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> The street separating these two schools in Syracuse was designed for speed, which means it was designed to kill. This is hyperbole. The street is designed to

by Zak 9y ago

> The street separating these two schools in Syracuse was designed for speed, which means it was designed to kill. This is hyperbole. The street is designed to efficiently move car traffic. The design error here is in creating a situation where a large number of children will walk across it. The author's goal appears to be to design streets so that they make getting hit by a car less deadly, which strikes me as perverse. It's certainly possible to make the street better for walking across by making it worse at efficiently moving car traffic, but it's also possible to replace the crosswalk with a pedestrian overpass and eliminate the conflict entirely.

Empact 9y ago
Any street that doesn't seriously consider the safety of people needing to cross it is functionally a wall or a hazard, whatever the uses surrounding it. If you create a conflict and don't try to make it less deadly, how do you describe that? Pedestrian overpasses require those who cross to physically climb over traffic. Better than a wall, but let's acknowledge the cost of that. They're also enormous and expensive, whether you design them terribly or well.[1] The calming proposals include: narrower lanes, a raised median, and a traffic light to explicitly priortize and protect pedestrians when crossing. What about those makes them an imposition? [1] https://candysdirt.com/2016/04/28/fugly-pedestrian-bridge-harry-hines-walnut-hill-cost-us-4-6-million/ https://candysdirt.com/2016/04/28/fugly-pedestrian-bridge-ha... http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Footbridge-an-elegant-new-icon-in-East-Bay-3171157.php http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Footbridge-an-eleg...
- Zak 9y ago
  Requiring people to climb over traffic doesn't seem like an unreasonable imposition in most cases. That sort of physical activity is even a health benefit for most people. I'm sure there are exceptions. All of the calming proposals create an imposition. The whole point of traffic calming is to impede the flow of traffic so as to reduce its speed. Without effective alternatives, reducing the speed of this road reduces its capacity to get people from one part of town to another, and it appears that state road 108 is, in fact a major road. It provides access to a number of businesses including a Walmart supercenter, churches, four public schools and city hall. The obvious alternative to driving is a public bus service, which also uses the road. It stops near the two schools hourly most times of day. So to make the interaction of the road and the schools safer, the city could redesign the road and make traffic worse, more substantially redesign the whole transportation infrastructure, or add a pedestrian overpass. The latter is not an insignificant project, but it usually costs less than the examples you linked.

by Zak 9y ago

Empact 9y ago

Any street that doesn't seriously consider the safety of people needing to cross it is functionally a wall or a hazard, whatever the uses surrounding it. If you create a conflict and don't try to make it less deadly, how do you describe that? Pedestrian overpasses require those who cross to physically climb over traffic. Better than a wall, but let's acknowledge the cost of that. They're also enormous and expensive, whether you design them terribly or well.[1] The calming proposals include: narrower lanes, a raised median, and a traffic light to explicitly priortize and protect pedestrians when crossing. What about those makes them an imposition? [1] https://candysdirt.com/2016/04/28/fugly-pedestrian-bridge-harry-hines-walnut-hill-cost-us-4-6-million/ https://candysdirt.com/2016/04/28/fugly-pedestrian-bridge-ha... http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Footbridge-an-elegant-new-icon-in-East-Bay-3171157.php http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/place/article/Footbridge-an-eleg...

Zak 9y ago
Requiring people to climb over traffic doesn't seem like an unreasonable imposition in most cases. That sort of physical activity is even a health benefit for most people. I'm sure there are exceptions. All of the calming proposals create an imposition. The whole point of traffic calming is to impede the flow of traffic so as to reduce its speed. Without effective alternatives, reducing the speed of this road reduces its capacity to get people from one part of town to another, and it appears that state road 108 is, in fact a major road. It provides access to a number of businesses including a Walmart supercenter, churches, four public schools and city hall. The obvious alternative to driving is a public bus service, which also uses the road. It stops near the two schools hourly most times of day. So to make the interaction of the road and the schools safer, the city could redesign the road and make traffic worse, more substantially redesign the whole transportation infrastructure, or add a pedestrian overpass. The latter is not an insignificant project, but it usually costs less than the examples you linked.