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In a local municipality where I used to live, they have a number of double-wide (two lanes in each direction with a median) roads in residential areas, with hou

In a local municipality where I used to live, they have a number of double-wide (two lanes in each direction with a median) roads in residential areas, with houses on each side. People often sped on these roads, going 45-55 miles an hour in a 35 zone, causing accidents and hurting pedestrians and cyclists. So they changed the speed limit from 35 to 25mph. Now, people routinely speed on these roads, going... 45-55 miles an hour in a 25 zone. Why don't we just make the speed limit zero? That oughta fix it. What's the alternative? I guess we could develop roads that are actually sized for the speed you want people to travel at, and thereby not make residential areas 100% road-centric, but I'm told by every civil engineer in America that that's crazy talk for some reason.

lordnacho 4y ago
How about fines that scale with income?
- frumper 4y ago
  You'd probably be fine just starting with actually giving out fines.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> What's the alternative? Windy roads. Double wide gives you optionality here: convert them into single lane each way and wind through the double wide, turning the remainder into parks or returning it to the adjacent plot.
- frumper 4y ago
  Windy might slow down some drivers, but it hurts visibility for every driver.
karamanolev 4y ago
What I've seen as part of a solution to that particular problem is to shape/decorate the roads according to the speed you want people travelling at. That's more of the case in Europe than the US. For lower speeds, plant more trees along the road, add more swerve-y features like alternating street parking on the left and right side of the road (as seen in Switzerland); avoid large, long visibility areas, asking people to pay attention and slow down. Making a 1mi visibility 2-lane each direction road with a 25mph is stupid, as it just won't be followed or if it is enforced - lead to endless frustration. Just use natural features to cause people to behave the way you want.
- matsemann 4y ago
  It's a bit funny (sad) how it works. Like studies in my city show how removing a lane of parked cars and instead using that as a bicycle lane, increases speed of traffic. The added visibility, "feeling" of a wider road, and less chance of a scratch in your side overrules the chance of maiming the cyclists next to you.
- TylerE 4y ago
  I think a big part of this is just how much flatter most of it is. 1mi+ visibility ins't so much anything with road design...it's just geometry.
francisofascii 4y ago
So these civil engineers have never heard of traffic calming? Many motorists in the US certainly don't like it, but it does work.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  This is fundamentally exactly what it comes down to. For driving to be safer for people it must become less convenient, more stressful and frustrating for drivers. It seems like most americans think of themselves as drivers first, and reject that.
  - topkai22 4y ago
    It’s also substantially more expensive to add in than putting up a new speed limit sign. “Change the speed limit” by changing a sign and “reengineer the road” are just different propositions entirely.
Swizec 4y ago
Alpine towns in Europe have long ago solved this problem. Those roads have a 90kph speed limit that abruptly changes to 50kph or less for a few hundred meters through a town, then goes back to 90kph. As you can imagine, people speed. A lot. So towns started adding a gratuitous sharp turn at the entrance into town. You fly in doing 90kph, slow down for the turn, and are greeted by a 50kph speed limit. You won't speed back up because why would you. Portuguese rural towns, I've seen, have a similarly brilliant solution – a stoplight outside town. If you approach at speeds above the speed limit, the red light comes on. Forcing you to keep stopping outside very tiny little town. You quickly learn it's faster to just go the speed limit. Another good solution I've seen from little alleys in San Francisco. The speed limit is whatever, but you really shouldn't drive more than 10mph there. Such nice straight road though ... so they stopped being straight. The 1 lane of driving and 1 lane of parking switch sides every quarter block. Forcing you to slow down.
alistairSH 4y ago
What's the alternative? Stop building double-wide roads in areas where speed control is desirable. Start prioritizing humans over cars. Locally, they've put several such roads on "diets" with good success (usually cutting lane count in half, using the space for bike lanes). Accident rates are down, speeding is down, and throughput only marginally impacted. I guess we could develop roads that are actually sized for the speed you want people to travel... I'm told by every civil engineer in America that that's crazy talk for some reason. It's only crazy if rule #1 is maximizing auto throughput, which has historically been true in the US. And it's hard to do retroactively, because other transit options usually aren't sufficient (and cost a fortune to retrofit). But, designing such places from scratch shouldn't be too difficult.
teeray 4y ago
Speed tables are pretty effective. If the driver beats the crap out of their car, they won’t do it again.
genocidicbunny 4y ago
Some places are doing what they're calling 'road diets' where they narrow the lanes, add a bike lane if it doesn't already exist, or an additional buffer between the car lanes and the bike lanes. Near me, in a few places they also changed some 3-lane roads to 2 lanes.

