Pedestrian Issues
Montgomery County welcomes pedestrians. A “sidewalk closed” sign on Rockville Pike. The sidewalk has been open — albeit with a utility pole planted squarely in the middle — for more than half a year, but no one bothered to take down the sign. |
Walking is the safest, healthiest, and most environmentally sound way to move around — a vital means of transportation, not an “amenity” that can be done without. And it is essential to transit. Unless streets are safe for pedestrians, people can't safely get to the bus stop or rail station.
But as the Montgomery County Dept. of Transportation sees the world, pedestrians are nothing but an obstacle to the movement of cars. This outlook is expressed openly only on rare occasions, such as when MCDOT argued against plans to make Rockville Pike friendlier to pedestrians because the road's function is to “serve as a major artery to and from the district.” But it pervades the department's actions:
- Traffic lights are timed to move as many cars as possible, no matter how much those on foot are inconvenienced.
- Rather than making streets safe to cross, walls are erected to stop people from crossing.
- Builders are allowed to close sidewalks on busy highways for months at a time without giving pedestrians a convenient alternative.
- At many corners, pedestrians who arrive when the light is green cannot cross. They must press a button and wait for the next green.
- Electronic noisemakers at busy streetcorners loudly chirp away day and night, preventing the normal use of the sidewalk for conversation and socializing.
- On high-speed roads with heavy traffic like Route 355 and Georgia Avenue, bus stops have no traffic lights.
- Right turn lanes are built without stoplights.
- Traffic signs and utility poles are placed in the middle of narrow sidewalks.
- Public information campaigns never remind drivers that they must yield to pedestrians at unmarked crosswalks.
- Speed limits are set for the convenience of drivers rather than the safety of pedestrians.
Law enforcement takes a similarly anti-pedestrian approach. Montgomery County drivers rarely obey the law that requires them to yield to pedestrians in marked crosswalks, and few even know that they are required to yield at unmarked crosswalks. Yet in their “pedestrian safety initiative,” county police last year stopped 2609 pedestrians and only 127 drivers.
As Montgomery County urbanizes, more and more people are walking along highways that were built for cars alone. In recent years, the county has lost almost as many lives to pedestrian accidents as to homicide. It is long past time for a change in how we design and operate roadways. Streets are for people, not for cars.
The Right to Cross the Street
Maryland law requires drivers to yield to pedestrians at both marked and unmarked crosswalks. An unmarked crosswalk exists at every corner where the side street has a sidewalk, except where there is a traffic light. The unmarked crosswalk is the extension of the sidewalk into the street being crossed.
Pedestrians also have the right to cross the street in the middle of the block, except where both adjacent intersections have traffic lights. As long as one of the adjacent intersections has no signal, so-called “jaywalking” is perfectly legal. In the middle of the block pedestrians yield to automobiles, while at intersections, in law if not in reality, automobiles yield to pedestrians.
Pedestrian Removal Disguised as “Pedestrian Safety”
White Flint Metro station, as seen from the sidewalk approaching from the south along Rockville Pike. The sidewalk leads directly to the station entrance, but pedestrians are forced to detour 40 feet to the left, where cars stop, and wait at a very slow traffic light. |
In 1988 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened across the street from the White Flint Metro station. The Planning Board required a “traffic mitigation” program. As part of this program, the sidewalk in front of the NRC building was set back from Rockville Pike so that it led directly to the Metro. A marked crosswalk connected the sidewalk to the station entrance.
The traffic mitigation program worked very well; 36% of NRC employees commute by transit. As a result, the crosswalk was heavily used. But the Planning Board requirement expired in 2004. One year later, MCDOT removed the crosswalk and built a wall to stop pedestrians. The county claims that the crosswalk was eliminated in the interest of pedestrian safety.
This claim does not stand up to examination. The only hazard to pedestrians in the crosswalk was drivers who violated the law by failing to yield. But this hazard exists at all crosswalks in the county; at crossings without traffic lights, drivers rarely yield to pedestrians. The White Flint crosswalk was often full of people, so drivers obeyed the law and stopped more often than elsewhere. From the pedestrian's point of view, this was one of the safest unsignalized crosswalks (given the amount of car traffic) in the county.
MCDOT could have made it safer to cross the street by redesigning the road to slow traffic and ticketing drivers who failed to yield. But it did not do that. Instead it moved the pedestrians away. This is not a unique situation. Another wall was built to stop pedestrians at New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard. And throughout the county, MCDOT encourages drivers to violate the law by leaving crosswalks unmarked, even where there is heavy pedestrian traffic.
The White Flint crosswalk was not removed to protect pedestrians. It was removed because so many pedestrians used it, and drivers were inconvenienced by their presence.
The Saga of Pedestrians and Medical Center Metro
MCDOT's hostility to pedestrians can be seen as well in the long struggle over access to the Medical Center Metro station.
For several years, a committee of public officials and neighborhood representatives worked to solve the transportation problems caused by the relocation of Walter Reed Hospital to the Bethesda Naval Hospital campus. Part of the solution, clearly, is better transit, and in consultation with the committee WMATA studied five ways to improve access to the Metro from the Naval Hospital. The best of these options — ACT believes — is a new entrance to the Metro station on the Naval Hospital side of Rockville Pike, served by a bank of high speed elevators.
While these alternatives were before the public, Montgomery County transportation officials were secretly promoting an entirely different plan developed by a major highway contractor, Clark Construction. Without any warning to the public or the advisory committee, the county in September 2009 applied for matching funds to build a four-lane automobile underpass beneath Rockville Pike with the money designated for Metro access. When pressed, MCDOT explained that the tunnel was part of Clark's plan.
After this secret plan was exposed by ACT, the county dropped it and came up with a different highway underpass plan that was presented at a public meeting May 11. For ACT's analysis of this new plan go here.
The alternatives that the study will evaluate were announced at a “public workshop” on July 20. The elevator was not dropped entirely, but was included only in combination with a pedestrian underpass. The study was still biased against the elevator option, as described here and here.
On Nov. 23, 2010, the involved federal, state, and local agencies agreed to recommend the elevator/underpass option. Funding then available was insufficient to build both elevator and underpass, leaving open the question of which gets built first. The Planning Board recommended that the elevator go first, but MCDOT continued to describe the entire project as an underpass.
The 2012 federal budget provided more funding for transportation at relocated military bases. Responding to ACT comments, the Defense Dept. revised its criteria criteria for allocation of the money in September 2011 to emphasize reduction of parking demand, better pedestrian access, and security. These are three issues that the elevator entrance would help address. Funding has now been awarded for construction of the elevator and underpass.