D.C.’s New Vision Zero Law Could Be a Boon for Bike Lanes
Modeled on a Cambridge ordinance that mandates protected bicycle infrastructure citywide, the District’s approach to taming traffic deaths is being closely watched.
Alex Clark, a teacher at D.C.'s Dunbar High School, talks to student Alex Barry, 18, as he leads a group of students on a bike ride in December. A new D.C. law aims to speed the installation of protected bike lanes across the District.
Photographer: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images
In September 2020, Washington, D.C., lawmakers unanimously passed the Vision Zero Enhancement Omnibus Amendment Act of 2019, a bill that scales up a novel approach to building protected bike lanes that was first taken in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2019. The law, which went into effect at the end of December, promises to change the underlying DNA of the District’s streets with an ambitious, conditional if/then statement: If a road segment undergoing construction has been pre-identified as a candidate for a protected bike lane, bus-only lane or private-vehicle-free corridor, then it must be rebuilt with that new feature.
The idea behind the law is simple: By mandating protected bicycle infrastructure whenever roadwork is undertaken, much of the usual political and community resistance to bike lanes can be eliminated, speeding the spread of safer streetscapes, block by block, across the city. Washington, D.C., like many of the American cities that have committed to the global traffic safety platform known as Vision Zero, has struggled to make progress towards its goal of completely eliminating pedestrian and cyclist deaths from traffic violence. There were 36 total traffic fatalities within the city in 2020, up from 27 in 2019, despite fewer cars on the roads due to the pandemic.