D.C. Councilmembers are proposing more tools and solutions to combat the rise in traffic deaths and injuries on District streets. Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George says the community is frustrated and wants answers as the District hits a 14-year high of 40 traffic deaths. Several children have also been hit and badly injured and even killed in recent months.

“That has moved the needle… and I think a breaking point has been reached in our communities and amongst our (council) colleagues,” Lewis George said. “Our communities are speaking loudly… and have done their part to advocate for safety…  it’s time for the government to finally do its part by making it safe for our children to get to school.”

Thursday, she introduced the “Safe Routes to School Expansion Regulation Amendment Act” to try to beef up safety infrastructure and enforcement to protect kids around schools. Another bill from Councilmember Brianne Nadeau seeks to standardize raised crosswalks. 

Lewis George’s bill requires the District Department of Transportation to install infrastructure around every public school including: 

• Four-way stops within a quarter-mile of a school.
• Raised crosswalks, curb extensions, and traffic signals or stop signs at every intersection immediately adjacent to schools.
• Crosswalk warning pylons, flashing pedestrian signs, and speed bumps near school entrances.
• Improved pick-up and drop-off safety with signs banning parking within a school’s designated zone.
• One speed camera in every school zone.

The bill also standardizes speed limits in school zones to 15 mph seven days a week within 150 yards of school and its grounds. It also calls for collecting data about how kids and teachers get to school and tracking the number of crossing guard deployments, traffic control officers, and traffic safety work orders around schools. 

All this work must be done within two years of the bill passing, the bill text says. 

“Because past traffic installations have been inequitable, the bill requires that DDOT develop a Safe Routes to School Action Plan to get the work done prioritizing those most in need – those at most risk of traffic harm and those schools serving a majority of students whose families earn low-incomes – first,” the bill reads.

The proposal has support from every councilmember, Lewis George said.

Earlier this year, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a program to have more officers enforce traffic laws around schools in the District, but the program only designates seven officers to patrol more than 240 schools. 

Lewis George says it’s not enough.

“We know that infrastructure has the ability to prevent traffic crashes,” Lewis George said. “Traffic enforcement is limited… It can only happen in some places some of the time, whereas improvements we make to our road designs will be there every time to slow down drivers and improve safety so we can save lives.”

She said she was inspired to create the bill after several deaths in her ward, including 4-year-old Zyaire Joshua in 2021 and 21-year-old Timothy Abbott in 2020. Both were killed by drivers within a quarter-mile of schools. 

Many of D.C.’s traffic deaths happen in areas already known to be dangerous.

“That’s why this bill is seeking to be proactive and not reactive,” Lewis George said, noting that a nearby church, school, and ANC Commissioner near where Abbott was killed at Piney Branch and Dahlia Ave, had been calling for improvements like stop signs for years. “(His death) was even more devastating because we could have prevented this with infrastructure changes.”

In the past, it was somewhat unusual for legislators to dictate road design from the dais, but council members are exceedingly frustrated with the lack of progress on the District’s Vision Zero goals to eliminate traffic deaths by 2024. 

Her initiative is also on top of the sweeping Vision Zero Omnibus bill that was passed last year. It called for annual reviews on the 15 most dangerous intersections, banning right turn on reds at busy pedestrian intersections, mandated bus and bike lane plan buildouts, and added more red light and stop sign cameras. 

Some of those initiatives remain unfunded in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget. Lewis George says she’s waiting on a fiscal impact statement for the bill, which will help determine the cost, but says the improvements in her bill would be paid for by ticket revenue from the additional speed cameras in school zones. 

Another bill aims to codify crosswalk infrastructure

Another measure, the “Walk Without Worry Amendment Act” introduced by Councilmember Brianne Nadeau and seven other councilmembers Wednesday, aims to expand the number of raised crosswalks in D.C. and make it standard practice to use the design.

That infrastructure physically raises crosswalks to create a speed bump or speed table on the crosswalk itself, forcing drivers to slow down as they go over it. There’s a handful of these designs in D.C. as well as Takoma Park, Maryland neighborhoods. 

The bill “directly addresses an unabated crisis of pedestrian fatalities, especially among children,” Nadeau said in a press release. “We know that these types of traffic calming measures make our streets safer, and we see them in some of the District’s more resourced neighborhoods where people have the time and ability to advocate for them. 

“By creating a new standard, we will be taking a more proactive and equitable approach to pedestrian safety.”

The bill also calls for other treatments like “continuous sidewalks” which uses sidewalk material across an intersection without a change in level, and raised intersections, which creates a speed table for traffic calming.

It outlines where these treatments should be considered the default standard. It calls for a continuous sidewalk with level crossing for pedestrians where a local road crosses a major arterial “to signal to drivers that they are entering a lower-speed area.”

The bill requires DDOT to incorporate these types of designs within six months after it’s passed. It also requires the change automatically to any road or sidewalk that is being repaved. 

A DDOT spokesperson did not want to comment on the bills yet, saying the agency would weigh in at the appropriate time when they hit the Transportation and Environment Committee.

This story was updated to reflect the current number of traffic fatalities. MPD announced the death of a pedestrian Wednesday night in between the writing of this story and its publishing this morning. It was also updated to reflect new co-introducer of the school bill.