#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
re: why #Portland can't have nice things: The trick is to make each "ride your bike in relatively car-free safety" event an expensive optional line-item requiring lots of money for "traffic control", but frame as unavoidable the $2M+/day we spend letting cars have free reign of the entire system for the other 362 days.
The city installed barriers on Capp St as a drastic step to deter sex workers. The concrete barriers are being upgraded to steel bollards today. The same sort of bollards we've been needing to protect pedestrians on Slow Streets or along bike lanes. Why is Capp St the only place that gets to have safe streets?
I've written 4 emails in the past 4 years to Supervisor Ronen asking for slow streets barriers & protected bike lanes, but never got a single reply. #SanFrancisco#ZeroVision
The construction of the center-running bike lanes on Valencia St has begun and cars are already using it as free parking. Who could have possibly predicted this?
We need protected bike lanes, but the city gave us a few new lines of paint and some soft-posts instead. #ZeroVision