my notes from the May 2025 meeting of the BAC
Cynthia Palmer
May 12, 2025, 7:00 – 9:00 PM, TEAMS platform Agenda (times approximate) 7:00 – 7:15 pm
Participants: Elwyn Gonzalez, Cynthia Palmer, Dana
Bres, Justin Corwin, Ben Baldwin, Brian Shelton, Mary Dallao, Pamela Van Hine,
Gillian Burgess, Collier Cook, Noreen Hannigan, Andrew Martin, Steve Offutt
Welcome from the Chair and Introductions
Cynthia Palmer, BAC Chair
Please introduce yourself and answer the following: Are there any vehicle design features that you are hoping will be a part of tonight's vehicle safety discussion?
Responses included:
Side under-ride guards
Encouraging smaller vehicles including EVs *** mentioned by several participants
Reducing vehicular height / hood dimensions and capacity to maim
Blind spot detection
Use of autonomous vehicles
Speed-limiting vehicles
Cameras –
interior and exterior.
7:15 – 7:55 pm Arlington County Vehicle Safety
Justin Corwin, Safety Program Coordinator, DES Summary: Justin and his colleague Ben Baldwin discussed recent safety upgrades to Arlington County vehicles. They answered questions from Committee members regarding side underride guards and other safety features.
Some highlights:
· Arlington installed cameras first.
· Now they are adding five sets of “lateral protective devices” (side under-ride guards)… these are not expensive… Arlington will add more as they replace vehicles and as vehicle designs allow. These protect people on bikes, on foot, and in cars from being swept under a large moving vehicle. They don’t protect against the hit but they avoid the worst impacts.
· Arlington has installed 7 or 8 blind-spot 360-degree cameras, starting in a trash truck. These can include side object detectors.
· They might add AI scanners for bicycle riders and pedestrians.
· They’ve installed white noise backup alarms except on trash trucks where they are not allowed.
· They have more than 40 EVs including some F150s.
· Justin and Ben don’t have information on e-bikes, tho they think that 4 or 5 were purchased for staff use at Trades.
· EV vehicles may cost more than gas but they pay off over time.
· The ArlCo vehicles monitor for speed, breaking, and idling.
They are building safety features into contracts like for ART buses whenever possible.
· There are about 200 DES vehicles out of a total of about 800 County vehicles, mostly fire and police. Most are passenger vehicles but 120 are larger vehicles. The F150s come with many safety features built in. Arlington plans to keep adding safety features over time and as they replace the fleet.
· The least safe vehicles are the County’s 115 school buses. Arlington Public Schools regularly turns down recommended safety technologies including those that are becoming standard in all other vehicles. BAC and PAC ought to request a meeting with the school transport division to find out more.
· Arlington is actively engaged in identifying unsafe driver behaviors. They started piloting the system in January 2025. They have cameras that activate during “G force events” like making a sharp turn, hitting a pothole or an object, or slamming on the brakes. The goal is to adjust behaviors before a hit takes place.
· They are upgrading to 5G with new AI features. They keep the camera footage for 180 days.
· Some “coachable behaviors” can result in discipline and the behavior is recorded, but the goal is to improve outcomes (and protect people, avoid tickets, save $$) not to punish drivers.
· They track things like rolling stops, critical distance, drifting out of lane, preventing near-hits. The system yells at the driver if falling asleep.
· They are working closely with the collective bargaining unit. Cameras make ppl uncomfortable, especially those used internal to the vehicle. But this is about safer driving, not discipline.
· Over the past 180 days, they have recorded 11,938 events. Of these, 1,450 were at the level of “coachable.” Not all = violations, but they are behaviors that deserve pointing out and that could be improved upon.
· There is no coordination with ALX.
·
Justin’s dad was a mechanic and worked for a
stint as a driver. He witnessed a horrifying post-crash scene in which a driver
fell asleep at the wheel and was killed. This inspired Justin to seek out a
career in vehicle safety.
7:55 – 8:25pm Master Transportation Plan Performance Metrics
Brian Shelton, Transportation Planner, DES Summary: Brian presented on the progress of performance metrics identified within the 2019 Bike Element of the Master Transportation Plan (MTP).
Brian reviewed the MTP bike element program targets. Please see the slides for details, as I did not write down all the info.
1.Reduce crash rates … last year (2024) there were 39 crashes in which drivers hit people on bikes. Three were severe. Most were angle crashes.
2.Bike education in schools… they cover only 11 schools per year, limited by the # of bikes and trailers. The data reporting is sketchy/lacking/inconsistent on bike education and on riding to school.
3.Bike to Work Day…the participation has fallen.
4.Low-stress network
5.Low-traffic low-stress routes
6.Bike mode share … the County # is 1.7 percent, though there are questions about how this number is derived. The goal for 2025 was 8 percent.
7.Bike to school tally
8.Bike counters… the numbers are increasing but still below pre-pandemic numbers.
9.Repaving trails
10.Covered bike parking… the goal is 100 pct at transit stations (NOT including bus stops, oddly) and at schools by 2030. Currently at 32 percent… much needed at schools!
11.Capital
BikeShare… 2024 was the highest-usage year. The Cosmo ebikes are especially
popular. There are 529 Cosmo’s in the fleet. Riders prefer ebikes over pedal
bikes. 24 percent use free subsidized bikes.
There were questions about the American Community Survey as a source of data and the extent to which it is representative of the county.
There were also
questions about how the county could do better in terms of making progress on
the indicators.
Also some facilities are not built according to NACTO street design standards e.g. on Quincy Street near W&L High School, yet they are showing up on county maps as protected bike lanes. Quincy is not protected between 13th and Washington Blvd on the east side of street. It should not count as low stress.
8:25 – 8:50 pm Arlington’s Transportation Future – MTP
Dana Bres, BAC Vice Chair Summary: Dana provided a monthly update to the Committee regarding progress from the most recent Advisory Group meeting for the ongoing MTP update.
The ATF-MTP leadership has been coming up with aspirational goals, but they have not put similar effort into implementation. We ought to introduce a broad goal of making it work: enforcement, evaluation, and the management of exceptions. It is OK to make exceptions, but they should not be so easy…we work harder to avoid escalating matters to the bosses. The evaluation portion is also critical. If we don’t address these issues now, we will have the same troubles as we are facing with the Bike Element targets. The ATF process ought to be putting an equal amount of vigor and intensity into implementation as it does into its aspirational goals and other matters.
One model is
the Public Spaces Master Plan, which includes an implementation committee.
There needs to be flexibility rather than locking ourselves into particular configurations, e.g. the use of pedestrian bump-outs is at odds with the use of protected bike lanes… we need creative solutions that will protect bicycle riders AND pedestrians. The process that the ATF/MTP comes up with will be critically important and should be open to amendment and include processes for deviation.
8:50 pm – 9:00
pm BAC Business and Announcements
• 2025 Bike to Work Day this Thursday, May 15th: (https://www.bikearlington.com/bike/events/bike-to-work-day/)
• Northern Arlington Infrastructure Projects Open House on May 20th at Dorothy Hamm MS: (https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Programs/Transportation/Events/Open-House-
Northern-Arlington-Infrastructure-Projects)
• New Metrobus route names in effect June 29th: (https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/plans/Better-Bus/Resources.cfm)
9:00pm: Adjourn
Andrew Martin
On May 26, 2025, at 4:59 PM, 'Cynthia Palmer' via Arlington BAC <arling...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
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<BAC notes May 2025.docx>