WASHINGTON — Mayor Muriel Bowser is acknowledging that it takes too long to make safety upgrades to dangerous intersections in D.C. But that's about to change, city leaders have vowed.
On Tuesday, the mayor and Everett Lott, acting director of D.C.’s Department of Transportation, announced they will be streamlining the process of road safety projects, which usually involves a traffic study, design phase and then construction.
“I’m equally as frustrated, equally as angry,” Lott said. “I have a son who’s on these roads, I’m on these roads every day and every time I see a distracted driver, every time I see someone speeding, it hurts me."
Less than a week after Troy Belton and his two young daughters were hit by a car on Wheeler Road and Mississippi Avenue, city leaders committed to speeding up their safety plan, but that could mean less community input.
“Where we will have community-focused projects we will but ... there are instances where we can’t, and we won’t because we know the interventions will work and we need the interventions sooner rather than later,” Bowser said.
According to the DDOT’s Vision Zero dashboard, 30 people have been killed in traffic crashes city-wide since the beginning of the year; 76 pedestrians and 15 cyclists have been seriously hurt.
The most major injuries from crashes are in Wards 7 and 8, with 71 and 68 people total, respectively. Ward 7 had 14 pedestrians and 57 people in cars seriously hurt; Ward 8 recorded 18 pedestrian injuries and 50 people in cars with major injuries, which is why city leaders chose busy Minnesota Avenue, NE as a backdrop for the announcement, promising faster response times and safer streets.
DDOT said they are making progress on the 109 road safety projects, 29 of which are in “dangerous intersections.” The Wheeler Road/Mississippi Avenue intersection in Southeast where Belton and his family were hit by a car has been part of a traffic study since 2019.
WUSA9 is still waiting to hear back from DDOT about the new timeline for safety improvements that will be considered. However, DDOT did announce a new goal: 50 road safety projects in the next six weeks.