3 ms·

I'm not convinced these changes makes the street safer. It's purely anecdotal, but nearby me in North Oakland there are several intersections that I often walk

by lacker 3y ago

I'm not convinced these changes makes the street safer. It's purely anecdotal, but nearby me in North Oakland there are several intersections that I often walk along where it seems like they just keep putting more stuff in the street. Plastic poles that don't actually prevent cars from driving over them, signs, flashing lights, cross hatched regions, color coded painted regions, little roofed extensions of restaurants, bicycle lanes that criss cross the other things. It seems so distracting for drivers. But it doesn't really seem like the drivers slow down enough to make it safer. I personally prefer to walk along a street that just has a simple stop light or stop sign and crosswalk, rather than a street that has all sorts of weird things in the road that allegedly make it better.

aeternum 3y ago
Yes, these kind of "paint the street" solutions give pedestrians a false sense of safety. Sure most cars pay attention but that actually makes things more dangerous as you start to let your guard down when walking and think of that painted bulb as safe. Then you nearly get clipped by a driver that simply ignores or is oblivious to the painted bulb. If you really care about pedestrian safety, give pedestrians the entire intersection. All red so pedestrians can confirm cars are stopped, then they proceed across or diagonally through the intersection. Aka the pedestrian scramble. It's quite rare in the US.
jeffbee 3y ago
The fact that it is distracting for drivers is the point. Making the street appear dangerous to drivers is the positive outcome. In the specific case of the Oakland bike lanes and associated junk in KONO and Temescal, all objective indications of safety are better. """OakDOT found that the protected lanes caused cars to slow down, addressing the most critical factor in surviving collisions. The speed of the fastest cars went down to about 24 mph, while the pace of most other vehicles went down to 17 mph. Collisions between bicyclists and cars also fell by 40% in the first year the protected lanes were in place. The number of pedestrians on Telegraph Avenue also went up 103%, and the number of bicyclists using the street nearly doubled."""
- lacker 3y ago
  Huh, this area is more controversial than I had realized. I think you're grabbing that quote from this article: https://oaklandside.org/2021/07/08/protected-bicycle-lanes-telegraph-avenue-transportation-department-oakland/ https://oaklandside.org/2021/07/08/protected-bicycle-lanes-t... But even the head of OakDOT is quoted as agreeing with me here, that their project turned out to be too unsafe! And yet many of the statistics, as you point out, look good. I dunno, I guess we'll see. It's a nice area, regardless, I just have fundamental doubts about the theory of "if we distract drivers, they will slow down, thus making the roads safer".
livueta 3y ago
One of my least favorite antipatterns in my area is a crosswalk with a bunch of signs around it that flash constantly, regardless of pedestrian presence or input. They flash in a slightly different pattern if you push the button. Alert fatigue, anyone? Most drivers just blow through it. As a distance runner who spends a lot of time on the roads, I'm increasingly convinced that signs, speed limits, flashing lights and other flavor of the month gizmos are totally ineffective excuses for not doing what actually needs to be done to improve pedestrian/cyclist safety, which is changing the built environment to a) reduce maximum possible vehicle speed by changing the physical structure of the road and b) providing robustly physically separated infrastructure, extending even to tunnels/overpasses, for non-vehicle traffic. I trust concrete way more than I trust laws.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  The Dutch standard is to raise the level of crosswalk. This creates a speed bump that slows down cars. It also means pedestrians don’t need curb cuts because the sidewalk is same level as crosswalk.

by lacker 3y ago

aeternum 3y ago

Yes, these kind of "paint the street" solutions give pedestrians a false sense of safety. Sure most cars pay attention but that actually makes things more dangerous as you start to let your guard down when walking and think of that painted bulb as safe. Then you nearly get clipped by a driver that simply ignores or is oblivious to the painted bulb. If you really care about pedestrian safety, give pedestrians the entire intersection. All red so pedestrians can confirm cars are stopped, then they proceed across or diagonally through the intersection. Aka the pedestrian scramble. It's quite rare in the US.

jeffbee 3y ago

The fact that it is distracting for drivers is the point. Making the street appear dangerous to drivers is the positive outcome. In the specific case of the Oakland bike lanes and associated junk in KONO and Temescal, all objective indications of safety are better. """OakDOT found that the protected lanes caused cars to slow down, addressing the most critical factor in surviving collisions. The speed of the fastest cars went down to about 24 mph, while the pace of most other vehicles went down to 17 mph. Collisions between bicyclists and cars also fell by 40% in the first year the protected lanes were in place. The number of pedestrians on Telegraph Avenue also went up 103%, and the number of bicyclists using the street nearly doubled."""

lacker 3y ago
Huh, this area is more controversial than I had realized. I think you're grabbing that quote from this article: https://oaklandside.org/2021/07/08/protected-bicycle-lanes-telegraph-avenue-transportation-department-oakland/ https://oaklandside.org/2021/07/08/protected-bicycle-lanes-t... But even the head of OakDOT is quoted as agreeing with me here, that their project turned out to be too unsafe! And yet many of the statistics, as you point out, look good. I dunno, I guess we'll see. It's a nice area, regardless, I just have fundamental doubts about the theory of "if we distract drivers, they will slow down, thus making the roads safer".

livueta 3y ago

One of my least favorite antipatterns in my area is a crosswalk with a bunch of signs around it that flash constantly, regardless of pedestrian presence or input. They flash in a slightly different pattern if you push the button. Alert fatigue, anyone? Most drivers just blow through it. As a distance runner who spends a lot of time on the roads, I'm increasingly convinced that signs, speed limits, flashing lights and other flavor of the month gizmos are totally ineffective excuses for not doing what actually needs to be done to improve pedestrian/cyclist safety, which is changing the built environment to a) reduce maximum possible vehicle speed by changing the physical structure of the road and b) providing robustly physically separated infrastructure, extending even to tunnels/overpasses, for non-vehicle traffic. I trust concrete way more than I trust laws.

ianburrell 3y ago
The Dutch standard is to raise the level of crosswalk. This creates a speed bump that slows down cars. It also means pedestrians don’t need curb cuts because the sidewalk is same level as crosswalk.