Road Diet

[erfalf]

http://www.carfreeinbigd.com/2012/08/counter-intuitive.html

Saw this interesting article about smaller roads. I know it is from that he**ish city down south, but I still keep up since living their for a brief spell.

The most interesting part was that traffic counts actually increased when lanes were reduced. Higher traffic counts = more businesses.

[Ed W]

Traffic planners and motorists seem to revere throughput above all else.  I read regular complaints of "too many stoplights and too many stop signs" as well as "speed limits are too low."  Yet the people who make the complaints are the first to squawk about someone zooming along their residential street at 50 plus.

It's some kind of sin to travel at or below the speed limit, regardless of your mode of transportation.  Bicyclists are reviled (though not here on TNF) for traveling well below the average speed of traffic.  If you want perform an experiment and meet some potentially interesting people, set your cruise control at the speed limit on any local road.  Within a minute or two, someone will be tailgating. 

Road diets are interesting in that they're one of the 'traffic calming' tools that planners like to toy with when designing our streets.  Their purpose is to slow traffic, making crashes more survivable for motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, and they're a useful way to reduce noise as well.  But think about that for a moment.  Road diets reduce speeds.  Why not simply reduce the speed limit?

We know that on a road with a 35mph limit, traffic travels at 40-45mph without much concern over speeding tickets.  There are just too many roads, too many motorists, and not enough cops.  Road diets are an engineering solution to a law enforcement failure, or put slightly differently, they use engineering to change behavior.

One bicycling advocate and a good friend said, "We spend hundreds of thousands in tax money to build traffic calming devices, but bicyclists do that for free!"  What a radical.

[Red Arrow]

Traffic planners and motorists seem to revere throughput above all else. 

Traffic planners revere throughput.  (Cars per hour)  Motorists actually revere the inverse. (Hours per car)  Use the time unit of your choice.

It's some kind of sin to travel at or below the speed limit, regardless of your mode of transportation.

It is actually against the law to impede traffic.  How slow is impeding is evidently a matter of opinion.  I don't care so much if someone wants to go slow as long as they allow others to pass.

Road diets are interesting in that they're one of the 'traffic calming' tools that planners like to toy with when designing our streets.  Their purpose is to slow traffic, making crashes more survivable for motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, and they're a useful way to reduce noise as well.  But think about that for a moment.  Road diets reduce speeds.  Why not simply reduce the speed limit?  We know that on a road with a 35mph limit, traffic travels at 40-45mph without much concern over speeding tickets.  There are just too many roads, too many motorists, and not enough cops.  Road diets are an engineering solution to a law enforcement failure, or put slightly differently, they use engineering to change behavior.

A ticket for 36 in a 35 zone is overzealous.  By the time someone is going 10 over at city speeds, they probably deserve a ticket.  I am one of two or three drivers in the Tulsa area that tries to drive approximately the speed limit.  Mostly I get to follow 3 lanes of traffic going 30 to 40 in a 50 zone.  However, posting speed limits at 10 to 15 under what is reasonable is not the answer.

One bicycling advocate and a good friend said, "We spend hundreds of thousands in tax money to build traffic calming devices, but bicyclists do that for free!"  What a radical.

It may temporarily "calm" traffic but the net effect is to enrage motor traffic.  Be careful out there. You may have the right of way but you may also wind up dead right.

An interesting exercise in traffic throughput is to examine throughput vs. speed.  There are a few assumptions necessary, the biggest one being that each car follows the car in front by a fixed time interval, such as 2 seconds.  Another assumption is that the interval is from the front of one car to the front of the car following it (to remove car length).  If you accept those assumptions, cars per hour (throughput) is independent of speed until the speed gets low enough that it is impossible to be only 2 seconds behind the car in front of you.  This all falls apart when you consider traffic lights and the time it takes for traffic to start moving when a light turns green.

