D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 10-A, § 400
400.1 The Transportation Element provides policies and actions to maintain and improve the District's transportation system and enhance the travel choices of current and future residents, visitors, and workers. These policies are complemented by policies in the Land Use, Urban Design, and Environmental Protection Elements on related topics, such as air quality and the management of public space. Recognizing the interplay between transportation and these related topics is critical to improving safety, mobility, and accessibility in Washington, DC.
400.2 The critical transportation issues facing the District are addressed in this element. These include:
400.3 A safe, well-balanced, and multimodal transportation system is integral to the District's efforts to sustain and enhance residents' quality of life. It is also key to the District's future economic growth and its role as the nation's capital. Creating such a system requires integrating land use and transportation and implementing a range of improvements that enhance safety, connectivity, livability, equity, health, sustainability, resiliency, and vitality.
400.4 As the nation's capital and the center of one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan areas, Washington, DC faces increasingly complex mobility challenges as it plans for its future. The District has the largest share of the region's jobs; however, the region continues to grow, creating longer commutes, increased peak congestion, and poor air quality. Within the District, the major surface transportation arteries are highly congested during morning and evening commuting, and Metrorail has faced safety and reliability issues related to deferred maintenance. Funding to maintain the existing transportation system, let alone expand the system to meet increased demand, is severely constrained.
400.5 However, these challenges also present opportunities. The District has one of the most extensive mass transit systems in the country, densities that support and promote transit use, a growing network of bicycle and pedestrian trails, and a unique system of radial boulevards that distinguish it from all other American cities. Washington, DC's gracious avenues, bridges, and parkways are part of its history and are defining elements of its urban form and character. With appropriate strategies, these transportation assets can enhance the quality of life in Washington, DC and increase the District's attractiveness while still performing their essential function to move people and goods in and around the District.
400.6 The District is also augmenting and sustaining its existing transportation network. It is expanding transit via limited-stop bus routes to areas not served by Metrorail and has established streetcar service on a major commercial corridor. It is replacing the Anacostia River bridges to improve mobility and roadway operations and to support economic development and urban beautification. It is improving sidewalks and bicycle routes across the District. It has instituted a highly successful bikeshare system and has supported private sector innovations in car sharing, ride-hailing services, and dockless bicycle and scooter sharing. The on-demand ride-hailing services offered by transportation network companies (TNCs) have created new opportunities and challenges for mobility in the District. They provide individuals with new transportation options but increase demands on the District's limited roadway capacity. Figure 4.1 summarizes the transportation assets of the District.
400.7 Emerging smart-city technologies—such as dynamic parking meters, connected signals, and digital sensors—provide new opportunities to meet many of the transportation challenges facing the District. These technologies build on existing transportation infrastructure, including the signal network, transit and vehicle technologies, and user tools and applications. The District aims to employ these technologies in an integrated, accessible, and equitable fashion, encouraging coordination among the District, regional agencies, smart infrastructure providers, and users. Data exchange will be a critical part of the process—as will feedback and adaptation—to encourage greater safety within, equity regarding, and
accessibility to the transportation network.
