A cyclist was hit by a taxicab making a U-turn on Pennsylvania Avenue this morning in front of the Wilson Building.
Despite emergency D.C. Council legislation, mayoral fiat, and public advisory campaigns, taxi drivers continue to pull U-turns through the Pennsylvania Avenue NW cycle track. More than five months after Mayor Vince Gray issued regulations making such maneuvers punishable by a $100 fine, cars can be spotted zipping through the bike lanes and imperiling oncoming cyclists on the regular.
But at least, as evidenced by one recent incident currently blowing up on YouTube, that the new rules against such turns is being enforced. Or at least it was last Thursday, when one cyclist shot video of a taxi veering through the cycle track only to get nabbed seconds later by a nearby federal police officer.
The video was uploaded by Bill Walsh, a Washington Post copy editor who was pedaling up the center bike lane when he was cut off by a cab pulling an unlawful 180. “Illegal. Illegal!” Walsh can be heard yelling. Within a moment, the Toyota Prius cab is pulled over by an FBI Police cruiser.
Cyclists have complained that even though the ban on U-turns on Pennsylvania Avenue has been in place for four months, enforcement is spotty. Metropolitan Police Department officials told WAMU last week that since the regulation went into effect, it has issued 53 tickets and 64 warnings, yet bike advocates report seeing U-turns on a far more regular basis.
Manually ticketing offending drivers might not be enough, according to Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who introduced the anti-U-turn legislation last December. During a recent tour of the planned M Street NW cycle track, Wells told DCist he’d like to see the ban enforced by traffic cameras.
“We’ve got cameras that can send you a ticket for encroaching on pedestrians,” he said. “We can do the same for U-turns on Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Until then, enforcement remains done by human eyesight. And one only needs to check Walsh’s YouTube account that swerves through the bike lane continue mostly unftettered. Just today, he posted a fresh clip of a black Mercedes sedan pulling a 180-degree turn from the right-most travel lane.
At least there’s a copy editor on the case.
