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There are also social cues and the lack of an ever present mob. A lot of people who are political activists online are not actually that confident in their view
by cgriswald 7y ago
There are also social cues and the lack of an ever present mob. A lot of people who are political activists online are not actually that confident in their views and absent the audience and ready defenders, won't express their views because they know they can't back it up in a one-on-one conversation.
Our city did a traffic survey of a local street that is the primary route for everyone going from surrounding neighborhoods to downtown and found the average speed was ~2 mph over the posted limit, with the 85th percentile at ~5 mph over the speed limit. These are reasonable speed for such a wide road. The city then added several 'safety' features to it, and found in a subsequent survey that the changes actually did little to slow traffic. One feature is a pair of speed bumps. Some drivers slow to about 5 mph to go over the bumps, increasing the risk of rear end accidents. Other drivers veer into the bike lanes to go partially around them without slowing down. Everyone else slows down a reasonable amount, but then subsequently accelerate back up to the speed limit on a block where jaywalking is common. Some of the features they added are, in my opinion, beneficial, like turning a side street into a one way road after frequent accidents from people turning left out of it.
But you can't talk about it on Nextdoor. The second you criticize the speed bumps you'll be ignored (if you're lucky) or attacked. Nuance is not allowed. You're either for all the changes, even the dangerous ones, or you're a crazy speed demon. Meanwhile, if you post about 'the children' who you are afraid for (even though no one has any evidence of a child ever being hurt by a driver on this road), you're going to get upvoted a lot within the first ten minutes.
- Scoundreller 7y agoHeh, a road to my parents’ used to be riddled with potholes and uneven sewer grates (Canadian winters + drainage issues probably). The city spent months ripping it up and paving it nice and smooth. Then a couple months later they put up speed bumps. We spent a lot of money to get back to the speeds people already drove.
- cgriswald 7y agoPeople on the next street over (it's a grid) are on Nextdoor complaining about all the traffic coming down their street now. And I'm sure it's the worst of the traffic that's going over there to avoid the features. I'm not sure how the city will fob off spending money on that street after spending the money on this one.
- JohnFen 7y agoI once lived on a street that was incredibly badly maintained. The city informed the residents that they would be repaving the street and the residents campaigned hard for the city not to do that, for precisely the reasons you're talking about here. Their campaign was successful, in no small measure because a poll of the residents showed 95% of them opposed the repaving, and that the local paper wrote a big story about the whole affair.
- asdff 7y agoI hate how pervasive this degenerate thinking is in local politics. "we don't want a nice thing because then people would use it."
- JohnFen 7y agoThat's not the thinking at all, though. The thinking is that the road being in rough shape means that everyone is forced to drive at a sane speed through a residential street where children are frequently playing. In other words, the "nice thing" isn't actually so nice in terms of the things that the people on that street really care about.