Here is my first experiment with Prezi. What better place to roll out a new presentation tool than the 20th anniversary of the Congress for New Urbanism? For more on CNU20, visit here and here.
Special thanks to Eliza Harris for making the Innovation Track at CNU20 possible.
Thanks in part to FHWA releasing this document, roadway design flexibility has become a popular catch phrase in professional transportation circles. The basic idea is that engineers are smart people who should use good judgment and common sense when designing streets and highways.
At the philosophical level, the message has successfully spread. At the practical level, not so much. For local and state infrastructure owners/operators, flexible design is still viewed as a fringe–almost extreme–concept. It is not yet mainstream. Where’s the proof? In most of our neighborhood streets and suburban corridors.
Before watching the short clip below, know this: the speed limit is posted at 35 MPH and a significant number of residents do not own their own vehicle. Watching activity from this vantage point is not unlike a life-size Frogger game (here’s the scoop on Frogger for you young Gen Y’ers).
For any of you transport wonks out there who take sick pleasure in photographing examples of unsafe streets, Elly Blue has a contest you will enjoy. Here is my entry, taken just up the street from the video embedded above.
The free right-turn is a traffic engineering tool that every driver has almost certainly passed through at some point. It is a tool designed to “improve” operations on a corridor (see also: biased language).
Looks harmless enough. The two videos below put you into the shoes of a pedestrian attempting to cross the street where a free right turn exists. Experience the walk in two stages: first, where the sidewalk meets the street; second, partway through the street at a concrete island designed as a refuge for pedestrians.
Notice the yellow vests. The picture and videos were taken as part of a Road Safety Audit to help right the wrongs of old design practice. The corridors were designed to process as many vehicles as possible, as quickly as possible. But as land development increased over the years, so did the number of pedestrians and bicyclists.
From the FHWA archives: “Risking Success Through Flexible Design“.
Over the past decade, through conferences, training, and new partnerships, FHWA and its partners have been working to bridge knowledge gaps and enable transportation planners and engineers to design with flexibility and employ context sensitive approaches with greater confidence and regularity.
Understanding this evolving landscape of flexible and context sensitive highway design and how to thrive in it will enable State DOTs to build and refine roads and other transportation facilities that not only meet safety and mobility requirements but also help create more livable communities.
Even if you don’t read the entire article, take a look at the two charts illustrating the evolution of highway decision making. Despite education campaigns by FHWA, ITE, CNU and others, so many state DOTs still follow what FHWA calls “the Old Way”:
decide on technical solution –> communicate solution to community –> defend decision
Here’s an opinion on the results of the Old Way.
The City Builder Book Club is reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. 50 years after its original publication, planners still have much to learn about meddling. So many of the challenges we’re trying to overcome in cities and suburbs originated from professionals fighting against a free market for the alleged greater good.
This might be a tad harsh, but reading Jacobs reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.
Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives (@TransAlt):
The NYPD is among the most sophisticated law enforcement operations in the country. It’s the sixth largest standing army in the world, it has officers stationed in scores of foreign nations and it can shoot down small aircraft. The question for us today is if its officers can do more to keep New Yorkers safe on our own streets and deter drivers from killing hundreds and injuring thousands of innocent people every year?
James Vacca, New York Councilmember:
More New Yorkers are killed every year by motor vehicles than are murdered by guns.
Ongoing coverage by the Gothamist (@Gothamist).
“Street capacity” is usually defined as the amount of moving vehicles that can be pumped through in a given period of time. Here’s another definition for street capacity: the performance of a street; a measurement of a street’s ability to maximize economic development and livability consistent with its context. In other words, what is a street capable of?
When streets close for festivals, the average person doesn’t wonder about typical vehicular delay or level of service. They wonder what to experience next and where to spend the next wad of cash. (Here’s a related story on that.)
