Letter: 2024 Priorities for the Montgomery County Delegation

Less highway building, safer state roads, ending right-on-red, and funding for bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

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Montgomery County Delegation

Joint House and Senate Priorities Hearing

November 13, 2023

Chairs Kramer and Palakovich Carr and Members of the Montgomery County Delegation,

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) is an advocacy organization with over 1,300 Maryland members. We envision a just and sustainable transportation system where walking, biking, and transit are the best ways to get around.

WABA asks you to consider three Montgomery County state priorities:

1) Termination of plans for I-495/I-270 toll lanes in Montgomery County and of Beltway toll lanes in Prince George’s County, with funds allocated instead to transit, bicycle, pedestrian, and road-safety projects. We note in particular the looming WMATA “fiscal cliff,” which should be addressed with all needed resources.

2) Funding of Montgomery County bicycle, pedestrian, and road-safety projects currently included in Maryland’s FY2024-FY2029 Consolidated Transportation Program, including bikeways associated with the Purple Line, and additionally funding of creation of master-planned bikeways along key transit corridors, calling out in particular US 29 in the Burnt Mills/Northwest Branch area, the full extent of MD 586 Veirs Mill Road including in the Wheaton central business district and in Rockville, and on MD 193 University Blvd. from Kensington across Prince George’s County.

State roads dominate Montgomery County’s High Injury Network. We must live up to our state and county Vision Zero commitments by funding safety and mobility improvements on these and other Montgomery County state roads.

We urge you to explore, in cooperation with the Maryland Dept. of Transportation, means of flexing or transferring federal funding from highway to transit and multi-modal and complete-streets uses as allowed by federal law. Sources that may be flexed include the Surface Transportation Block Grant, National Highway Performance Program, and Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality formulas.

3) Enactment of state bicycle, pedestrian, and road-safety/Vision Zero legislation.

On the legislative front, we appreciate Delegate Palakovich Carr’s introduction of MC 7-24, which would ban right turn on red and establish leading pedestrian intervals at state-controlled intersections, and Delegate Moon’s introduction of MC 10-24, which would allow jurisdictions to reduce speed limits to 15 MPH without conducting an engineering and traffic investigation.

Our state legislative agenda, developed in cooperation with other Bike Maryland member organizations, further includes a number of bills that are currently being developed:

1) A Great Maryland Trails Act, creating a Maryland Trails Office Trails and directing creation of an inventory and plan for a Maryland Trails Network, identifying funding sources including grants, and establishing a Trails Commission.

2) A bill addressing maintenance responsibility for sidewalks and bike paths along state roads that would remove the assignment of responsibility to the local government.

3) E-bike rebate/subsidy legislation and funding.

4) Stop as Yield legislation to allow cyclists to treat a Stop sign as a Yield sign, yielding to pedestrians and to vehicles that have the intersection right of way. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have adopted Stop as Yield as the safest way for bicyclists to traverse intersections.

5) Legislation to make allowing Bikes on Sidewalks the default state-wide.

6) Legislation to mandate a Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) complete streets policy or routine bicycle and pedestrian accommodations, applying to separated bicycle/pedestrian facilities on bridges and across, over, and along certain roadways.

7) Legislation to establish a Vision Zero Advisory Commission to boost accountability.

8) Legislation to extend penalties applied for collisions with pedestrians in crosswalks to bicyclists in bike lanes or address weak penalties in some other way.

We will plan to reach out to you in the coming weeks regarding this legislative agenda.

In summary, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association urges renewed Delegation opposition to Beltway/I-270 toll lanes and support for WMATA; funding of Montgomery County bicycle, pedestrian, and road-safety projects included in the Maryland Consolidated Transportation Program; and enactment and funding of pro-bicycle, pro-pedestrian legislation that would boost road safety and multi-modal transportation choice.

Seth Grimes, Maryland organizer

Washington Area Bicyclist Association

seth.grimes@waba.org

More about Maryland Legislation

WABA develops and advocates for state legislation to make bicycling in Maryland safer and more accessible and for state funding to expand Maryland’s bicycle network, working directly with legislators and Maryland Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) leadership and as part of the Bike Maryland coalition. We also work on broader road-safety, transit, and environmental legislation and funding, typically as part of larger statewide coalitions. The annual Maryland legislative session runs from January to April, but our work developing legislation starts the preceding summer.

We’re thrilled that several bills we worked on or supported were enacted in 2024, directing an MDOT Vision Zero Coordinator and public review process; the Better Bus Service Act, allowing bus-lane enforcement cameras (with bikes allowed); authorizing stop-sign cameras near schools in Prince George's County; and the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Memorial Act, addressing penalties for hitting a cyclist in a bike lane.

Our 2024 advocacy included unsuccessful efforts that we will likely pursue in future years. (It often takes years to pass a bill. ) These include a Great Maryland Trails Act, an E-bike Rebate and Voucher Program bill, and a bill addressing maintenance responsibility for sidewalks and bike paths along state roads. Another topic on our list for 2025 is contributory negligence, a prejudicial statute that says that if a crash victim is even only 1% at fault, then they are liable and may not recover (full) costs and damages from the party largely at fault.

More about Laws & Policy

WABA works with grassroots advocates at the local, county and state level to support laws and policies that make it easier and safer to walk, bike, and take transit. And we work to changes ones that make biking less safe, make it harder to build bike infrastructure, or that deprioritize the safety and convenience of people walking, biking, or taking transit.

In practice that means advocating for robust and transformative Vision Zero programs, enforceable Complete Streets policies, and funding for new infrastructure that supports biking, walking and transit.

Other regional legislative priorities include:

Reforming Contributory Negligence (passed in DC, in the works in Maryland and Virginia).
Getting rid of the Level of Service engineering standards in transportation decision-making.
Funding E-bike purchase rebates.

More about Advocacy

WABA fights for a region where biking, walking and transit are the best ways to get around.

We educate policymakers and organize grassroots advocates for to speak up for safer places to bike and walk; and for laws and policies that protect people who are walking and biking, reduce dangerous driving, and facilitate changes to the built environment.