400.8 Figure 4.1: Transportation Assets of the District
| Transportation Asset | Description |
|---|---|
| Roadway System | 1,171 miles |
| Rail Mass Transit (Metrorail) | 38 miles (total for region = 117 miles) 40 stations (total for region = 91 stations) |
| Bus Mass Transit Metrobus DC Circulator | Service on 281 miles of road Service on 52 miles of road |
| Sidewalks | 1,808 miles |
| Bicycle Routes Protected bicycle lanes | 9 miles |
| On-road bicycle lanes | 75 miles |
| Signed routes | 100 miles |
| Off-road trails | 60 miles |
| Capital Bikeshare Bikes | 2,300 Capital Bikeshare bikes (total for region = 3,600 bikes) |
| Stations | 300 Capital Bikeshare stations (total for region = 525 stations) |
| Parking Meters | 11,166 parking meters serving 18,903 spaces |
| Street Lights | 70,263 street lights |
| Airports* | Two international airports (Washington Dulles International and Baltimore/Washington International) and one domestic (Reagan National) |
| Railroads | 27.2 miles of rail line (serving Amtrak passenger rail, Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) and Virginia Rail Expressway (VRE) commuter rail, and CSX and Norfolk Southern freight rail). Union Station, within walking distance of the Capitol, provides connections to bus and rail transit, and to shared cars, rental cars, and sightseeing services. |
Source: DC Office of Planning, 2017
Facilities serving Washington, DC, located outside of its boundaries
400.9 In the District, the transportation system should strike a careful balance between serving the needs of its residents—a large workforce that arrives and departs Washington, DC each day—and serving the many people who visit. The system must meet residents’ needs, which should be coordinated with regional infrastructure and policy. In 2014, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) produced moveDC, a multimodal transportation vision plan that addresses these challenges.
400.10 moveDC, the District's multimodal long-range transportation plan, presents a transportation infrastructure model and District-wide multimodal policies that will guide the District's transportation vision for the next two decades. The plan describes the recommended networks of facilities, services, and policies to achieve the District's transportation goals. The Comprehensive Plan accepts moveDC's policies and recommendations as the basis for transportation planning and policy in the District and integrates them within the broader policy framework laid out in the Comprehensive Plan.
400.11 The policies and actions in this section must be considered in the context of racial equity to address existing disparities and historic inequities. Transportation options are critical to access job opportunities, healthy food, education, and many services, and for the ability to afford to live in the District. In planning areas east of the Anacostia River, where 90 percent of residents are Black, people travel farther for employment opportunities, often by car. Black and Brown residents are proportionately higher users of transit, particularly bus services. Historically, many of the District's transportation initiatives in the 20th century, such as highways, caused displacement of Black communities and many facilities such as the Metrorail system were sited and designed to limit use by communities of color. Communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately reside near highways, rail, and freight routes and thus experience the negative environmental and health impacts of this infrastructure. It is important to design and implement transportation systems, including new technologies, that consider the specific needs of these communities through a racial equity lens, reduce barriers to access, and increase transportation accessibility and mobility.
SOURCE: District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984, effective April 10, 1984 (D.C. Law 5-76; 31 DCR 1049 (March 9, 1984)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Element Amendment Act of 1984, effective March 16, 1985 (D.C. Law 5-187; 32 DCR 873 (February 15, 1985)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-129; 37 DCR 55 (January 5, 1990)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989 NCPC-Recommended Amendments, and Closing of Public Alleys in Square 669, S.O. 88-452, Act of 1990, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-132; 37 DCR 2213 (April 6, 1990)); as amended by District Government Land Use Temporary Amendment Act of 1994, effective October 1, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-190; 41 DCR 5360 (August 12, 1994)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1994, effective October 6, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-193; 41 DCR 5536 (August 19, 1994)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Amendment Act of 1994, effective March 21, 1995 (D.C. Law 10-235; 42 DCR 30 (January 6, 1995)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 18, 1996 (D.C. Law 11-110; 43 DCR 530 (February 9, 1996)); as amended by Second Technical Amendments Act of 1996 effective April 9, 1997 (D.C. Law 11-255; 44 DCR 1271 (March 7, 1997)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 1998, effective April 27, 1999 (D.C. Law 12-275; 46 DCR 1441 (February 19, 1999)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1999, effective April 12, 2000 (D.C. Law 13-91; 47 DCR 520 (January 28, 2000)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2006, effective March 8, 2007 (D.C. Law 16-300; 54 DCR 924 (February 2, 2007)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 2008, effective March 25, 2009 (D.C. Law 17-353; 56 DCR 1117 (February 6, 2009)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2010, effective April 8, 2011 (D.C. Law 18-361; 58 DCR 908 (February 4, 2011)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2021, effective August 21, 2021 (D.C. Law 24-20; 68 DCR 006918 (July 16, 2021)).