4 ms·

I don't think it is necessarily a worse overall outcome, even if the small streets become somewhat less safe. It could be that installing barriers at some of t

by tfnw 9y ago

I don't think it is necessarily a worse overall outcome, even if the small streets become somewhat less safe. It could be that installing barriers at some of the more dangerous points is the most optimal solution?

dmoy 9y ago
Blocking off certain streets is exactly what my hometown did. Make it so only certain roads go straight through, others have every third intersection blocked off
- tfnw 9y ago
  I didn't mean barriers that prevent through traffic, I meant barriers that protect pedestrians.
  - macNchz 9y ago
    I think that it's a reasonable and valid decision for a community to try to restrict through traffic to the main roads such that residential areas can remain quiet/free from exhaust/safe to walk around without all sorts of guardrails and stuff, even if it means less efficiency and more congestion on the main routes.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - tfnw 9y ago
    @macNchz Why is it okay to push even more of these costs on people around the main route, don't you think that people in all areas should take on their share of these costs. Also struggling to see how a guardrail could be burdensome.
    - michaelt 9y ago
      Road networks often follow a hierarchical design - Freeways fed by major roads, major roads fed by smaller roads, smaller roads fed by residential streets. The larger roads, obviously, are designed for higher traffic speeds and volumes. Features you might see (depending on how large the road is) include more and wider lanes, restrictions on stopping, fewer curves, better visibility, fewer junctions, pedestrians directed to footbridges or dedicated crossings, better lighting, no buildings opening directly onto the roads, and suchlike. For example, see [1] blue roads being slower/lower capacity, and orange and red being larger, higher speed roads. Also struggling to see how a guardrail could be burdensome. Consider this narrow road in London [2] which allows you to bypass the traffic lights between Clerkenwell Road and St John St (admittedly at the cost of taking a sharp corner - I've done this on a motorbike). Replacing the bollards with armco barriers would prevent pedestrians from crossing the road. (IMHO if people don't want a road used as a through road, they should get the road blocked at one end - rather than expecting a legislative solution - and if they don't want the inconvenience of going around, perhaps they should consider that other road users don't either) [1] http://www.stgeorgenp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Proposed-Speed-Limits-for-East-Area-120115.pdf http://www.stgeorgenp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Prop... [2] https://goo.gl/ETDx3h https://goo.gl/ETDx3h
      - tfnw 9y ago
        Even with an overall hierarchical design, some places still tend to have fairly major roads with houses on both sides, these are the places I'm concerned about, directing more traffic to these major roads from historically less trafficked roads. I would think having gaps in the barrier, say every five or ten meters would be sufficient? I like your humble opinion :) that seems like quite a fair solution all around.
        laumars 9y ago
        Barriers look ugly and don't solve the problem for: * pet owners (even cats aside, some dogs often escape the house), * younger kids who don't have the same safety awareness and often just run off, * older kids who parents would normally trust to cycle to their friends house. Barriers also create parking problems: * how do barriers work when you have houses with driveways? * and if don't have driveways then how do you park on the street now that you've made it harder to get on and off the pavement? Barriers legitimise speeding down the road which puts cars parks on the street at greater risk of getting damaged (I've seen this happen far to often along rat runs). Plus there is also the noise polution problem of living next to a rat run. In fact it's worse than along main roads because you end up with car engines revving as they maneuver around parked cars at speed rather than the constant steady drone of cars going past. You have no idea how annoying this is during the summer when you want windows open and the cars are louder than your own bloody TV! People who move into a main road do so knowingly and are willing to live with the drawbacks it brings. Though often those kind of houses have longer front gardens so the house is set further back from the road and/or hedges or other noise cancelling greenery (sometimes - not always though). But if you move onto a quieter street you do so because you want a safer and quieter environment. Which is why residents protest against their streets being turned into through-roads
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Sounds good, as long as I get to withhold my taxes in proportion to the number of streets that get blocked off by people who feel they're more entitled to use them than I am.
  - awjr 9y ago
    Transport planning is about developing road networks around specific purposes. So a major route would have a higher speed profile than a residential road. Residential roads with lower speed profiles also sometimes expect children to be playing in them and primarily be destinations. Filtered streets (placing bollards at one end) are a key tool in rebalancing anti-social behaviour primarily caused by congestion on major routes. It is not changing the function of the road, but enforcing the original designed purpose of the road to be an end destination and not a convenient through route. It is also significant tax saving. Residential roads are not designed for significant volumes of traffic and can suffer significant damage if they become overused.
Silhouette 9y ago
I don't think it is necessarily a worse overall outcome, even if the small streets become somewhat less safe. That's probably because you've never lived on a street designed as a local residential area that has been turned into a rat run. Unfortunately, anyone who has would be in no doubt about that being an overall worse outcome. It undermines the structure of most official traffic planning, sometimes with horrifying results for safety, along with a variety of other undesirable side effects. Ultimately, all roads are not equal. They are often designed for different purposes, and when they are repurposed for things they were not intended for, very bad things can and do happen. This is a real problem with modern SatNav systems directing large numbers of vehicles along unsuitable routes because they're trying to shave 10s off a journey time, and I imagine laws will be passed regulating such systems before too long (this being easier and more practical than designating all the roads in question as access only and then actually enforcing that law).

