Did you make WABA’s November 2 Cider Ride? The routes visited the Patuxent Research Refuge, Lake Artemesia, College Park, and other Prince George’s sites. Check out this post’s header photo, taken during the Cider Ride at Bladensburg Waterfront Park.
Let’s start this quarterly Prince George’s County WABA Advocacy update with a look ahead, at…
The 2025 state legislative session starts January 8. A number of our 2024 priority bills that didn’t pass will be reintroduced in the 2025 Maryland legislative session. They include Bicycle Safety Yield (a.k.a. Stop as Yield), Bikes On Sidewalks as the default statewide, the Transportation and Climate Alignment Act, and an Electric Bicycle Rebate and Voucher Program bill.
We’re thrilled that Delegate Michele Guyton (District 42B, Baltimore County) will introduce a new bill, prohibiting stopping, standing, or parking in a striped bike lane or a bicycle path such as a cycletrack, and District 26 (Prince George’s County) Senator Anthony Muse will introduce the bill in the Senate. We’re glad! We’re also fans of D17 Delegate Julie Palakovich Carr’s new Bicyclist Head Start bill, which would allow a bicyclist to proceed through an intersection when the pedestrian walk signal is illuminated, and we’re all for D26 Delegate Kris Valderrama’s bill creating graduated speed-camera fines on Indian Head Highway/MD 210, which has been the site of 93 traffic fatalities since 2007. That death toll is horrendous and unacceptable. Stiffer penalties for high-speed violations would contribute to a safer roadway.
Click here to view a working document covering WABA’s 2025 Maryland Legislative Agenda and again, please join us Thursday evening, December 5 for a legislative preview, online via Zoom with guest Senator Will Smith.
State finances will be a central General Assembly focus during the 2025 session. The headline of a November 12 Maryland Matters article reads, Five-year state budget projection foresees ‘enormous gap’ not seen in two decades. The subhead is “Budget cuts, taxes among options to close budget deficits that rise into billions of dollars.” We’re doing our best to identify opportunities and influence decision-makers.
WABA Maryland Organizer Seth Grimes presented our transportation priorities on October 24 in Largo, during the Maryland Dept. of Transportations FY25 – FY30 Consolidated Transportation Program tour. (The CTP is the basis for the state’s six-year capital budget for major transportation programs.) WABA’s testimony also calls for inclusion of the Greenbelt East Trail and the Maryland portion of the Fort Lincoln-Anacostia Riverwalk Trail connector, which includes a new bicycle and pedestrian bridge across the Anacostia River, paralleling Route 50, in the CTP. Click here to view a recording of the October 24 program – including Seth’s WABA testimony starting at 1:34:45.
We have other, positive points to share…
Each year at a WABA Awards celebration event, we recognize the amazing work of neighbors, instructors, advocates, and elected officials across the region who continue to build momentum to create a region where anyone — any age, ability, background, or zip code — can get around safely, comfortably, and with joy.
This year, WABA presented a Public Leadership Award to Prince George’s County Councilmember Eric Olson and a Community Advocate Award to Dan Behrend, at the October 9 WABA Awards program in the District of Columbia. Here’s what WABA Maryland Organizer Seth Grimes had to say when presenting the award to Eric:
We applaud Councilmember Olson’s leadership and dedication to improving the safety, comfort, and inclusivity of biking through the Walkable Urban Streets Act, advancing important road safety projects like the Trolley Trail, and supporting community-led efforts.
Dan Behrend is active with RISE Prince George’s, Bike Maryland, and the Friends of the Greenbelt East Trail in addition to WABA. Here’s our statement about Dan:
Dan brings data analysis, project expertise, and thoughtful advocacy to efforts across Maryland. He’s directly played a role in improving the safety, comfort, and inclusivity of biking by diving into the data to propose improvements to policies and infrastructure projects, engaging youth and other community members as an instructor, helping to lead local (RISE Prince George’s, Greenbelt East Trail) and state campaigns (Bike Maryland), and many more.
It was an honor recognizing Eric and Dan!
WABA Advocacy has posted our Complete State Roads–Prince George’s County (CSR-PGC) report. Let’s call this a WABA-internal achievement. The report documents a major part of our Prince George’s County work over the last year or so – covering challenges, policy, resources, projects, and plans – with a forward-looking component that maps out our state-roads strategy for the next year or so.
State roads are our biggest safety and bikeability challenge. They are the most dangerous roads state-wide, including in Prince George’s County, with a disproportionate share of roadway deaths and major injuries. They are also the least friendly routes for bicyclists, pedestrians, and rollers.
What’s the CSR-PGC initiative about? Here’s an excerpt of the report’s executive summary:
Complete Streets are designed for safe use and mobility for people who walk, bike, scoot, or use transit, a mobility device, cars, or trucks. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s (WABA’s) Complete State Roads–Prince George’s County (CSR–PGC) work provides guidance for transforming Prince George’s County’s major state roads into complete streets.
Safety, mobility, equity, transit access, and bicycle-network completeness are key CSR–PGC factors, as are Maryland’s and Prince George’s County’s Vision Zero commitments and availability of federal, state, and local funding for planning, design, and construction.
The CSR-PGC initiative arms officials and community members with information needed to understand and advance critical bicycle-network, road-user safety, and transit-boosting infrastructure improvements aligned with major planned and underway transportation infrastructure work.
We’re fortunate that the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) has been welcoming of WABA’s and the community’s input and advocacy. We’ve built strong relationships with SHA executive, policy, and project-delivery staff that should pay off as we advance our state-roads advocacy.
We’ll close this update by mentioning a couple of other activities this quarter.
We’re continuing to work – as usual collaborating with community and advocacy groups and local officials – to extend the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail along US 1 from Hyattsville to the Washington DC border; to upgrade newly created US 1 College Park bike lanes by adding barriers to protect bicyclists from motor-vehicle traffic; to make Fairmount Heights and Chapel Oaks – especially Addison Road and Sheriff Road – safer and bikeable; helping Bowie organizers win safer streets and bikeways; and as other opportunities arise around Prince George’s County. Please, please, get in touch (if we’re not already talking!) about working together…
We’d like to hear your thoughts about bicycling, pedestrian, and road-safety programming that the county should fund for the next fiscal year. Please send us a note at advocacy@waba.org and we’ll see what we can add to our advocacy agenda.
Finally, is your WABA membership current? If not, we’d love to have you (re)join. Just visit waba.org/join-2020/. WABA is member supported, and your contribution at any level – WABA membership dues are pay-what-you-can – will help us sustain our work and expand our community impact. Thank you!
