It's Past Time to Close Some Streets

Oakland Slow Streets will close 74 miles of streets--10% of the city street network--to through traffic to promote social distancing.

Berlin, Bogotá, Brookline, Burlington, Calgary, Charleston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Duluth, Edmonton, London, Louisville, Maumee, Minneapolis, Montgomery County, Montreal, New York City, Oakland, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Portland, Saint Paul, San Francisco, St. Louis, Stuttgart, Vancouver, Victoria, Vienna, Washington, DC.

These are just some examples of cities actively closing streets in parks or adding space on streets for people walking and biking to promote safe physical distancing.

Baltimore has come together in many amazing ways in the COVID-19 response. Inter-agency collaboration to get meals to residents is just one success. We need that same level of collaboration and vision from the mayor’s office on transportation. The mayor’s office should instruct Baltimore City Department of Transportation to coordinate with other agencies on a plan that reorganizes street space.

We live in an old city with narrow sidewalks, park paths, and other structural issues that make physical distancing as a pedestrian or bicyclist difficult. Physical distancing must be taken seriously, and the city must take steps to add space for pedestrians and bicyclists in our parks and on our roads to keep residents safe.

30% of our city lacks access to a car. In our formerly red-lined communities, lack of access to a car can be over 70%. 39% of our transit riders are essential workers, folks who must go to work during the pandemic and are walking to and from their transit stops every day. The number one origin and destination for scooter trips right now is Johns Hopkins Hospital. And, our parks are filled to the brim with people just trying to get out of the house for healthy exercise.

Based on these statistics, the plan should prioritize pedestrian and bike routes to job hubs and recreation, utilize the Baltimore Complete Streets equity assessment for route selection, and include input from hospitals, unions, and other essential employers as well as organizations distributing food and other essential goods. And, we must pay careful attention to what enforcement looks like, as no street closure should involve policing.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials agrees. They have released a COVID-19 Rapid Response Toolkit for cities, detailing actions in the transportation sector that should be taken right now to help prevent the spread of disease. 

The NACTO recommendations call for pop-up bike lanes, conversion of signals so pedestrians don’t need to push buttons, adjusting signal timing to slow cars, and most importantly, closing or limiting through traffic on select streets for physical distancing. 

We hope to see the mayor’s office instruct the Department of Transportation to coordinate with other agencies to implement NACTO’s Rapid Response Toolkit. The life safety of Baltimore City’s residents—a population particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 due to high rates of asthma, obesity, and other underlying health conditions from lack of access to exercise and poor air quality—is depending on their swift action.

Action Alert: Send a quick email now!

Email your Senator TODAY to pass HB368 - The Transit Safety and Investment Act!

The Maryland House of Delegates has passed this critical legislation that will provide funding to MTA Maryland to keep trains and buses from breaking down. 

If the State Senate doesn’t pass this legislation by Wednesday, we will need to wait at least another year to increase funding for our transit system.

In the meantime, we can expect reliability of our transit system to decline as buses and trains continue to break more than almost any other transit system in America. 

COVID-19 has made the urgency to take care of our most vulnerable even clearer. Our leadership needs to take action to provide resources to everyone, like a reliable source of transportation. 

You have to tell your Senator TODAY to pass HB368, or it may be too late to save the MTA.

Action Alert: Support the Transit Safety and Investment Act

In 2018, advocates and legislators passed a bill requiring the MTA (Maryland Transit Administration) to figure out the cost of repairs needed to keep Baltimore public transit running.

We got the results this year. It’s bad. The MTA system has a backlog of more than $2 billion in critical needs just to maintain our current infrastructure.

We’re working with advocates across the region and the MTA on a new regional transit plan, setting the stage for improvements over the next 25 years. But none of that will be possible without first fixing what’s broken in our current system.

The Transit Safety and Investment Act will add an additional $132 million a year over the next four years into the MTA to be spent on critical maintenance. This bill was introduced this session by Team 46 Delegate Brooke Lierman and backed by the new Annapolis Transit Caucus.

Governor Hogan has failed Baltimore through a willful neglect of our public transportation system. This bill is an opportunity to begin repairing that damage.

