A WABA Prince George’s County Advocacy Update

WABA’s Advocacy Team would like to share an update on activities in Prince George’s County. 

What have we been up to recently? Let’s start our recap with a celebration…

We had a blast at the RISE Prince George’s Holiday Party, cosponsored by WABA back in December at Creative Suitland, also cosponsored by our friends at Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689. We were joined by officials including Planning Chair Peter Shapiro, Senators Alonzo Washington and Nick Charles, Delegate Jazz Lewis, and Councilmembers Wala Blegay and Eric Olson. 

We really enjoy partnering with RISE Prince George’s and other community groups including RISE’s sponsor group, the Coalition for Smarter Growth!

RISE and CSG spear-headed advocacy work in support of the Prince George’s County Walkable Urban Street Act, introduced by Councilmember Eric Olson and passed last year, and they’ve organized Complete Streets Training for Prince George’s County officials that will take place in early April. There are many challenges and many players involved in efforts to create safer Prince George’s County streets. In the next few weeks, we’ll be taking part in:

• The next Prince George’s Active Transportation Advisory Group (ATAG) meeting on March 4; the Dept. of Public Works and Transportation will provide an update on the county’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Network.
• A Blue Line Corridor Civic Plaza workshop on March 5, with the goal of creating a design plan for “a dynamic hub for residents and visitors alike, fostering a sense of community and connection right in the heart of Largo,” serving “as a focal point for gatherings, events, and local businesses.” Click here if you’d like to participate, yourself. 
• Planning for a fall Community Placemaking Day being organized by Fort Washington Forward. 

We’re planning events of our own for the coming months. We’re particularly excited about organizing a… 

WABA Prince George’s County Bike Summit, May 18

Please hold Saturday afternoon, May 18 for the first WABA Prince George’s County Bike Summit. Creative Suitland will host us – they’re a community arts space around half a mile from the Suitland metro station – and we are currently recruiting participants for the program. We’re planning sessions  focused on Bicycling Equity/Building Community Power, Expanding Prince George’s County’s Bikeway Network, and Improving Safety for Pedestrians and Bicyclists, with state and county officials and community advocates. And we’re looking into a group ride, bike rodeo, or other fun activity to complement the event. 

Do you have program or participant thoughts, or would you like to help with organizing? Please get in touch: seth.grimes@waba.org

WABA’s Complete State Roads safety initiative

We plan to use the Bike Summit to publicly launch WABA’s Complete State Roads–Prince George’s County safety initiative, which pulls in elements that we’ll be exploring in the three summit panels: equity, bikeway network expansion, and Vision Zero. 

Vision Zero is a critical topic. Prince George’s County had nearly 50% more road deaths in 2023 than Baltimore City and nearly three times the road death experienced in Montgomery County, per the first illustration below, yet the State Highway Administration (SHA) has invested far more attention to road-safety projects in Montgomery County than to Prince George’s County projects, as seen in the second illustration. Because state roads are the most dangerous (in both jurisdictions) – they’re wider with higher traffic speeds and often lack sidewalks and are unbikeable – SHA needs to seriously pick up the pace of improvements. 

The Complete State Roads (CSR) initiative will call for roadway reengineering and design changes that target highly dangerous Maryland state roads, via the application of “complete streets” principles – streets designed and operated to prioritize safety and mobility for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users in addition to motor vehicles. It aims to stem the road carnage the county is experiencing. To learn more about our plans, take a look at a Montgomery County focused version of the CSR initiative that formally launched last fall. 

State legislation

We’ve been working to pass a set of Maryland road-safety bills during the 2024 legislative session, which opened on January 10 and runs until April 8, complementing our Complete State Roads work.

We held a 2024 legislative preview on January 16, featuring Del. Anne Healey (District 22). We have a recording posted to YouTube, but even better, visit a legislative summary sheet that we’re maintaining. It lists key bicycle-pedestrian-road safety bills being considered this year by the General Assembly. 

Delegate Healey introduced an important local bill, that is, a state bill that would apply only in Prince George’s County, HB 364, which would allow the county to install Stop sign and other traffic-enforcement cameras at dangerous locations. We’d seen too many tragedies like the deaths of 5-year-old Sky Sosa and 10-year-old Shalom Mbah, killed in November walking to school in Riverdale Park. Enhanced enforcement will help.

Delegate Healey and her District 22 colleagues Delegates Ashanti Martinez and Nicole Williams and Senator Alonzo Washington also introduced a bill, HB 389/SB 514, that would remove an impediment to creating sidewalks and bicycle pathways along Maryland state highways. Here’s the testimony WABA shared with the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

We’d love to enlist your help lobbying state and county officials. If you haven’t already, please respond to this form to register your interest.  

MDOT and SHA meetings

We actually interact quite frequently with elected officials and agency officials. For instance, WABA staff participated in the quarterly meeting of MDOT’s Pedestrian-Bicycle Emphasis Area Team (P-BEAT) in Baltimore on December 14, and we met the next day, December 15, with State Highway Administrator Will Pines, Deputy Administrator Matt Baker, District 3 Engineer Derek Gunn, and his deputy Erich Florence. Four community members joined us for that latter meeting.

These relationships are important as we pursue safety improvements associated with SHA projects. It’s wonderful that officials have made themselves so available. 

Vision Zero Youth Leadership Institute

Another initiative: Do you know about WABA’s Prince George’s County Vision Zero Youth Leadership Institute? 

This is a program funded by the Maryland Highway Safety Office, run by WABA Prince George’s Youth Organizer Joseph Hamd. Joseph hired four youth leaders, who are learning about transportation issues, developing a community engagement plan and meeting with state and county officials, so far including Councilmember Wanika Fisher, Board of Education member Pamela Boozer-Strother, MDOT Active Transportation Director Kandese Holford, Cynthia Spriggs from the Maryland Highway Safety Office, and others.

This work will culminate in a Youth Vision Zero Town Hall to take place Saturday, April 13 in Hyattsville. (WABA will post a registration page soon.) If you’d like to learn more about this work, contact Joseph at joseph.hamd@waba.org.

Speaking out for safer streets

WABA has continued to pursue safety improvements and bikeway construction on major county roads. A few examples:

• We shared spending priorities for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2024 with County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, at her January 29 Prince George’s County budget listening session. Check out our testimony here. 
• We’re thrilled that the SHA has designated New Hampshire Avenue/MD 650 and MD 410 as Pedestrian Safety Action Plan priority corridors, at a December 4 Hyattsville program that was also the ribbon cutting for the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail, which WABA has been working on since 2016.
• WABA has met with the Councilmember Wanika Fisher, Prince George’s County’s Active Transportation Advisory Group, the SHA, Univ. of Maryland staff, and community advocates to advocate safety and bikeways improvements on University Blvd/MD 193, including safe Purple Line rail crossings at Adelphi Road and better bike lanes and intersections on Kenilworth Avenue/MD 201 south of MD 193. 

Are there routes in your neighborhood that could use attention?

Expect to see us at Prince George’s County budget hearings this spring, and we’re planning to request meetings with key County Council members, to discuss FY25 budget priorities. We’d like to hear your thoughts about bicycling, pedestrian, and road-safety programming that the county should fund for the next fiscal year. Please send me a note and we’ll see what we can add to our advocacy agenda.

Can we count on you?

Finally, is your WABA membership current? If not, we’d love to have you (re)join. Just visit waba.org/join-2020/. WABA is member supported, and your contribution at any level – WABA membership dues are pay-what-you-can – will help us sustain our work and expand our community impact. 

Thank you!