To the editor:
The more I look at the city’s Vision Zero web page with all the sanctimonious pledges by all the city officials, the more disgusting the city’s concessions to the scooters that are running amok seems to be. While scooters are not mentioned as a means of conveyance in the city’s 2017 Vision Zero plan, that’s not to say they don’t fit within the multimodal description of transportation in this plan. The city’s Vision Zero program has been overwhelmed by a disruptive actor – scooters – and someone will shortly die because this test phase runs unchecked.
In my opinion, the Vision Zero plan is a way to spend money on alternative transportation modes and socially engineer residents out of their cars. The commitment to safety is certainly an important by-product.
But this feel-good program and virtue signaling by all the city officials who took the Vision Zero pledge is proven to be an empty commitment every time a helmetless scooter rider runs another stop sign, brushes another pedestrian on the sidewalk or clogs another crosswalk or intersection day or night. And, to make matters worse, motorized bikes are soon to appear at Capital BikeShare stations.
Who is in charge of our streets? Our leaders at city hall have clearly abandoned their responsibilities, and the police are unable to enforce the chaos that reigns.
-Bob Wood, Alexandria