Tell your Senator to get this bill passed now before it’s too late. Without this additional investment, we risk further disruption and reduced reliability of MTA service.

Update on Complete Streets

New BCDOT Director Sharkey at his confirmation

On October 3, 2019, Baltimore City Department of Transportation was supposed to release for public comment a draft Complete Streets manual. It never happened.

The Baltimore Complete Streets ordinance, enacted in December of last year, contained a robust public outreach requirement that was supposed to begin immediately, engaging community members in a detailed series of public meetings to bring awareness to Complete Streets principles and the creation of a draft manual. Councilman Ryan Dorsey consulted with Bikemore and the Complete Streets Coalition and developed a robust set of community engagement expectations that were delivered in a memo to then Director Michelle Pourciau.

In late April, Director Pourciau resigned after reports of an Office of the Inspector General investigation into her leadership tactics. Shortly thereafter, Mayor Pugh resigned amid the “Healthy Holly” scandal. In the aftermath of these resignations, it became clear that Director Pourciau had not devoted adequate resources to meet the legislative requirements of the Complete Streets ordinance. No significant community outreach had been conducted, and none meeting the expectations of the coalition or Councilman Dorsey had been planned. This seemed almost purposeful, and was a devastating blow to the implementation calendar of a bill that had just been recognized as one of the best Complete Streets initiatives in the country.

Shortly after this news, Acting Mayor Jack Young selected Steve Sharkey, then head of the Department of General Services, to lead Baltimore City Department of Transportation. Director Sharkey was unanimously confirmed by the Baltimore City Council on August 20th. Director Sharkey hit the ground running, immediately meeting with stakeholders on Complete Streets.

By August 29th, at the first meeting of the newly formed City Council Transportation Committee, chaired by Councilman Ryan Dorsey, Baltimore City Department of Transportation publicly agreed that the deadlines for the Complete Streets ordinance would not be met.

As a result, Councilman Dorsey introduced legislation to extend the deadlines of Baltimore Complete Streets, to ensure adequate community outreach is conducted, and conducted to the expectations of the Complete Streets Coalition and city council. The legislation, emergency adopted by the full city council on September 23rd and signed by Mayor Young on October 7th, gives Baltimore City Department of Transportation until October 16th to deliver a community engagement plan to the Land Use Committee for review and comment, and specifies that this plan must incorporate the recommendations set forth in the community engagement expectations originally sent to Director Pourciau.

Each deadline is then reset following this initial revision. Within 90 days, the Complete Streets Advisory Committee must deliver scoping recommendations for the Complete Streets Manual. By April 1, 2020, the Complete Streets Manual must be made available for public comment, and by July 1, 2020 the Complete Streets Manual must be adopted.

An additional clarification was also made in this legislative update: all other components of the Complete Streets ordinance, including the design standards like lane widths, design vehicles, and design speeds, and the prioritization of pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit users over other modes, are immediately law effective this past Monday, October 7th. There should be no more grey area on the law.

While we are disappointed in the decisions of the prior administration which led to this delay, the future is bright. For the first time we have a Council President who supported creation of a Transportation Committee. We have a Transportation Committee Chair who bikes to work, who authored and passed the strongest and most progressive Complete Streets ordinance in the country. We have a Mayor who prioritized signing this legislative extension and who hired a Transportation Director who lives in Baltimore, who bikes to work, who knows how to support his staff and increase morale, and who is honest and transparent about the work ahead of him.

We look forward to working with this team of dedicated and talented elected and appointed officials to deliver a Complete Streets manual worthy of the legislation and coalition that demanded it, even if it will be a few months late.

Dockless Vehicle Update

Baltimore’s Shared Mobility Coordinator Meg Young talking about the scooter program:

Last Spring, scooters launched in Baltimore. The city quickly adopted a pilot program, originally intended to last six months, to explore and evaluate dockless shared mobility vehicles on Baltimore Streets. The initial pilot program rules and regulations were based on a white paper provided to the Pugh Administration by Bikemore.

As of February 28, 2019, the original proposed end date of the pilot program, dockless scooters and bikes had seen almost 756,000 rides by over 190,000 riders. At that time, Baltimore City officials decided based on a detailed survey showing strong support for continuation of a dockless mobility program to extend the pilot while formal rules and regulations were drafted and adopted for a permanent program.

