[imc-st.louis] Fwd: MoDOT halts Complete Streets bill; promises to implement policy internally

[Ben West]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brent Hugh <brent at brenthugh.com>

 Bicyclists, walkers, and runners,

 As you know, MoBikeFed has been leading a coalition of bicycling,
walking, running, transit, disabilities, and other community groups in
support of a "Complete Streets" Bill

 The bill required MoDOT to accommodate for safe walking and bicycling
for people of all ages and ability levels wherever this is needed.

 The Complete Streets bill passed the House 139-9 last week.  It came
to a hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee Wednesday.

 At that point, MoDOT Director Pete Rahn personally intervened to
quash the Complete Streets bill.  However he made a personal promise
to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Mike Sutherland, to implement similar
policies internally.

 Rep. Sutherland promised to closely monitor MoDOT's progress and
re-introduce the Complete Streets bill if MoDOT does not actually make
the promised changes.

 See below for full details, including some *very* interesting
statements before the Senate Transportation Committee.

 We are working on a specific and effective response to MoDOT and will
certainly be following up on Director Rahn's promise to implement
these policies internally.

 For now you could help in three ways:

  1. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper saying that you
support Complete Streets and expressing dismay that MoDOT has opposed
it in the legislature.  MoDOT made a big deal before the Senate
Committee about how they are now giving full consideration to
bicycling and walking in every project (see below).  Explain this and
tell a brief personal story where MoDOT has done the opposite--or
where they really have followed through.

  2. In any interactions with MoDOT from now on, be sure to let them
know that you know that MoDOT has testified before the Senate
Transportation Committee that MoDOT now gives full consideration to
bicycling and walking in every project, and that MoDOT's "Practical
Design" policies say that bicycling and walking should be included
rather than left out.  So you expect them to do this, starting right
now, on every project.

  3. If you live in the district of a Transportation Committee member,
please email them and THANK them for considering HB 2206.  They are
the good guys here and would have passed HB 2206 if MoDOT hadn't
suddenly turned against it.  Let them know that MoDOT needs to do
better in accommodating for walking and bicycling and HB 2206 is part
of the solution.  Committee members are from Washington (Greishimer),
St. Louis (Bray & Days), Boonville (Stouffer), High
Ridge/Arnold/Crystal City (Alter), Lee's Summit (Bartle), Wentzville
(Rupp), Clinton/Sedalia/Bolivar (Scott), and Hermann/Rolla(Barnitz).

 Full list and contact info for Senate Transportation Committee:

    http://www.senate.mo.gov/06info/comm/TRAN.htm

 Please CC: director at mobikefed.org on any messages.

 Thank you!  Your support is really making HUGE things happen in
Missouri, and when you talk with your legislators and MoDOT officials,
it DOES make a difference.

 Complete Streets is a national movement.  See http://CompleteStreets.org

 For the insatiably curious, a long article with all the details is below.

 --Brent
 Dr. Brent D. Hugh
 Executive Director
 Missouri Bicycle Federation
 director at mobikefed.org



 All the details about the Complete Streets bill, HB 2206, 4/9/2008
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
 (Online at http://mobikefed.org/2008/04/modot-halts-complete-streets-bill.php )

 At the Senate Transportation Committee hearing Wednesday, MoDOT
Director Pete Rahn personally arranged for a change in MoDOT's
position on HB 2206, the Complete Streets bill sponsored by
Representative Mike Sutherland.

 The Complete Streets Bill is supported by the Missouri Bicycle
Federation and a coalition of bicycling, walking, and disabilities
groups from around the state.

 MoDOT had opposed portions of the original version of the bill, but
worked with Rep. Sutherland to adopt compromise language that MoDOT
was willing to accept. So discussions between Rep. Sutherland and
MoDOT had led us to believe that MoDOT would support, or at least
remain neutral, on this version of HB 2206, which recently passed the
Missouri House by a vote of 139-9.

 With MoDOT's concerns allayed, HB 2206 was poised to pass the Senate
Transportation Committee and then the full Senate as a consent bill,
just as it passed the House last week.

 With the bill so close to passing both houses of the Missouri General
Assembly, MoDOT Director Rahn took a stronger interest in the bill.

 Although MoDOT's research group had returned a fiscal note indicating
the impact of the bill on MoDOT's budget would be $0, Rahn apparently
became concerned that the bill would require MoDOT to pay more
attention to the needs and safety of bicyclists and pedestrians than
it wishes to. The agency could face real consequences for failure to
safely accommodate for pedestrians, bicyclists, and people with
disabilities, where now it faces none.

 MoDOT's opposition has stopped progress on the bill for now.

 But in a meeting with Rep. Sutherland Wednesday afternoon, Director
Rahn personally promised to Rep. Sutherland that MoDOT will implement
what they need to internally to make a bill like HB 2206 unnecessary.

 Sutherland made it clear that he's going to be monitoring this
situation and can easily re-introduce the needed legislation if
progress as promised does not materialize.

 Many thanks to Senator Bill Stouffer, chair of the Transportation
Committee, and the other members of the Transportation Committe for
allowing HB 2206 to move forward to a hearing.

 More about the Senate Committee testimony
 During testimony about the bill, MoDOT spokesman Eric Curtit
testified that the bill would be expensive, it would reduce MoDOT's
flexibility, it would to take money away from needed safety
improvements, and open up MoDOT to the possibility of lawsuits. Most
bicycling in Missouri, Curtit indicated, is for recreational purposes.

 He also testified that MoDOT has adopted policies of routinely
considering the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians, making HB 2206
essentially unnecessary.

