Transit on Thursday: Fentified Edition

Greatest Hits: Fenty's 100 Days and Beyond Transportation Plan

30 Days
The first thirty days are all about making an impression. Fenty will kick his administration off with some big, symbolic projects that aim to ease traffic, address global warming, and tackle Metro and taxi cabs. We're not sure if we can glean anything about the mayor's priorities from the order in which items appear on the list, but we find it interesting that he promises to begin a Rush Hour Towing Pilot Program before he mentions endorsing the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. Sure, getting caught behind an illegally parked car can feel a lot like the end of the world, but let's not overstate the problem. Still, both are important priorities, and should be easy to accomplish in the 30 days Fenty promises.

Now, meeting the goals of the U.S. Mayor's Climate Agreement -- that might take a bit longer. Several other cities have expressed frustration at making progress toward the agreement's goals, and it would be nice if the mayor committed to a plan to meet them in the first 30 days as well, showing he's more than talk when it comes to climate change.

The mayor's other 30-day goals are not quite so ambitious. He has already completed two of them: implementing traffic calming measures in neighborhoods across the city and breaking ground on the Navy Yard Metro expansion in the ballpark area. Fenty also plans to introduce a revised taxi zone map, though we're wondering when we'll hear about the results of the pilot project to test out meters in cabs. He'll also make his appointments to the Metro Board, a task we're guessing will fall to city administrator and ex-Metro chief Dan Tangherlini. These picks will be critical, since it has repeatedly fallen to D.C. to maintain a commitment to good planning and forethought, rather than the me-first rhetoric that some on the board tend to offer.

100 Days
After the largely symbolic, yet important, actions of the first thirty days, Fenty gets into some more meaty issues. The first thing on his list is eliminating 150 vehicles from the District’s light vehicle fleet. The culling of municipal fleets is one of the best ways to show a city-wide commitment to reducing auto use and cutting greenhouse gases. It's no secret that there are plenty of places city officials need to be that are accessible by Metro. Perhaps even the mayor himself will get religion and ditch his black SUV for Metro a la New York Mayor and Fenty pal Michael Bloomberg.

Fenty will also begin addressing many of the city's local infrastructure needs by repaving more than 50 miles of local streets, reconstructing sidewalks on more than 50 streets, and rehabilitating more than 20 alleys throughout the city. While maintaining streets and sidewalks is important, the mayor would do far better to force contractors to maintain sidewalk access under construction sites. There are far too many sections of this city with impassable sidewalk closures that can make a pedestrian feel dangerously exposed. Perhaps the ward-by-ward traffic safety audits or the Street Smart traffic safety education program that Fenty promises to launch will lead him to the same conclusion.

Some changes will be afoot at the DMV, too, with promises to extend license renewal requirements to 8 years and inspection intervals for new vehicles from 2 years to 4 years. While these are great ways to ease crowding at notoriously backed-up DMV offices, is seems to be at the expense of ensuring cars are in good, safe, condition. Also, it would be great to see Fenty implement creative registration requirements that discourage the ownership of large, low-mileage trucks in the city that clog up street with both their size and tailpipes.

One Year
Typical for such an ambitious guy, Fenty doesn't stop at 100 days, but extends his plan out a full year. He states that he'd like to break ground on a streetcar maintenance facility and expand the Circulator bus service into additional neighborhoods. This shows a great commitment to the type of smaller-scale transit that D.C. can use to augment Metro and bring transit access to the neighborhoods that fall between current bus or subway lines.

His goal of installing wireless devices on municipal vehicles to track gas purchases and consumption will help the District track and cut both fuel use and spending, and convert all the city's heavy diesel vehicles to ultra-low sulfur fuel will have a positive impact on air quality. Fenty should use his clout with Metro to ensure they maintain similar policies for their buses and vehicles, which spend a lot of time in the District.

Fenty's plan to equip street sweepers with photo ticketing systems to photograph and cite cars in the street sweeping lane might bug some residents tired of red light and speed cameras, but is in line with the District's push toward automated traffic enforcement.

Finally, the mayor plans to break ground on Phase II of the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which should be welcome news for the cyclists who have been pushing the city to finish the Metro Branch for years. There are plenty of other trails, bike lanes, and bike racks that need to be addressed, but the Metro Branch is a good first priority.

The mayor presents an ambitious agenda that we hope he can make reality. He covers his bases well, addressing autos, transit, bikes, and pedestrians. Both the Post and Examiner pointed out that many of the ideas were already in the works. Even so, Fenty's stated goal is to create momentum, and what he wants to accomplish in the first year is indicative of what he will want to tackle in the second, third, and fourth, then maybe Fenty's ambition is not such a bad thing after all.