This came in three parts. First, Baltimore City Council drafted authorizing legislation formally legalizing the use and regulation of scooters, e-bikes, and other shared mobility devices in Baltimore City. Second, Baltimore City Department of Transportation drafted rules and regulations based on the City Council’s authorizing legislation. Third, a weighted permit application was produced for vendors to apply for license to operate under the new permanent Dockless Vehicle for Hire Program.

The permit application was released this week. Companies have until July 24th to submit applications to be one of four vendors selected to operate in Baltimore City. Recipients will be announced July 29th, and the new permits will run from August 1, 2019 to July 31, 2020.

Rules and Regulations

We believe the adopted rules and regulations to be some of the best in the country, and can be revisited annually to adopt best practices learned in other cities. The majority of Bikemore’s comments on the rules and regulations were adopted.

Here are some highlights from the rules and regulations (the full rules and regulations can be found on the Baltimore City Department of Transportation website):

• Providers operating one vehicle type may operate up to 1,000 vehicles, and must operate a minimum of 150 vehicles.

• Providers operating multiple vehicle types may operate up to 2,000 vehicles, and must operate a minimum of 150 of each vehicle type.

• Adaptive vehicles (for use by those living with disabilities) are not counted toward vehicle maximums.

• Providers my operate vehicles 24/7 if they can demonstrate a maintenance and safety plan that ensures vehicles are regularly serviced and safe.

• Ride purchase must be made possible with cash and without use of a smart phone.

• Vehicles must be located in every city planning district, vehicle density is regulated, and additional equity priority areas are defined for placement.

Permit Application

The permit application allows up to four vendors to be selected. Eight sections of the permit application are scored to rank applicants based on vehicle information, maintenance, operations, education/engagement, hiring, data, sustainability, and company history.

Scored sections on the permit application

Each vendor will be required to pay a $70,000 permitting fee, a $10,000 performance bond, and a $0.10 excise tax per rental.

The annual permitting fee covers the cost of Baltimore City Department of Transportation shared mobility program staff, in addition to innovative public engagement and infrastructure:

• A Resident Mobility Advisory Board will be established, similar to the successful Food Policy Advisory Committee. Resident Mobility Advisors will be appointed from communities across the city, and will receive a paid stipend to meet six times a year to discuss mobility challenges in and solutions for their communities. ($6,000)

• 20 shared mobility corrals will be installed annually based on an evaluation of ridership and equity priorities. These corrals will be installed either on the street or sidewalk, and provide designated parking areas for shared mobility vehicles as well as private bikes or scooters. ($20,000)

• Existing mobility lanes will be evaluated and improved through resurfacing and patching to provide safer travel surfaces for shared mobility vehicles. ($100,000)

• Baltimore City Department of Transportation will produce community education materials ($19,000) as well as provide five $2,000 community micro-grants for education and outreach ($10,000)

The refundable performance bond covers anticipated city expenses, including the BPD Special Marine Unit for harbor retrievals, Baltimore City Department of Transportation towing services for improperly parked or damaged/abandoned vehicles, and damage to public property. Any funds not expended on these city services will be refunded to the companies at the end of the permit.

The excise tax of $0.10 per ride goes into the general fund. The Pugh administration committed to restricting these revenues to funding bike infrastructure installation in Baltimore City, however it is unclear if this restriction will be honored given we have a new government.

What’s Next

We look forward to Baltimore City Department of Transportation receiving applications from multiple vendors. We understand that all currently operating vendors plan on reapplying, and several other companies not yet operating in Baltimore have expressed interest.

Baltimore City has been on the forefront of shared mobility regulation and ridership success. We believe the establishment of formal rules and regulation and a competitive application will continue this trend, and hopefully bring more vehicles and vehicle types to more Baltimoreans while increasing our city’s capacity to successfully manage the program, reducing instances of vehicle damage, blocked right-of-way, and the other challenges associated with introducing new modes of transportation in Baltimore City.

Ultimately, the best thing Baltimore City can do to make shared mobility safer and more accessible to everyone is build more protected infrastructure.