 Senator Kevin Engler questioned Curtit closely on this issue,
indicating that in a large number of MoDOT projects he has personally
been involved in, he has yet to hear MoDOT staff broach the issue.

 Responses to MoDOT testimony
 MoDOT's strong indication of opposition to HB 2206 should certainly
give legislators pause. But what are the facts about the specific
issues MoDOT raised at the hearing?

 Expense: The bill's fiscal note was $0, indicating no overall
expense. Complete Streets bill have been passed in many other states
and regions, and always exaggerated worry about the high expense has
been proven wrong. New construction and reconstruction is the most
economical possible time to incorporate bicycling and walking
accommodations--it never gets cheaper than that moment.

 And bicycling and walking are the most economical forms of
transportation to provide for.

 Flexibility: Complete Streets policies, including the proposed HB
2206, are designed to be flexible and encourage creative and practical
solutions to real problems. Right now MoDOT is using the 'flexibility'
it has under current policy to deny much needed bicycle and pedestrian
accommodation in almost every possible situation.

 Safety: MoDOT's current practices create a terribly unsafe
environment for walking and bicycling across Missouri.

 Lawsuits: As accommodation for walking and bicycling becomes the norm
across the U.S., MoDOT's current practice, which fails to accommodate
for safe walking and bicycling in almost every project and situation,
leaves the agency wide open to lawsuits. MoDOT is currently in a
serious legal situation about sidewalk projects in the St. Louis area
where poles where installed that block access for disabled users.

 MoDOT certainly faces similar lawsuits from both pedestrians and
bicyclists when it fails to provide accommodation in situations where
it is clearly warranted, or when it provides substandard
accommodation.

 In any event, the compromise language in HB2206 offered no
opportunity for a lawsuit--at MoDOT's insististence it was general in
nature and indicated what MoDOT "may" do rather than what it "shall"
do.

 Practical Design: Practical Design is MoDOT's new initiative that
allows them to trim down projects and save money by eliminating
elements that are not completely necessary. I am pleased the Mr.
Curtit is on record as stating the MoDOT's Practical Design policy
supports inclusion of bicycling and walking. Because the reports we
have received from around the state and the personal experience of
MoBikeFed board members and staff in working with MoDOT on projects
where bicycle and pedestrian accommodations are justified and needed,
is that Practical Design is used as an excuse to justify substandard
bicycle and pedestrian accommodation, or no accommodation at all.

 Most bicycling in Missouri is recreational: This is a problematic
assertation that deserves several responses.

 - In great degree thanks to MoDOT policy, Missourians bicycle at less
than half the national average. Nevertheless, bicycling is a billion
dollar industry in Missouri. It could easily be 2-4 times as large.
So, yeah--some bicycling in Missouri is recreational. It's also big
business.

 - A lot of bicycling is recreational. So is a lot of driving.
Recreation is extraordinarily valuable to our quality of life. One
reason we support complete streets is because it is one of the most
economical ways to improve the quality of life in communities across
Missouri.

 - People who want to use their bicycles for transportation in
Missouri are frustrated and stopped from doing so precisely because
MoDOT fails to provide safe bicycling accommodations that take them
where they need to go. Recreational bicyclists can choose their
routes, but transportational bicyclists must travel to a specified
destination. If the streets and roads that lead to that destination do
not provide for safe walking and bicycling, then you simply cannot go
there.

 It is deeply ironic that a MoDOT spokesman who has worked on this
issue in some depth does not recognize that MoDOT is the cause of this
problem and uses the statistic as an excuse for further inaction.

 - In stating that "most bicycling in Missouri is recreational",
Curtit is relying on a national study that may or may not apply to
Missouri. In fact, no one really knows for certain the answers to
those questions for Missouri, because no one has studied them--least
of all MoDOT.

 - In any event, Curtit overstates the case. The summary of the data
from the 2002 National Survey of Pedestrian and Bicyclists Attitudes
and Behaviors is below. Only 26% of bicycling trips are recreational.

 Exercise and health (accounting for just under 24% of trips) are
quite a separate category. And given the cost of obesity an lack of
fitness in Missouri (about $2 billion per year), it's an important
one.

 Even those two categories together account for less than 50% of trips.

 A better characterization of the data from this study is that about
half of bicycle trips are for recreation, health, or fitness and the
other half are transportation or destination oriented:

 Bicyclists reported a variety of reasons as the primary purposes for
the bicycling trips they took. The most common purposes of trips were
for recreation (26.0%, SE = 0.79) and for exercise or health reasons
(23.6%, SE = 0.76). Additional primary trip purposes included: To go
home (14.2%, SE = 0.67) Personal errands (13.9%, SE = 0.65) To visit a
friend or relative (10.1%, SE = 0.60) Commuting to school/work (5.0%,
SE = 0.43) Bicycle ride (2.3%, SE = 0.28) Other (4.9%, SE = 0.42)


 -----------------

 The Missouri Bicycle Federation is a coalition of bicycling, walking,
running, and trails organizations representing over 15,000 Missourians
and speaking for the 2 million Missourians who bicycle regularly and
the 5.8 million who walk.

 The Missouri Bicycle Federation is working to realize its vision of
active transportation in Missouri by creating a world-class bicycle
and pedestrian network in Missouri, building a movement around walking
and bicycling, encouraging more walking and bicycling, and increasing
safety for all road users.

 www.MoBikeFed.org/vision

 ====================================================
 Dr. Brent Hugh, LCI #1335     Director at MoBikeFed.org
 Executive Director  ---  Missouri Bicycle Federation
 www.MoBikeFed.org                     816-695-6736
 ==================================================== __._,_.___


-- 
Ben West
westbywest at gmail.com
http://savetheinternet.org