What is it going to take to get through to elected officials and progressive transportation planners, that they're working with a machine that's been designed to build freeways through poor neighborhoods and coerce anyone who could afford it into cars? A machine made of #trafficEngineers and #police which then accreted a century of CYA, cultural, legal, and bureaucratic armor against change? Giving the DOT more money for safety won't ever get us out of #carSupremacy. It's designed to not.
@marcprecipice infrastructure is essential to Vision Zero. The bollards we need to stop drunk drivers, dead drivers, glitching driverless cars, distracted drivers, raptured drivers... they're all the same concrete-filled steel hardware. Yet no American city seems to have a #VisionZero plan which actually directs #trafficEngineers to literally slow down cars and prioritize safety (including equal efficiency/convenience) of other modes.
"a 10-year, citywide push to reduce traffic deaths" #VisionZero is not something that takes ten years. Either you adopted a policy to immediately prioritize people and tell cars to get bent, or you're just stalling and propping up #CarSupremacy while talking about "safety" or wishing for "safety funding" that won't reduce the number or speed of cars. The real solutions are cheap, concrete-filled steel bollards, planters, and similarly stern stuff for modal filters. https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/most-dangerous-intersections-data-18665443.php
“The danger comes when [#trafficEngineers] treat neighborhood streets like a highway.” This is what you have after ten years of #VisionZero pushing? If this is the best Professional Engineers can manage, let's just cancel that profession.
Yet another "safety" project where the deadly status quo has been maintained for years while #PBOT wrings their collective hands about how to do it without impeding cars.
Kindergarten teachers have more skill at managing behavior than #trafficEngineers. If some drivers have problems being safe, that activity is over for everyone. #BanCars
#Portland 😞 #Vision60or70something "third [sic] consecutive year of failure for #VisionZero, an ambitious and expensive 2016 policy that included a goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2025... Officials had hoped that an increased police presence would be the missing ingredient to reduce fatal crashes." wtf who thought cops were going to help our #infrastructure design problems that we never adopted REAL policy requiring #trafficEngineers to fix?
"Chicago... argued that since Leland and Western aren't signed bikeways and don't have marked bike lanes, [the guy on a bike] was a "permitted" but not "intended" road user. [and thus his safety doesn't matter in terms of liability for potholes]" 😒 Uh, you mean #trafficEngineers signed off on the painting of invisible sharrows? A govt shouldn't be able to exclude people on bikes from using a street, even de-facto by making it unsafe. Oh the constitution predates bikes.
The recent rise in pedestrian deaths has happened almost entirely at night, according to the Times. Theories range from cell phone use to new patterns of poverty.
Interestingly, pedestrian deaths from smaller vehicles are also up more than 70%, suggesting larger vehicles can't explain it all.
#PBOT's "traffic calming" projects are such kid-gloves weaksauce that doesn't pretend to control the kinds of drivers who are actually making our streets feel unsafe. Their machines are 5-7000lb lumps of steel being flung around at 30mph with 400hp and Portland has, after a decade of organizing by neighbors and careful work by professional #trafficEngineers, delivered like a dozen rubber bumps and some paint. #tacticalUrbanism is this stuff but overnight, & then iterate
@scott at some point it has to be obvious that people who work for the #transportation depts don't care who they kill with cars. As long as they can blame the driver/victims, they will continue.
"let's also hope the jail cells for these drivers have room for #trafficEngineers and planners who repeatedly and knowingly deploy such deadly street designs in the first place."
🤬 "the boy was in a crosswalk ... around 3 p.m. ... suffered a broken tibia as well as bruises and scrapes ... witnesses reported that the driver was going from northbound Cesar Chavez to eastbound Glisan ... 40 mph... reddish-brown early 1990s Volvo." #Portland#HitAndRun#drivers
Since the school is on 41st, I suspect the kid may have been crossing this bullshit intersection with no hardware in that 62ft of exposure, a block to the east where the driver would have time to get up to 40mph. #trafficEngineers wyd?
It is so exciting to see traffic signal programming like this in Madison. This is from one of our city traffic engineers (who also happens to be a regular cyclist).
Did you fill out this survey to tell PBOT to quit being stupid & just put some stuff in the way of drivers doing dangerous stuff? I mean, that's not really an option on the survey, and it's painful to even participate in this farce when the vast majority of people impacted by this decision have no clue about this survey, including those that will get killed on 82nd due to the delay. #VisionZero doesn't stand a chance if #trafficEngineers won't reduce VMT or left turns
Earlier this year, I saw somebody get doored. They were injured, but otherwise ok. The driver was irate, and made things really difficult for the cyclist and neighbors who were trying to help. @xtaran asks:
Q5. How do you behave on bicycle lanes directly between a car lane and a parking lane? Do you ride in the car lane if there's no other traffic but parking cars on the parking lane to avoid getting doored? Any recommendations for such situations?
#BikeNite A5 your wheels should be at least 6ft away from the side of the car, for your handlebar to clear the open door. If that line is not within the bike lane, occupy the full car lane to notify drivers that the #trafficEngineers have done a #DoorZoneBikeLane to them
Even if it's only 1 in 10 drivers who are anti-social and unsafe, ruining it for everyone, the way we design our streets pretty much guarantees that you will encounter one of those ones should you choose to venture into the transportation system without armoring yourself in a car. #trafficEngineers want to act like they're designing for the 9 "good #drivers", but they are failing everyone if the design cannot keep the worst drivers in check, afraid to dent innocent cars
The above thought is brought to you by #trafficEngineers who want to paint a street design based on how many cars they counted on a street with no sidewalks, bike lanes, or bus service.
Who TF is going to look at #SE82nd and #Burnside in #Portland, blame the drunk #driver, be sad about yet another unfortunate victim, and not question the #trafficEngineers and elected+appointed officials who make the decision every day to maintain this deadly status-quo and its subsidies? The solutions are well within reach if we just had a little leadership instead of police fanboy "democrats" for a govt. #VisionZero#CarsRuinCities