lordnacho 4y ago

How about fines that scale with income?

frumper 4y ago
You'd probably be fine just starting with actually giving out fines.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> What's the alternative? Windy roads. Double wide gives you optionality here: convert them into single lane each way and wind through the double wide, turning the remainder into parks or returning it to the adjacent plot.

frumper 4y ago
Windy might slow down some drivers, but it hurts visibility for every driver.

karamanolev 4y ago

What I've seen as part of a solution to that particular problem is to shape/decorate the roads according to the speed you want people travelling at. That's more of the case in Europe than the US. For lower speeds, plant more trees along the road, add more swerve-y features like alternating street parking on the left and right side of the road (as seen in Switzerland); avoid large, long visibility areas, asking people to pay attention and slow down. Making a 1mi visibility 2-lane each direction road with a 25mph is stupid, as it just won't be followed or if it is enforced - lead to endless frustration. Just use natural features to cause people to behave the way you want.

matsemann 4y ago
It's a bit funny (sad) how it works. Like studies in my city show how removing a lane of parked cars and instead using that as a bicycle lane, increases speed of traffic. The added visibility, "feeling" of a wider road, and less chance of a scratch in your side overrules the chance of maiming the cyclists next to you.
TylerE 4y ago
I think a big part of this is just how much flatter most of it is. 1mi+ visibility ins't so much anything with road design...it's just geometry.

francisofascii 4y ago

So these civil engineers have never heard of traffic calming? Many motorists in the US certainly don't like it, but it does work.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
This is fundamentally exactly what it comes down to. For driving to be safer for people it must become less convenient, more stressful and frustrating for drivers. It seems like most americans think of themselves as drivers first, and reject that.
- topkai22 4y ago
  It’s also substantially more expensive to add in than putting up a new speed limit sign. “Change the speed limit” by changing a sign and “reengineer the road” are just different propositions entirely.

Swizec 4y ago

Alpine towns in Europe have long ago solved this problem. Those roads have a 90kph speed limit that abruptly changes to 50kph or less for a few hundred meters through a town, then goes back to 90kph. As you can imagine, people speed. A lot. So towns started adding a gratuitous sharp turn at the entrance into town. You fly in doing 90kph, slow down for the turn, and are greeted by a 50kph speed limit. You won't speed back up because why would you. Portuguese rural towns, I've seen, have a similarly brilliant solution – a stoplight outside town. If you approach at speeds above the speed limit, the red light comes on. Forcing you to keep stopping outside very tiny little town. You quickly learn it's faster to just go the speed limit. Another good solution I've seen from little alleys in San Francisco. The speed limit is whatever, but you really shouldn't drive more than 10mph there. Such nice straight road though ... so they stopped being straight. The 1 lane of driving and 1 lane of parking switch sides every quarter block. Forcing you to slow down.

alistairSH 4y ago

What's the alternative? Stop building double-wide roads in areas where speed control is desirable. Start prioritizing humans over cars. Locally, they've put several such roads on "diets" with good success (usually cutting lane count in half, using the space for bike lanes). Accident rates are down, speeding is down, and throughput only marginally impacted. I guess we could develop roads that are actually sized for the speed you want people to travel... I'm told by every civil engineer in America that that's crazy talk for some reason. It's only crazy if rule #1 is maximizing auto throughput, which has historically been true in the US. And it's hard to do retroactively, because other transit options usually aren't sufficient (and cost a fortune to retrofit). But, designing such places from scratch shouldn't be too difficult.

teeray 4y ago

Speed tables are pretty effective. If the driver beats the crap out of their car, they won’t do it again.

genocidicbunny 4y ago

Some places are doing what they're calling 'road diets' where they narrow the lanes, add a bike lane if it doesn't already exist, or an additional buffer between the car lanes and the bike lanes. Near me, in a few places they also changed some 3-lane roads to 2 lanes.