DC Oversight 2026: WABA’s Take on DDOT’s Performance

DC Council committees hold annual performance-oversight hearings, focusing on city departments’ FY25-26 successes and shortcomings. The public is invited to testify, and the committees also hear from the departments’ senior leadership. 

The District Dept. of Transportation (DDOT) hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, January 28. Please consider submitting written testimony or signing up to testify at the hearing, whether online or in person at the Wilson Building.

WABA will be testifying, and we’d love for you to draw on our testimony points in addition to communicating your own. Our take is that DDOT’s recent record is mixed. 

Let’s start with the good stuff – successes! 

• DDOT completed and opened the Metropolitan Branch Trail segment between Fort Totten and Takoma. Excellent!
• Also wonderful: The transformation of Dave Thomas Circle and the creation of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson Plaza; extension of K Street NE protected bike lanes under the Metro/Amtrak overpass; completion of 17th St SE bike lanes between Potomac Ave. SE and East Capitol St.; and new MBT connections on M St. NE and Riggs Rd. NE.
• We’re thrilled that construction of the Connecticut Ave. deckover and the Pennsylvania Ave. West projects is underway, and that design has advanced for other bikeway projects.

However…

• We appreciate DDOT’s work that has helped lower DC’s annual traffic-death toll to 25 people killed in traffic crashes in 2025, the smallest number since 2012, although the city remains far from meeting its Vision Zero promise.
• DDOT removed protected bike lanes from Arizona Ave. NW and downgraded stretches of bike lanes being constructed on Kansas Ave. from protected to buffered. DDOT classifies both as arterials, and moveDC, the city’s transportation plan, stipulates that their bike lanes should be “fully protected.” This is a safety matter! In addition, DDOT removed the Arizona Ave. bike lanes less than a year after they were installed, contrary to DDOT policy calling for a before/after evaluation to be conducted not sooner than eighteen months after completion of a project.
• The currently available​ DDOT Bicycle Facility Design Guide, Version 2, published in 2020, does not reflect DDOT policy updated via moveDC 2021. For instance, moveDC 2021 directs that bikeway treatments on minor arterials such as Kansas Ave. should be “fully protected.” DDOT should update the Design Guide and the design of all projects currently underway to reflect current policy. Here are two instances:
  • Between 2024 and this last fall, DDOT removed planned bike lanes from the East Capitol Street project in Ward 7. MoveDC 2021 calls for bike lanes on East Capitol, and those should be fully protected since East Capitol is a principal arterial. 
  • Pennsylvania Ave. SE in Ward 7 is another example: a principal arterial that is slated for future bicycle safety improvements according to moveDC 2021, yet DDOT never updated the Pennsylvania and Minnesota Ave. SE intersection improvement project, whose design dates to 2018, to reflect their own safety policy!
• DDOT has put a number of Ward 3 projects on hold. The Jenifer St. and 44th St. NW project is at 100% design, Western Ave. NW protected bike lanes are at 30% design. We see no non-technical reason for the holds and we know funding is in place. DDOT should unpause these projects and any other design-phase projects that have been paused.

Frankly it’s disturbing to see so many instances of DDOT’s contravening their own safety policy, captured in moveDC, and how far the city administration has to go to meet its Vision Zero commitment. WABA’s performance-oversight testimony will call for a DDOT return to Safety First. Please join us in this call. 

One more priority point, worth bringing up once again give New York’s unequivocal success with Manhattan congestion pricing: 

• DDOT still hasn’t released its 2019 report on road pricing, contrary to a legal requirement and to a 2023 DC Council vote.

What else will we bring up in our DDOT performance-oversight testimony? Here are additional points – three positive things that we appreciate and two not good – that you could consider raising in your testimony. We appreciate that… 

• The Strategic Bikeways Plan process has been well thought out with many opportunities for public comment. (The SBP “will inform both a preliminary long‑range Vision Bikeways Network and a draft 5‑year work plan for future bikeway enhancements.“)
• Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) and other District shared micromobility (bike and scooter) programs are booming – micromobility is about easy, affordable, convenient mobility and less traffic congestion – with many new CaBi stations installed in FY25-26 (although there’s work to do regarding where non-docked devices are left), and DDOT has continued to expand bike parking citywide.
• We applaud DDOT innovation, in particular a pilot program to get food-delivery operators on e-bikes and another to explore quad-cycles for parcel delivery.

But on the negative side…

• DC’s streateries were about Streets for People! – DDOT’s term is “public space activation” – yet DDOT drastically rewrote streatery-program rules in recent months to eliminate most streateries, reverting what was active public space use to parking, not incidentally boosting traffic congestion.
• DC prohibits stopping, standing, or parking in a bike lane, but we continue to see far too many infractions. DDOT could prevent some of them by installing more-effective bike-lane separation barriers, and in commercial areas, by expanding and enforcing proper use of commercial loading zones.

We’ve listed a lot of DDOT performance points! Use what resonates for you and disregard the rest. Whatever you communicate via DDOT performance testimony, thank you for working with us to make Washington DC streets safer and more walkable and bikeable.