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Testimony To Joint Committee On Transportation In Support Of An Act to Reduce Traffic Fatalities / Against Jaywalking Bill

Testimony as prepared for the Joint Committee on Transportation scheduled on Thursday, October 14, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. conducted via Microsoft Teams. To submit written testimony, you can submit it through the committee link above. Online testimony will be accepted until Friday, October 15 at 5:00 PM. Consider sending your testimony to your elected officials as well.

My name is Brendan Kearney, and I’m the Deputy Director of WalkBoston, Massachusetts’ statewide pedestrian advocacy organization, also speaking on behalf of the MA Vision Zero Coalition in support of the concepts behind An Act to Reduce Traffic Fatalities bills, but especially bill H3549 filed by Representatives Moran and Representative Straus. We are opposed to H3470, an act to prevent jaywalking.

We’re also opposed to the sidewalk robot bills: H.3583/S.2308 An Act relative to mobile carrying devices & S.2256/H.3482 An Act relative to personal delivery devices. (Click here to read testimony against similar legislation from 2019.)

H3549 Act to Reduce Traffic Fatalities

We believe this bill has many good provisions that will make our streets safer, including:

Side guards and backup cameras for large trucks,
Definition of vulnerable road user and 3 foot passing language,
Standardized crash reports,
Two fixes to speed limits, including:
- Allowing MassDOT to improve the safety of workers in active construction zones by establish speed limits without conducting an engineering study,
- Allowing state roads within a city/town that have opted into the 25mph default municipal speed limit to also be changed to match that 25mph limit.

H3549 does not include language that would require a rear red light AND a rear reflector. Currently the law requires one or the other. Bikes are manufactured with a reflector, and users often add a light. Eliza from the Boston Cyclists’ Union will share more information about the importance of preserving this as an OR statement.

H3470 An Act to Prevent Jaywalking

We are opposed to this bill, and testified against this similar legislation in 2017. There are a number of pieces within this proposal that are concerning.

This bill does not increase safety – it increases fines. Those fines are increased even more if you have a phone or headphones. This bill would also make crossing outside of a marked crosswalk illegal.

First: Distracted walking is a distraction.

When Toronto was examining a similar ‘distracted walking’ bill a few years ago, the Globe and Mail published an editorial that referenced electronic devices in the hands of walkers were a factor in just 25 of 23,240 pedestrian deaths in the US from 2010-14 (FARS = Fatality Analysis Reporting System). The editorial was titled, “All those pedestrian deaths? It’s the cars, stupid.”

Second: making it illegal to cross outside of a crosswalk is not realistic.

It is legal to cross anywhere outside of a marked crosswalk if you are at least 300ft from a crosswalk or signalized intersection. That is a reflection of how we all use our streets and how our communities are designed.

For example: I live in Framingham on Central Street. There is a sidewalk on one side of the street – on the side opposite our house. I cross when there are no drivers coming, or when someone yields for me. It is at least a mile between the crosswalks on our street. It would be unsafe to try and walk on the narrow 30 mph street with traffic to my back to try and get to the nearest crosswalk ¼ of a mile down the street – an act which in itself would be technically against the law: if there is a sidewalk present along a street, I’m supposed to walk on it. If there wasn’t a sidewalk, the law says I should walk against traffic.

This is not an extreme example – that is literally the view from my front door, and that’s the reality of many of our municipalities across Massachusetts. The term jaywalking was created by the auto industry in the 1920s to shift blame away from drivers who were hitting and killing people. 100 years later it has proven to be one of the most successful propaganda and marketing efforts of all time.

Finally, there are real equity concerns around jaywalking laws.

Jaywalking laws have been found to lead to biased enforcement. Other places across the country, like Virginia, are working toward decriminalizing jaywalking. ProPublica released a series “Walking While Black” a few years ago that found black people in Jacksonville, Florida were 3x as likely to be stopped and cited as white people. Similar patterns have been seen in many other places; Streetsblog reported last year that 89% of people issued jaywalk citations in New York were Black and brown.

This Friday at 2pm, the national organization America Walks is holding a webinar entitled “How to Take on Harmful Jaywalking Laws.” The host and moderator is Charles T. Brown from Equitable Cities, an award-winning expert in planning and policy. I’m happy to share the link to Friday’s America Walks webinar via email with the committee afterwards.

Since I’ve talked at length, I will share our concerns with the sidewalk robot bills in a letter to the committee afterwards. (Testimony against similar legislation from 2019.) In brief: We believe these types of vehicles belong in the street, and not sharing already constrained sidewalks.

Thank you for your time.

