PE. Civil Dengineer, Transportation and Housing Policy. Comments my own. Not speaking for any employer/board. Public sources only
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Why did cities pave roads?
The common misconception is that they did it “for automobiles,” but the first major reason was actually horses.
A paved street was easier to clean and much more sanitary. Cholera, typhoid, and other diseases were linked to filthy street conditions.
Then came additional pressures
Streetcars
Tracks worked much better on paved streets.
Streetcar companies often paid for paving near their lines.
Bicycles
The late-1800s “Good Roads Movement” was heavily driven by cyclists demanding smoother surfaces.
Paving was largely a response to urban sanitation, commerce, streetcars, bicycles, and horse traffic.
Most cities were paving streets with local money well before widespread automobile ownership and before the 1926 Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. decision.
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2 out of 10 Americans have never used public transit in their lives. 6 of 10 have not used in past year.
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Fatalities of people walking steadily falling and then something tragic happened in 2010 to flip the curve.
What?
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So number of deaths halved between 1980 and 2010 so right things were being done. What changed besides cars getting significantly heavier and electric??
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They’ve Been Warned: Attorney General Says Suburbs ‘Must Comply’ With Transit-Oriented Housing Law mass.streetsblog.org/2023/03…
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Want less traffic? Fix zoning
Want to walk to a shop ? Fix zoning
Want your kids to afford to live in their hometown? Fix zoning
Want to reduce CO2 emissions? Fix zoning
Want to increase demand for transit? Fix zoning?
Want to reduce deaths of people walking and biking on our roads ? Fix zoning
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A roundabout is very simply a barrier at the center of an intersection that forces all people driving to slow down
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They can be condos. The American dream doesn’t have to include a car. It can include a walk to a train station. It can include a safe bike ride with your kid. Providing choices is a good thing.
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No- though I think rising in Canada too.. We drive 70% more than Europe and they have some places with significantly better road designs for people walking and cycling.
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hmm - refuted here. Why mostly at night and the number of deaths increased for smaller cars too....
nytimes.com/2024/01/04/podca…
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Can someone explain why we need HAWKS? What is the benefit over a stoplight that all drivers understand. Is their purpose to safe seconds for a person in a car? Truly curious. Put a camera on them if compliance is the problem and be done with it.
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Would all age and ability riders cycle here? Is that the best safety call?We build them but no one uses them. …
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Ok but sedan rate rose similarly
nytimes.com/2024/01/04/podca…
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Deaths by sedan rose at same rate
nytimes.com/2024/01/04/podca…
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If you drive daily on publicly supported roads, why oppose same for others in more efficient less polluting rail? Is it the public road that gives you the liberty you preach? Would you support paying tolls to
profit driven companies to use any road?
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Every civil, municipal, and traffic engineer should read this book by @schmangee today.
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People would choose the lower cost option. I asked which you would want. We could choose to privatize all if we wanted to.
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but crash reports would have found this. Who's high on the opiods , the driver, person walking or both? plus trend flipped earlier
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Is ok for cyclists to complain about congestion in separated shared use paths and beg engineers for wider lanes? 😊
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Something I’ve been working at. Nice to see it out there. gazettenet.com/Guest-columni…
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We need to rethink where we put bike routes. We should build and designate many more safe routes within quieter streets instead of forcing bike infrastructure through busy areas and intersections with many turning vehicles. All routes should be peer reviewed with focus on building the safest network system possible and low vehicle ADTs and shared use segments wherever possible.
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Please don’t suggest our culture didn’t completely buy into car centrism top to bottom. The voters, the planners, the local leaders, the engineers, the developers, the automakers, everybody. Hook, line, and sinker.
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take 25% of that and build safe protected bike networks all can use in city town centers working outwards.
Driving costs the average Massachusetts family [whether they have a car or not] $14,000/year.” –Harvard Kennedy School. news.harvard.edu/gazette/sto…
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So is that a significant part of the reason Norway has done so much better…no vehicle weight or front area increases?
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But cellphones exist all over, in places where walking deaths have come down since 2010…..
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Interesting that Ike never thought interstates would connect and go through cities. Imagine if only the ring roads and much better transit to cities from them was the design instead.
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Hmm - funny take because I suspect both are but only one is driving 3k pound vehicle going 40+ mph. I don’t blame vehicles - I blame people operating them
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But sedan pedestrian deaths rose similarly
nytimes.com/2024/01/04/podca…
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You only said you’d ride parallel roads not that we should privatize all public roads now to be clear.
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Google maps needs a setting when doing bike routes to avoid high traffic roads and busy intersections and also an option to avoid hills. Would be great trip planning and route planning improvement tool as well.
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Are you really going here. They’re building a safer bike lane and are probably excited about it. Could be a demonstration project. Ease up
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Let’s get real. Maybe show 8 coming in in with 4 going through initially and solution being only 2 with cars going through and a bus lane, a train, and bike lane. Even Oslo has cars.
