Testimony
William H Jordan, whj@melanet.com
Performance Oversight Hearing: Committee on Transportation & the Environment
Friday, February 26, 2021 12:00 pm
DDOT is fast becoming a creature and instrument of two highly pernicious forces and phenomena “flat white” urbanism and “Big Capital Mobility or Uber/Lyft-ing”. Under the influence of these forces, DDOT is systematically privatizing our city’s public spaces and transportation systems in a manner which perpetuates our city’s historic racial inequities. DDOT by Uber/Lify-ing through a “flat white” lens is placing the interests of private investors over those of residents, especially Black and Brown residents already reeling from the pressures of city sponsor gentrification. Even more disturbing, we see DDOT willingness to execute on behalf of these phenomena under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic with few checks and balances.
There is probably no greater manifestation of these phenomena and the racial inequities left in their wake than DDOT’s “14th Street Bus-Bike Lane Demonstration Project”. This project in context with other projects targeting Ward 1 neighborhoods, illustrates DDOT’s willingness to use bully tactics by targeting areas with high Black and Brown populations with projects which favor “flat white” urbanism and Big Capital Mobility Uber/Lyft-ing.
In fact, the 14th Street Project is so steeped in racial bias, poor design, haphazard implementation and rationalized pseudo-science that it is the historic equivalent the Federal Highway building of the 1950s – 1970s which crippled and destroyed Black neighborhoods. So much so, I believe those decision makers at DDOT responsible for this 14th Street project should be removed from their positions.
To illustrate how poorly the 14Th St Project was conceived and is being managed, on 2/10/21 DDOT announced it is conducting a study of the 14th Street Bus-Bike lanes from 2/16 thru 4/15 to determine the effectiveness of the project by installing cameras on Circulator Buses which are to use the project’s car free Bus-Bike lanes. The problem with this study is, because of poor design the Circulator buses don’t/can’t use these lanes Bike-Bus lanes. Southbound Circulators turning from Irving St. can’t make the tight right turn need to use Bus-Bike lanes, therefore must share the car lane. Northbound Circulators which most turn left at Columbia Road don’t use the bus-bike lanes which are in the far right lane instead us the car lane which now moves slower. This poor design defeats the supposed purpose of the project increasing bus times. Further given the change in traffic patterns due to the pandemic, what use is the study and method? This is a useless study of a poor design, which DDOT has already concluded is a success.
Photo 1: Southbound Circulator turning from Irving St. can’t enter Bus-Bike Lane.
And worst, the 14th St project was implemented by DDOT in a careless and unsafe manner. DDOT was obviously more concerned with getting the project done quickly than the impact on Black and Brown residents who would be most impacted by the project. DDOT provided little if any outreach, support signage or traffic control personnel during implementation or coordination with WMATA. As a result, the Senior Citizen in the photo below was severely injured after tripping over one of the Bus-Bike lane protection barriers. He was trying to reach a Metro Bus which could not dock at the curb bus stop because of DDOT lane construction issues. Metro Buses instead of stopping at the curb were stopping a car lane into the street for on and off loading.
Photo 2: Bus-Bike Land Pedestrian Injury. Note the Skip Scooters in the foreground, DDOT’s true constituent.
Photo 3: Poor coordination with WMATA which led to injury shown in photo 2.
Other 14th Project design and implementation failures which particularly impacted Black and Brown residents included:
– Took away parking for Black and Brown residents, while continuing to allow the Circulator and WMAT Express Bus to by-pass their areas.
– Bus-Bike lanes directed Buses into tree canopy resulting in tree destruction.
– Bus-Bike lane pushes WMATA buses closer to curbs exposing Black and Brown pedestrians to bus mass, increased noise and fumes.
– Eliminates or frustrates curb side services to senior building.
What is “Flat White” Urbanism?
“Flat White” urbanism as discussed by planners Amin Yasin and Daniella Fergusson in their article, “Pandemic patios and “flat white” urbanism”, in Plan Canada, Winter 2020,
“is a “flat white” power and legal structure implemented through restrictive covenants, redlining, planning euphemisms, land theft, architecture, bylaws and their enforcement, and choices that smooth over structural issues in favor of aesthetic improvements to the status quo.”