Testimony to Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security in support of Automated Enforcement

Testimony as prepared for the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security scheduled on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. conducted via Microsoft Teams. To submit written testimony, please email it to Dave McNeill (david.mcneill@mahouse.gov) and Cara Libman (cara.libman@masenate.gov). Consider adding your elected officials as well. For more talking points to consider from today’s hearing, take a look at this post from MA Vision Zero Coalition.

My name is Brendan Kearney, and I’m the Deputy Director of WalkBoston, Massachusetts’ statewide pedestrian advocacy organization, also speaking on behalf of the MA Vision Zero Coalition in support of these automated enforcement bills, S1545 and H2426 and H2532. Thank you for holding this hearing.

First: There has been an increase in speeding during COVID.

According to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, during 2020, when much of the country was under shelter-in-place restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the rate of overall traffic fatalities jumped 20% from 2019. Said another way, with a 16.5% reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) nationwide, the rate of drivers striking and killing pedestrians jumped to 2.2 deaths per VMT – an increase from 1.8 deaths in 2019.

Potential causes include speeding, distracted and impaired driving. With fewer drivers on the road, there was more space to speed. Here in Massachusetts, MassDOT and others recognized this trend: High driving speeds contributed to a doubled roadway fatality rate in the month of April 2020 in Massachusetts – and MassDOT began a communications campaign to remind people that times have changed, but speed limits haven’t.

Second: There is a need for equitable enforcement.

In June 2020, WGBH reported out data showing that black people in Boston accounted for 70% of police stops despite being 25% of the population. We believe that it is now time to pass an equitable automated enforcement law that would allow municipalities to install red light and speed cameras in high crash corridors with a robust community engagement plan.

We hope that you will move automated enforcement bills forward and out of committee, and have a few recommendations to help improve them.

Reconsider the population requirements to participate: since all the AE bills are municipal opt-in, it doesn’t seem that there should be a population requirement for communities to take part. A community of any size should be eligible for this program. Lots of rural roads in our state have huge speeding programs, and those places should be able to opt-in if they so choose. For example, as a statewide pedestrian organization, WalkBoston has worked with Rural communities that are also concerned about speeding including Williamsburg, Huntington, Blandford, Chesterfield, Cummington, and Goshen. There had been changes made during debate last February, so we just hope this can be clarified to ensure any community can opt-in.
We support fines that are non-escalating. The primary intent is to change drivers’ behavior. New York recently issued a report that examined their speed camera program from a seven year period: 2014-2020. In 2020, 52% of drivers who received a speeding ticket from a camera never got another one that year, while 20% only got one more (see p.14 of report). This suggests that the system led almost three-quarters of speeding drivers to change their behavior.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. We hope that you can take these recommendations into consideration when consolidating the 3 automated enforcement bills into one bill that we hope will move forward and out of committee.

Speak Up for Traffic Safety Legislation (Wednesday hearings)

Wednesday, October 13th at 11am, the Massachusetts Legislature is holding a hearing on multiple traffic safety bills. WalkBoston alongside our partners in the Massachusetts Vision Zero Coalition will be testifying in support of and in opposition to various bills—and we need your help emphasizing to lawmakers which bills will positively impact street safety, and which could do unintended harm. (WalkBoston’s testimony as prepared can be found here.)

Read more below about the bills we support/oppose. Then send your comments to the Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, which is holding the hearing, using our simple script below.

Can we count on you to contact the committee and speak up for safe streets?

Bills we support:

The MA Vision Zero Coalition has long been a supporter of using automated cameras to enforce speed and red-light violations. It’s a win-win tool to reduce dangerous driving and reducing direct police interactions. The following are the specific bills we support, as they have key equity provisions necessary to properly regulate this technology, including capped fines and data protections:

An Act relative to automated enforcement |S1545, Brownsberger, William N. (SEN)
An Act relative to automated enforcement | H2426, Ciccolo, Michelle L. (HOU)

Bills we oppose:

The MA Vision Zero Coalition supports wearing seatbelts. However, we do not support changing the seat belt law from a secondary to primary offense. With the additional legislation, not wearing a seat belt could be the sole reason for a police officer to initiate a traffic stop. This law has been shown to contribute to pretextual stops and racial profiling in other states. Instead, we propose education and awareness campaigns to encourage greater seatbelt usage. These are the following bills we oppose:

An Act establishing a primary seat belt law | H2515, Roy, Jeffrey N. (HOU)
An act relative to primary enforcement of seatbelt violations | H2543, Whelan, Timothy R. (HOU)
An Act establishing a primary seat belt law | S1591, Feeney, Paul R. (SEN)

Traffic safety is immensely important, and it’s equally important that it’s done right. The MA Vision Zero Coalition feels strongly about our approach and recommendations to the MA Legislature. Please speak up for legislation done right, and use our sample comment letter below to share your thoughts with the committee.