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Water and sewer users pay most often based on volume of use. Why not same for road users? Tax by weight and miles driven as we transition to electric cars.
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This offense is "non-incarcerable," which means it is not punishable by jail or prison time, only by a fine.
What??!!
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Need to show them good data on risk. Our kids were raised during era of 9/11 and everyone kept their kids very close.
I rode my bike literally everywhere alone as a kid ….
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And how much more do Americans drive per capita comparatively. You can’t just ignore that
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Engineers are leading the charge to shift 100 years of car centrism that permeated our country with a laser focus on safety. SS4A x 20. Tell your town to apply if they haven’t already. Tell your DOT to fix all the arterials they control. Support safe walk and bike networks.
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You guys think we live in a world that doesn’t yet exist. Safety is not like Bewitched. People without helmets on bikes and motorcycles will be in crashes tonight. Some will die. Go hang around an ER. Their chances of survival would be better with a helmet. It’s very simple.
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Can someone tell
me a single good reason we should not unrestrict the housing supply in a significant way to allow it to grow??
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Off topic. If housing simply kept pace with inflation your house would only be worth twice what it was in 1995 today. Maybe housing should not be an investment to make money from and has become big part of the housing problem young folks face today.
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Why count people crossing at at a dangerous place . Logic is bad.
Change MUTCD. Use density alone for these decisions
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Visit alone, not just as large group.
Note increased deference people driving give you when wearing the vest.
Visit at peak hour for cars and for people walking/biking. They may differ.
Walk full cycle of any crossings.
Note any jaywalking seen. Note dist to next crossings
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thats a good pont.
I've not seen a good historical demographic data of drivers who kill people walking with their cars but I am share of older drivers is growing as young less likely to get a license now
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All you have to do is obey the speed limit and stop at red lights. What so hard about that?
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its handheld use by driver being pointed at . we drive automatics and have free hand. -- europeans drive manuals -- we drive almost 70% more than they do too.
nytimes.com/2024/01/04/podca…
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Why would those be inevitable? Aren’t Highway DOT employees doing just fine with heavily subsidized roads? Folks who focus on collection/ management of fares would take a hit is all but benefits for riders and increase in use should make this small problem.
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Engineers do not choose whether or not we should build and subsidize more transit. Engineers did not design and recommend zoning maps. They do not recommend changes to them either. Traffic engineers do not set land use rules that create low density development and spread it for miles and miles from city centers served by car dependent separated commercial only zones. That’s what planners did.
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What?
"States must spend 15% of their Highway Safety Improvement Program funds on safety improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists, but only if fatalities of those road users are at least 15% of the traffic fatalities in the state."
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We should create car free micro business zones by right along rail trails and shared use paths.
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Asheville a mess. I still haven’t heard from my daughter and husband because power is still out my and most roads in are closed
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Shared use paths through city centers are really the gold standard for safe all ages bike infrastructure. brooklinema.gov/3542/Beacon-…
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Again I remind everyone it is terrible zoning that that is at the heart of our traffic mess.
Engineers built to suit poor design of planners with their awful car mandated mostly low density zoning maps. A society sends millions upon millions more cars each year, tells a new branch of engineeering to move them efficiently and then blames them for doing so without even a word about the underlying political decisions that set the framework that continues year after year send even more cars to our roads and streets. I agree its bakrupting us and killing the planet but its the legally enforced lack of density much of it at the local level that underpins all of it. higher density neighborhoods and town centers would have maintained and contunied demand for transit but our zoning mostly stopped that. If you really want to fix - you change zoning quickly to greatly increase housing supply to lower cost, remove all tax for residential construction and and wage laws when public builds it, support transit and construction of safe bike (for 8 - 80 year old and not just adult commuters) and walking netorks from the center of every city and town working outward and stop thinking of your home as an investment to make money on but as simply a home.
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Can happen all over. Build safe bike and walk networks.
London's network of Cycleways is now enabling an average of over 1,250,000 cycle trips a day. And we're expanding it to connect up even more communities across the capital.
Great to see the new bike lanes being installed by @CamdenCouncil on Gordon Square, Bloomsbury.
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A national inventory of sidewalks needs to be completed. The places with closest to twice as many sidewalk miles as road miles will most often be the most walkable cities and towns. A separate program encouraging building of sidewalks will pay for itself in future health savings
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Very interesting fact
"When analyzing the top 30 pedestrian crash hotspots, the majority have multiple lanes, high traffic volumes, speed limit above 30 mph, and 97% have adjacent commercial land uses."
poor facilities for people walking near commercial STROADS
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Mandatory manual transmissions across the USA!! And especially for new drivers. Make all drivers ed training on a manual.
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Strange take. There’s good study that it was also gentrification pushing working poor out of city centers to suburbs with lousy bike and walk infrastructure
Were police really halted from enforcement in Phoenix where spikes have been large ?
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