Unsafe/Frustrating Cycling Conditions? Hit the Yellow Button!

My seat post would be a great install site.

DDOT would have to 1) actually look at this data and 2) care. Neither will happen.

It’s not that they don’t know where problem areas are. Care for an example? I’m glad you asked. On my regular route to take the kids home from school, I ride R NW from 3rd to 11th. From 4th to 7th, there has been a lot of construction (mostly from Anchor Construction). They’ve torn up bike lanes and failed to patch them sufficiently. They put steel plates everywhere. They park in the bike lane. No signs or anything that the lane is closed.

It got really bad right before the light at 7th NW. Construction was diverting the main traffic lane directly into the bike lane with absolutely no sign or warning. I began emailing with DDOT, copying WABA and my councilmember. I would report it, they would ignore me, or say, “we’ll get right on it!”. After the thread reached about 40 emails, an assoc director of public space offered to meet me at the location. This is after at least a month of illegal and dangerous lane closures, reported over and over. He brought a bunch of people from DDOT, and some people from DC Water. They talked to the construction foreman, who claimed everything was fine and refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. Finally DDOT shut him down, and there was no work for maybe 3 days.

Then they came back. I stopped to talk to him and he gave me a sob story about deadlines and blah blah and promised they would be done that day. I told him I’d be back the next day. Sure enough he was a liar, and they worked for another week or so.

I emailed DDOT again, informing them of the problem, asking if there was any sort of procedure for following up on stop work orders, and was ignored. Now the project is over for the moment, though they still haven’t patched the street.

My takeaway here is that, if you annoy them enough, DDOT will do the bare minimum to make you shut up and leave them alone, and then return to not caring. Anchor Construction does not care. Having a way to easily report problem areas sounds great, but with no enforcement of the laws and no consequences for anything, it’s all a big waste of time.

@jrenaut 141625 wrote:

DDOT would have to 1) actually look at this data and 2) care. Neither will happen.

@mstone 141632 wrote:

wow, that would be a big pile of data for VDOT not to give a crap about!

So we could change the direction of the discussion to resolve which agency cares the least? Hmm.

Intersection of Doom anyone??? All users know this is a crap intersection and yet hell will freeze over before it is fixed.

But could trial lawyers use the data to show negligence and build cases against jurisdictions? Or is sovereign immunity so strong that jurisdictions have no fear of big jury awards altering the cost-benefit calculations?

Data is your friend!