by tfnw 9y ago

dmoy 9y ago

Blocking off certain streets is exactly what my hometown did. Make it so only certain roads go straight through, others have every third intersection blocked off

tfnw 9y ago
I didn't mean barriers that prevent through traffic, I meant barriers that protect pedestrians.
- macNchz 9y ago
  I think that it's a reasonable and valid decision for a community to try to restrict through traffic to the main roads such that residential areas can remain quiet/free from exhaust/safe to walk around without all sorts of guardrails and stuff, even if it means less efficiency and more congestion on the main routes.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- tfnw 9y ago
  @macNchz Why is it okay to push even more of these costs on people around the main route, don't you think that people in all areas should take on their share of these costs. Also struggling to see how a guardrail could be burdensome.
  - michaelt 9y ago
    Road networks often follow a hierarchical design - Freeways fed by major roads, major roads fed by smaller roads, smaller roads fed by residential streets. The larger roads, obviously, are designed for higher traffic speeds and volumes. Features you might see (depending on how large the road is) include more and wider lanes, restrictions on stopping, fewer curves, better visibility, fewer junctions, pedestrians directed to footbridges or dedicated crossings, better lighting, no buildings opening directly onto the roads, and suchlike. For example, see [1] blue roads being slower/lower capacity, and orange and red being larger, higher speed roads. Also struggling to see how a guardrail could be burdensome. Consider this narrow road in London [2] which allows you to bypass the traffic lights between Clerkenwell Road and St John St (admittedly at the cost of taking a sharp corner - I've done this on a motorbike). Replacing the bollards with armco barriers would prevent pedestrians from crossing the road. (IMHO if people don't want a road used as a through road, they should get the road blocked at one end - rather than expecting a legislative solution - and if they don't want the inconvenience of going around, perhaps they should consider that other road users don't either) [1] http://www.stgeorgenp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Proposed-Speed-Limits-for-East-Area-120115.pdf http://www.stgeorgenp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Prop... [2] https://goo.gl/ETDx3h https://goo.gl/ETDx3h
    - tfnw 9y ago
      Even with an overall hierarchical design, some places still tend to have fairly major roads with houses on both sides, these are the places I'm concerned about, directing more traffic to these major roads from historically less trafficked roads. I would think having gaps in the barrier, say every five or ten meters would be sufficient? I like your humble opinion :) that seems like quite a fair solution all around.
      - laumars 9y ago
        Barriers look ugly and don't solve the problem for: * pet owners (even cats aside, some dogs often escape the house), * younger kids who don't have the same safety awareness and often just run off, * older kids who parents would normally trust to cycle to their friends house. Barriers also create parking problems: * how do barriers work when you have houses with driveways? * and if don't have driveways then how do you park on the street now that you've made it harder to get on and off the pavement? Barriers legitimise speeding down the road which puts cars parks on the street at greater risk of getting damaged (I've seen this happen far to often along rat runs). Plus there is also the noise polution problem of living next to a rat run. In fact it's worse than along main roads because you end up with car engines revving as they maneuver around parked cars at speed rather than the constant steady drone of cars going past. You have no idea how annoying this is during the summer when you want windows open and the cars are louder than your own bloody TV! People who move into a main road do so knowingly and are willing to live with the drawbacks it brings. Though often those kind of houses have longer front gardens so the house is set further back from the road and/or hedges or other noise cancelling greenery (sometimes - not always though). But if you move onto a quieter street you do so because you want a safer and quieter environment. Which is why residents protest against their streets being turned into through-roads
CamperBob2 9y ago
Sounds good, as long as I get to withhold my taxes in proportion to the number of streets that get blocked off by people who feel they're more entitled to use them than I am.
- awjr 9y ago
  Transport planning is about developing road networks around specific purposes. So a major route would have a higher speed profile than a residential road. Residential roads with lower speed profiles also sometimes expect children to be playing in them and primarily be destinations. Filtered streets (placing bollards at one end) are a key tool in rebalancing anti-social behaviour primarily caused by congestion on major routes. It is not changing the function of the road, but enforcing the original designed purpose of the road to be an end destination and not a convenient through route. It is also significant tax saving. Residential roads are not designed for significant volumes of traffic and can suffer significant damage if they become overused.

Silhouette 9y ago

I don't think it is necessarily a worse overall outcome, even if the small streets become somewhat less safe. That's probably because you've never lived on a street designed as a local residential area that has been turned into a rat run. Unfortunately, anyone who has would be in no doubt about that being an overall worse outcome. It undermines the structure of most official traffic planning, sometimes with horrifying results for safety, along with a variety of other undesirable side effects. Ultimately, all roads are not equal. They are often designed for different purposes, and when they are repurposed for things they were not intended for, very bad things can and do happen. This is a real problem with modern SatNav systems directing large numbers of vehicles along unsuitable routes because they're trying to shave 10s off a journey time, and I imagine laws will be passed regulating such systems before too long (this being easier and more practical than designating all the roads in question as access only and then actually enforcing that law).