaper about another pedestrian fatality, it seems to have a spanish-sounding name.  I know that in many very densely populated areas where this is a lot of need to catch buses, there is the impulse to run across the street.  

1:40:30  Delegate Gutierrez

So my question is, I’d like to go from anecdotal to real facts.  

Do you have a report or a study of where these fatalities are occurring, and if so, I would love to send them to us.  Are there any of those “hot points” here in Montgomery County? 

I would imagine because of our densely populated area that there probably are, maybe the top ones are here? Just briefly, what are the initiatives that are being put in there (at these locations)?  Whatever you are doing, I urge that it be linguistically and culturally appropriate because you can do messages but if people don’t get them there are not very important.  

1:41:20  Christine Nizer (CN), Director MVA, response to Del. Gutierrez

So, in Montgomery County a 5 year average of about 10 pedestrian fatalities every year so essentially that is what it is.  

Del Gutierrez:  Question to CN “Is (10 fatalities) high or low?

CN:  In terms of compared to other jurisdictions?  

Del Gutierrez:  Yes

CN:  Some are higher and some are lower, so it depends.  Obviously, Prince Georges County is higher, Baltimore City is having an issue in terms of pedestrian fatalities.

1:41:51 Christine Nizer (CN)

We did a study on this issue because, as the Secretary (Rahm) said, we are all very interested concerned about this in terms of percentage of the total fatalities we see on our roadways, and what it showed is that the reason that when most of them occur is because the pedestrian is in an area where a driver is not expecting them.  Either not in a crosswalk or on the side of the road.  We unfortunately have a lot of pedestrians hit on the side of the road when the car breaks down off of the medium in the middle of the roadway in an area that is not safe.  So the vast majority, unfortunately, of fatalities happen when that occurs.

We do a lot of pedestrian outreach activities.  We just had an event with WASHCOG last week because really it an issue that impacts all the jurisdictions, so, representatives from Prince Georges County, Montgomery County, District of Columbia, as well as Virginia.  And so, we just had an event last week. We do distribute information in Spanish as well as in English, so certainly it is something we want to continue to partner with you and to get the message out because it is something we take very seriously and want to drive those numbers down.  

1:43:00 Del Gutierrez Question

So is there any signage or any new novel technology that is being used?  I know in Langley Park they put up barriers, and, that helped.

1:43:10  CN Response to Del Gutierrez

Certainly SHA looks at looks a lot of the engineering components of that, so Greg can probably discuss that.

1:43:15 Greg Johnson Response to Del Gutierrez

Speaking specifically to the pedestrian fatality at Veirs Mill, and, we have a push-button activated flasher that alerts motorists when there is a pedestrian who uses it.  The latest fatality there the button was not pushed.  So what we did, we sent out our Rapid Response Team out on a SATURDAY (emphasized) to stop cyclists and pedestrians, to hand them literature, to tell them to use this.  We did it both in English and Spanish to make sure that we were notifying folks that “press the button”, that will give you the opportunity to notify traffic that something is going on and they should be cautious in that area.  So, there is a lot of tools and techniques, HAWK signals are one that hopefully we will be able to have in our tool-box in some of these hot spot areas.  But, we do send our teams out try and notify folks of issues (waves hands) where we have pedestrian concerns.  

1:44:30  Del Gutierrez Response to GJ

This week alone, I met with the following groups to discuss the action plan:

1.  WABA Montgomery County Coordinator, Garrett Hennigan

2.  Countymember Hans Riemer

3.  Bike Maryland Legislative Planning Advisory Committee

4.  Montgomery Planning Board Bicycle Master Plan Community Advisory Group

5.  Aspen Hill Community Association