waba's testimony on the proposed ddot reorganization

8/12/2019 WABA's Testimony on the proposed DDOT Reorganization

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TESTIMONY ON BILL 20-759, THE TRANSPORTATION REORGANIZATION ACT OF 2014

Members of the Committee:

Over the past several years, WABA has testified before this Committee on a number of concerns related

to the performance of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). As representatives of the

Districts and regions bicycling community we fully appreciate the motivations for this bill, and applaud

the effort to improve delivery on a variety of projects and programs that are presently DDOTs

responsibility, and at which DDOT is presently failing.

However, we are concerned that the structure proposed in this bill does not address the key problems

that limit DDOTs effectiveness, andmay actually create more difficulty and delay.

Modal Concerns Regarding the Location of Bike Programming in the District Transit Authority

WABA is deeply concerned that under this bill, bicycle planning and implementation is being

shoehorned into a new entity constructed for a different purpose, where it is likely to be marginalized

and underfunded. The responsibility to build and maintain a transportation network that serves the

needs of District residents who bike and walk is a fundamental governmental responsibility that should

not be ceded to a corporate board comprised of members with no public accountability and no

qualifications in bicycle planning.

Nowhere in the world is the responsibility for bicycling taken from a transportation agency and given to

a transit authority. It simply makes no sense, as biking is not transit by any normal definition. Bicycling is

transportation. It needs transportation planning. It needs transportation design and construction

management. It needs transportation funding.

Despite our shared concerns about DDOTs delivery of bike projects, moving the responsibility for biking

to a transit agency would be a move from bad to worse. Presently, there are internal organizational

issues at DDOT that limit its ability to deliver on biking projects. But those internal flaws can be

addressed by the proper deployment of just a few additional FTEs and by a project-based management

system, as we can see working for their internal AWI team.

If this proposal is enacted and biking is instead shoehorned into a transit agency, it will then be

systemically marginalized and underfunded in a way that will be much more difficult to correct in the

future. Federal funding for bike and pedestrian projects would be stalled in additional bureaucracy, as it

would have to be routed through the transportation agency anyway. And in every competition for

resources, a transit agency will choose transit over other things, including investment in biking andwalking.

Structural Concerns about the Regulation of Public Space

It is important to remember that, despite its name, DDOT is notjustthe Districts transportation

department. In reality, it is the Districts department of all things public spacewhich is a somewhat

broader mandate. And the breadth of that mandate is important. While it is correct for the Council to


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ask whether DDOTs mission has become so expansive the it simply cannot deliver on everything, it is

equally important to ask whether that breadth plays an important role in providing flexibility for

innovation and improvement that would by stymied by bureaucracy and parochialism if multiple

agencies were involved.

As the District continues to grow in population without growing in area, pressures will continue to

mount on exactly how our public space can be put to the best use for a variety of purposes. The

Districts ability to adapt the use of its public space to the evolving needs of a growing population is

critical to capturing the economic and sustainability benefits offered by increasing density. We must be

able to balance the needs for cars and bikes, pedestrians and delivery vehicles, street trees and

sidewalks, catchbasins and cafes. We must be able to flexibly optimize public space to the needs of the

people.

Are we able to do this presently? No. But flaws in internal structure, organizational management, and

leadership can be corrected with new leadership and new systems, so long as the underlying structure

makes tradeoffs and attempts at optimization possible.

However, if the system is realigned so that our public space is to be managed by multiple entities withcompeting interests and no shared motivation to compromise, gridlock will result. An agency that exists

for the sole purpose of dealing with parking will forever prefer parking and the revenue it affords.

Similarly, an agency that controls space only when that space contains street trees will argue for street

trees in every space. Ultimately, the parochialism that will result from splitting and isolating particular

uses of public space among various agencies will make compromise and innovation of the sort that leads

to removing three parking spaces to increase bike travel on a road by 65% impossiblethough this just

happened with the installation of the cycletrack on L Street.

I do not defend DDOTs present capacity to deliver on the needs of residents. But I do believe that the

ability to flexibly manage the Districts public space to balance the needs of transportation, economic

activity, environmental activity, and other needs is criticaland this bill, in splitting the management ofpublic space into numerous agencies each responsible for discrete pieces, removes the necessary

flexibility.