“is an unfettered, “flat white” neoliberal utopia where the imaginary White and able-bodied subjects are prioritized in perpetuity – a mark of a “successful city.””
“in centering Whiteness within planning, Whiteness names a “legacy of injustice” for social dysfunction, while normalizing and idealizing places of white affluence that resulted from the same injustices.”
Yasin and Fergusson’s article speaks of the contradictions and biases “pandemic patios” which closely mirrors the streatery privatization policies embedded in The Vision Zero Enhancement Omnibus Amendment Act of 2020. DDOT’s knee-jerk implementation of these policies as with the 18th Street NW Streatery compounded the confusion and biases inherent in the privatization found in Vision Zero.
Under DDOT’s leadership and our Vision Zero policies the photo on the left represents the acceptable and the right is unacceptable. Why?
“Big Capital Mobility or Uber/Lyft-ing”
In short, DDOT under the disguise of improving bike and pedestrian safety via projected bike lanes and such is through the back door making a major public policy shift toward privatizing public space and transportation, transit by and adopting a business model called “Mobility as a Services” (MaaS) without full public transparency, vetting and assessment of MaaS’ potential impact on racial equity. MaaS is heavily backed by Big Capital: Silicon Valley venture capital, technology and real estate focused hedge funds and Wall Street capital markets via firms such as Uber and Lyft. These entities seek big profits in privatizing public space and transportation as urban areas of optimized for gentrification and what our city calls the “creative class”.
DDOT via its MaaS policies is systematically handing over their responsibilities as a public agency to companies such as Uber and Lyft. This is dangerous because as publicly traded companies Uber and Lyft are beholding to their shareholders and quarterly stock values. Companies who currently not profitable, Uber losses in 2020 was $6.77B. How do they plan to become profitable, becoming a private DDOT/WMATA. Surely, not by ensuring DC’s systems meet a high standard when it comes to racial equity.
The 14th Street project is an example of what happens when DDOT officials prioritize MaaS development over the lives of its residents, especially Black and Brown residents. Community oversight of DDOT is difficult enough imagine when DDOT is completely Uber/Lyft-ed.
DDOT MaaS Privatization Alarms
DDOT pays Lyft approximately $9.6M/year to run our Bikeshare system.
DDOT as a awarded a so-called pilot to CurbFlow to privatize management of DC curb space. A VC ventured backed by former Mayor Fenty, likely skirting procurement rules.
DDOT pays RATP Dev North America (RATP) a company owned by the French government over $40M/yr to run the DC Circulator and Streetcar.
Lyft once owned by venture capital firms, now publicly traded controls and runs DC’s Bikeshare program under contracts worth 10s of millions of dollars.
DDOT Dockless Bike & Scooter MaaS Companies
• HelBiz – An Italian Venture back by VC’s TriPoint Global Equities, LLC, Zhonglu Group
• Jump – A DDOT bike and scooter company was initially back by Silicon Valley Venture Capital firms such as Menlo Ventures, SineWave, Alumni Ventures, SOSV to the tune of over $100M. Today Jump is owned by Uber which acquired for around $200M.
• Lime – now owned by Uber ($170M), Alphabet (Google), Bain Capital, GV. Lime absorbed Jump as part of the deal $510M
• Lyft – Sean Aggarwal (ebay),Floodgate Ventures, Mayfield Fund, IPO General Motors and Fidelity
• Skip – Alexis Ohanian, A Capital, SV Angel
• Spin – Grishin Robotics and CRCM Ventures, Ford($100M)
In conclusion, 2020 has been DDOT’s year of “flat white” urbanism and “Big Capital Mobility Uber/Lyft-ing” using our COVID-19 crisis as a cover for the privatization of our public spaces and transportation systems without honest public debate around the consequences of this MaaS policy shift for racial equity. The 14th Street Project highlights the problems the agency has with the concept of equity, and the bias inherent in DDOT’s approaches. Pushing what happened on 14th Street under the cover of the pandemic to all 8 Wards is not equity.