Month: August 2024

You can’t just declare Vision Zero and have it happen

Traffic fatalities have doubled since D.C.’s promise of zero [gift link]

D.C.’s Vision Zero plan has relied heavily on camera enforcement to catch speeders, who are more likely to cause dangerous crashes. But The Post found that of the 33 people killed in traffic crashes this year, nine died within 250 feet of a traffic camera.

There’s A LOT to unpack here about inequitable streets and placement of traffic cameras, and I’m not going to do it here because it’s already been done by people who know more about it than I do.

The problem with DC’s Vision Zero is that Mayor Bowser did it like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy on The Office. Saying you’re going to do Vision Zero is great, but unfortunately for DC, that’s where it ended.

You may not know what Vision Zero IS, aside from a plan to get to zero traffic fatalities. That’s ok. I have a great analogy. We go live to the press conference.

Voiceover: Mayor Muriel Bowser presents…. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s new diet.

Mayor Muriel Bowser (standing at podium. On the podium is a jumbo slice of pizza and a Bud Light): Thank you for coming. I am pleased to announce that, going forward, I will be on a 100% paleo diet. The diet of our prehistoric ancestors, truly native Washingtonians, is the only way foward.

MMB: (Takes large bite of pizza)

Reporter: Mayor Bowser, aren’t dairy and grains forbidden in a paleo diet?

MMB (takes long drink from Bud Light): The first inhabitants of Washington DC ,some hundred million years ago, followed a strict paleo diet, and so will I.

Reporter: Alcohol isn’t allowed either…

MMB (Glares): Off with his head.

Cars I’ve owned

While I’m a bike and pedestrian advocate, we still live in a society where it’s pretty tough to live without a car. And I DO like to drive. Today Facebook reminded me it’s been four years since our trusty Mazda 3 was rear-ended. Given that our latest car was stolen two weeks ago (a story for another day), I got to thinking about the cars I’ve had.

1988 Acura Integra

This was my first car. My parents bought it for me because I was going to high school an hour away from home and they couldn’t get me there (at least not without turning their lives upside down). Such a great little car. Reliability of a Honda Civic but SO much more fun to drive. I didn’t have it long – I was rear-ended on 97N on the way to take the AP Spanish test. I got a ride to school from a Maryland state trooper and I was deeply disappointed that everyone was in class by then so no one saw me getting dropped off.

1989 Acura Integra

Insurance paid for the replacement. This was one trim level up from the first one. I loved it even more. Both Integras had giant subwoofers in the trunk and I installed a kill switch to turn them off as I approached my house so my mom didn’t get mad. When I went to college I didn’t get to keep the car. I think my siblings ran it into the ground.

1988 Honda Accord

It had 175,000 miles when I got it. Incredibly well-maintained, incredibly boring. It had a manual transmission and a sunroof, though, so it wasn’t all bad.

1995 Toyota Tacoma

This was the first car I purchased myself. Manual transmission, 4X4. It could drive over anything. Highlights include 1) putting a tarp in the back for a house party, filling it with ice, and using it as a cooler 2) pulling a stuck Chevy pickup out of the mud 3) driving in the snow 4) having a cicada fly in the window on 66 and explode against the back window. Lowlights were mostly helping literally everyone in the DMV move at one time or another. It had 70K miles when I bought it. I sold it to my then-brother-in-law with 235K and the original clutch. It broke 250k before the transmission died on him and he got rid of it. It’s probably still out there somewhere.

2006 Mazda 3

My first new car. I had just bought a condo and was living on my own for the first time. The condo was not the greatest investment (absolute peak of the market, I had a $31,000 escalation clause on my offer) but the I got my money’s worth out of the Mazda. It drove my wife to the birth center to give birth to both our kids and carted them around through middle school. It was rear-ended on the way home from Rehoboth summer of 2020.

2020 Toyota RAV4 hybrid

First time I ever owned an automatic transmission. Good car. You could coax 52 MPG out of it if you were easy on the gas. 40 MPG with normal driving. It was stolen from outside our hotel in Montreal two weeks ago.

Next?

Almost definitely another RAV4 hybrid. I would love something fully electric but they are SUPER expensive and we don’t have off-street parking to charge it, so it would be a constant hassle.