Timing and Capacity Concerns

In addition to concerns about the placement of biking responsibilities and the management of public

space, we are also concerned about the timing of this proposal and the affect it will have on the

Districts ability to move projects forward.

As you know, the long-awaited MoveDC transportation plan was released last week. Weighing in at

several hundred pages, it describes the Districts multimodal plan for the future of transportation, and it

will be before this Council within thirty days.

How is the public supposed to simultaneously comment on DDOTs substantive plan for the future of

transportation and a plan to reorganize the agency responsible for creating and implementing that plan?

Rather than simultaneously proposing a new org chart and a new long-range plandeveloped in

isolation from one anothershould we not work first agree on a long-range transportation goal, then

design the organizational scheme that will best bring it to reality?


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Meanwhile, residents are ready for the backlog of projects to move forward. For eighteen months

DDOTs standing excuse for its failure to move forward on new projects was the need to finalize the

MoveDC plan. Now, the final plan has been released, and it is time to expect movement on the projects

it contains.

This will not happen quickly if the administrative reorganization proposed by this bill takes place,

however. Such reorganization does not happen quickly. It involves duplication of functions, movement

of people and offices, filling of new FTEs, and creation of new structures and org charts.

My first experience working for the District government came in 2006, when as a Fellow I was asked to

join the newly formed DDOE to help sort out some of its permitting processes. The agency had been

carved out of a combination of DCRA, DOH, DDOT, and DPW to consolidate environmental review rather

than have it spread across multiple agenciesthe opposite of what is proposed here regarding public

space. And for the better part of two years, the agency struggled to find its footing, operating with large

numbers of vacancies, using forms and wearing jackets with the wrong agency name listed, and being

listed as a high-risk grantee of federal partners because it had no track record of achievement or

demonstrated capacity to operate programs with federal funds.

The focus of a new agency, at least at the outset, will be to figure out what it is and build capacity to be

that. We have seen it with DDOE. We have seen it with the SEU. Frankly, we still see it in DDOT as it is

structured today.

Changing the organizational structures of entities within the DC bureaucracy by pulling one agency apart

and creating others presents the District with enormous transaction costs. In this case, those transaction

costs will likely be at least a year of startup and capacity building that could otherwise be spent on

solving the problems this Committee, WABA, and residents want solved.

Recommendations & Conclusion

Fundamentally, WABA agrees with the motivation underlying this proposal. DDOT has failed to deliver

on such a variety of its responsibilities that change is needed. But what is needed is not a bill that splits

our public realm into battling bureaucratic constituencies and costs the District years of actual progress.

What is needed is leadership and management at DDOT that understands the purpose of its breadth and

undertakes the internal realignments and education and work to deliver on its responsibilities.

Unfortunately, such internal and leadership changes are not within the direct purview of the Council. So

it is understandable that councilmembers seek an alternate solution that can be effected through

legislation. But the solution to internal agency problems is unlikely to be an external reorganization that

subjugates biking and walking within a transit agency, divides public space responsibilities into further

silos, and relies on a new cast of characters and agencies to reach capacity before they can act.

To further the goal of improving DDOTs performance for bicycling and for project delivery in general,

WABA recommends:

Limit the authority of the District Transit Authority, if created, to transit operations forCirculator, Streetcar, and Capital Bikeshare. Bicycling and walking policy, planning, and

implementation should not be housed in a transit corporation.


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Do not create an agency with a budgetary and parochial interest in the maintenance of parking.This inappropriately elevates parking over all other potential uses of public space, which do not

have their own agencies. (The need to bring parking under a single, coherent system could be

addressed by housing a robust parking division within any of the agencies currently involved in

parking matters.)

Promote structures that allow multi-modal tradeoffs and flexibility in the regulation and use ofpublic space, as opposed to narrowly defined agencies that will compete rather than cooperate.

Allow time for the full public vetting and Council approval of the MoveDC plan beforesignificantly changing the implementing agency, to avoid undermining the MoveDC process and

confusing the public.

Thank you for your commitment to improving the Districts structure for managing its public space and

transportation, and for the opportunity to provide our input on behalf of the Districts bicyclists.

waba's testimony on the proposed ddot reorganization

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