[nathanm]

We know that on a road with a 35mph limit, traffic travels at 40-45mph without much concern over speeding tickets.  There are just too many roads, too many motorists, and not enough cops.  Road diets are an engineering solution to a law enforcement failure, or put slightly differently, they use engineering to change behavior.

People mostly drive whatever the street encourages them to drive. 71st Street mostly encourages people to drive quickly. It is very wide, has good sight lines, etc. Many of our other streets are narrow and have poor sight lines. This encourages people to drive slowly. Shrinking the roads is a great solution when you have an issue with too much speed. Speed bumps and the like, not so much.

The point being that some engineering solutions are great and do what they say on the tin. Others don't.

[TheTed]

With the passage of that new moratorium on building demolition, I think we've started getting the point about too much parking. But when will we start doing something about our streets?

Surface parking and extremely wide streets are basically equal in that they're an extremely irresponsible use of precious land. Go up on top of a parking garage or taller building. At pretty much any non rush hour, you'll see dozens of lane-blocks for every single car.

We can do better than to plan for the absolute minimum delay of people fleeing downtown at 5pm.

[Red Arrow]

Surface parking and extremely wide streets are basically equal in that they're an extremely irresponsible use of precious land.

Plenty of room for a set of trolley rails and electric.

[Ed W]

Plenty of room for a set of trolley rails and electric.

London charges motorists for the privilege of driving in the city center.  It's had the effect of increasing public transit use, increasing the numbers of pedestrians, and increasing the numbers of bicyclists.  I don't expect there's the political will to do something similar here, but by making parking more expensive and onerous in the downtown area while building satellite lots with trolley or shuttle service, we could just possibly reduce the number of cars and drivers downtown.

[Red Arrow]

London charges motorists for the privilege of driving in the city center.  It's had the effect of increasing public transit use, increasing the numbers of pedestrians, and increasing the numbers of bicyclists.  I don't expect there's the political will to do something similar here, but by making parking more expensive and onerous in the downtown area while building satellite lots with trolley or shuttle service, we could just possibly reduce the number of cars and drivers downtown.

I think that making downtown a "toll zone" would not go over well pretty much anywhere in the US.  Making it more attractive to take transit is fine.  Our family went to the NY Boat show several years in the mid 60s.  We drove from near Phila to a Park and Ride in NJ.  Dad had no intention of trying to drive and then park anywhere in NYC.

[Conan71]

Road diets?

Mrs. C and I eat a lot of green and red chile dishes when we drive out to New Mexico and Colorado.

Wait...what?

[Red Arrow]

Road diets?

Mrs. C and I eat a lot of green and red chile dishes when we drive out to New Mexico and Colorado.

Wait...what?

Real chiles and not trying to pass of tomatillos as chiles.

[carltonplace]

Plenty of room for a set of trolley rails and electric.

I agree, that would be awesome.

[Conan71]

Real chiles and not trying to pass of tomatillos as chiles.

Yep.  I can think of a few restaurants in Tulsa who do that very thing.

[GG]

Road diets?

Mrs. C and I eat a lot of green and red chile dishes when we drive out to New Mexico and Colorado.

Wait...what?

I hope you give her the courtesy of driving with all the windows down. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

I think that making downtown a "toll zone" would not go over well pretty much anywhere in the US.  Making it more attractive to take transit is fine.  Our family went to the NY Boat show several years in the mid 60s.  We drove from near Phila to a Park and Ride in NJ.  Dad had no intention of trying to drive and then park anywhere in NYC.

That would be my intention, too.


Sadly, I had to drive a Freightliner condo with 53' box into the Bronx one day a few years ago.  Gawd, what a nightmare!!  Raised interstate, with 4 lane road underneath - was on the road underneath.  Unfortunately, there were 6 lanes of cars on those 4 lanes....

[Conan71]

I hope you give her the courtesy of driving with all the windows down. 

Actually, posole is the only thing which appears to give me an issue.  Learned my lesson a few years ago on that one.  First road trip together, surprised she agreed to go on another with me after that