Sarah L. Voisin/THE WASHINGTON POST - DDOT Director Terry Bellamy, right, speaks with Ali Shakeri, DDOT’s program and project manager. As the new head of DDOT, Bellamy aims to maintain D.C.’s role as a national incubator of transportation innovation.
“One of our key things is we have to maintain our core, make sure we keep our roads, our signals, and make sure our sidewalks are ADA-compliant, and make sure our assets stay at least in good condition,” Bellamy said during a recent interview at DDOT’s M Street SE headquarters.
An era of change
Bellamy is working in an era of change as the city’s gas tax revenue has decreased and habits have changed. Creating a balance in transportation is one of his challenges.
“People are combining trips, not doing as many vehicle miles locally in the city,” Bellamy said. “In the morning, when we have our big peak, it’s not locals generating the traffic, it’s commuters coming into the city.”
The city has also seen substantial growth in Capital Bikeshare, the regional biking program co-founded with Arlington in September. Expansion of the District’s 50 miles of bike lanes will continue, Bellamy said, with four to five miles of new bike lanes in Southeast Washington alone and an additional six miles in the rest of the District, tied, when possible, to resurfacing of streets.
The bicycling community is closely watching what happens, especially after last month, when Bellamy said at a D.C. Council meeting that the city “may not” build a planned corridor of east-west downtown bike lanes.
The comments alarmed bicyclists, who flooded the council and DDOT with phone calls and mail.
Bellamy clarified his comments and said last week that the lanes are under study; a consultant’s report is due in the fall. “What they’re going to tell us is what we did right and what we need to modify,” he said. “The projects we move forward, we’ll do in the spring of next year.”
Shane Farthing, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, takes a wait-and-see attitude.
“There’s been a bit of a lull in the last six months that I wouldn’t attribute to Mr. Bellamy, but it is his job to pull DDOT out of that lull,” Farthing said. “We want to see the master [transportation] plan updated. . . . We want to emphasize the inclusion of bicycling in every project they do, from resurfacing to rebuilding. . . . We hope director Bellamy is a strong force in pushing DDOT forward.”
Looking forward
Meanwhile, Bellamy is moving ahead on several fronts.
DDOT has ordered 500 bike helmets to provide with Capital Bikeshare rentals, although the details are in the works.
And recent increases in parking meter fees are here to stay. Bellamy considers the cost of using them a way to manage crowded streets — it encourages people to use public transit, park-and-ride options and private off-street garages.
The high-tech meters, some of which are solar-powered, accept credit cards. Gray plans to announce Thursday that parking at all of the city’s 17,000 metered spaces can be paid by cellphone. They will soon be joined by meters that respond to a transponder, like an E-ZPass, which can be installed in a vehicle.
“It takes a long time to take a project from when we’re thinking about it to when we actually fund it and build it,” Bellamy said. “Take the Frederick Douglass Bridge. It’s been planned for the last 15 years. We hope we will deliver it.
“The same thing goes with the 11th Street Bridge. A lot of people did the planning. We’re fortunate we’re going to be delivering it. We’re going to do a grand opening of the Ninth Street Bridge. A lot of people worked on that, too.”
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