Thank you for your support!

SAMPLE COMMENT LETTER

To submit written testimony, please email it to Dave McNeill (david.mcneill@mahouse.gov) and Cara Libman (cara.libman@masenate.gov). Consider adding your elected officials as well.

To: Dave McNeill (david.mcneill@mahouse.gov); Cara Libman (cara.libman@masenate.gov)

CC: info@visionzerocoalition.org

Recommended email subject: Written Testimony on Traffic Safety Legislation

Sample script:

Dear Chairman González, Chairman Timilty, and members of the committee,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide written testimony regarding the bills being heard in this Committee. I am writing to express support for two bills the MA Vision Zero Coalition is advocating for that would make our roads safer and prevent traffic deaths, as well as to express my opposition to Primary Seat Belt legislation.

An Act relative to automated enforcement (S1545/H2426), which the Senate came very close to passing last session, would allow municipalities to opt in to installing cameras that would issue tickets for violations for speeding, failure to stop at a red light, failure to stop at a school bus stop arm, blocking the box, and parking or driving in a dedicated bus lane. When enacted in other states, automated enforcement has reduced speeding and serious crashes. More than 400 communities in the U.S. use red light cameras, and more than 130 use cameras to enforce speed laws.

This legislation is key for managing speeding, while removing direct policing and traffic stops from the equation. I ask that the committee report out favorably on this legislation.

In addition to supporting the above Automated Enforcement legislation, I request that this Committee not move forward any primary seat belt legislation, including H2515, H2543, and S1591. While wearing seat belts saves lives in car crashes, the legislation as written relies on police officer-initiated enforcement on our roads, which increases the potential for profiling, harassment, and abuse of Black people and other marginalized groups. In Florida, Black drivers were twice as likely to be pulled over and ticketed for failure to wear a seat belt, according to a 2016 ACLU report.

In Massachusetts, we’re already seeing a racial disparity in how the state enforces a new law against distracted driving. In traffic stops for using a phone while driving between April and December last year, Black, Hispanic, and Asian people were more likely to be issued citations than white people for the same infraction.

I support the MA Vision Zero Coalition’s prioritization of a “safe systems” approach to traffic safety rooted in prevention, not punitive measures. Instead of direct policing, education and awareness campaigns around seat belt usage should be the primary focus for increasing safety.

[Talk about why this issue matters to you: how you get around the city, how you or someone you know has been impacted by a crash, etc]

Traffic safety is immensely important, and it’s equally important that it’s done right. I encourage you to take this into consideration as you consider all the bills before you.

Thank you,

[full name

street address

city/town, state, zip

phone:

email: ]

Celebrating Bob King Sloane 11/3/1936—5/12/2021

Earlier this year WalkBoston lost a member of our family, Bob Sloane. Bob was a dear friend, a mentor, a creative genius, and a true pioneer in walking advocacy. On September 9, we gathered together virtually to celebrate his extraordinary life and reminisce about our times together with him. Stories were told about the early days, about his trailblazing work on the Boston Transportation Planning Review, where he pushed forward the message that walking is a fundamental part of the transportation conversation at a time when it was not a popular view. We heard about how Bob and company founded WalkBoston over beers at Jacob Wirth’s. We heard about how Bob stuck to his principles and ideals, regardless of the professional consequences. We heard about his kindness and empathy, his contagious enthusiasm and dedication. Bob’s presence was palpable throughout the night as the same themes came through in every story. His kindness, his stalwart nature, his sense of humor, his creativity, and even his insistence on sharing snacks (especially Clover fries and Yorkshire tea). “A fierce advocate,” “heart of gold,” “he never gave up,” “one of nature’s true gentlemen,” “truly a life well lived,” “the soul of WalkBoston” — this is how we described Bob. We will all miss the twinkle in his eye as he came up with his latest scheme. We will miss the sight of him hunched over his maps and tracing paper. We will miss him walking into the room and saying “Do you have a minute?” Thank you, Bob, for everything, and thank you to his family for sharing him with us. His legacy and impact will be felt for generations to come. He leaves behind a more walkable, livable, vibrant, and welcoming community for all of us. We hold him in our hearts and will never forget him. You can find his obituary at walkboston.org/bob.

This article was featured in WalkBoston’s Fall 2021 newsletter.
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