Next question is from @meganL about national cycling advocacy organizations:
Q3. What advocacy item would you like the League of American Bicyclists (or whatever your national/local cycle advocacy group is) to add to their lobbying agenda?
A3 #BikeNite it seems like every politician and even most drivers "support bicycling" but what's lacking is the connected low-stress infrastructure to get people of all ages and abilities from all points A to all points B by bike. DOTs' bike plans are being built on like a 200-year timeline and #CompleteStreets are never going to happen before the climate extincts us unless we do #TacticalUrbanism and network-level reprogramming of space that's effectively reserved for cars
#Portland's new Deputy City Administrator of Public Works will start July 1, in transition to the new form of government adopted by the charter reform measure. Public Works will include Water, Environmental Services, and #Transportation bureaus (which will be run by a City Administrator rather than elected commissioners of our current system.) #pdxBikes
Tactical network-level changes like cut-thru traffic diversion and bus-turn-only road diets are badly needed if we want to actually connect a usable low-stress #bikewayNetwork and not waste the next decade on more non-progress like rebuilding Hawthorne or flashing beacons on 82nd. Drop in hardware, take feedback, and iterate, not this narrow, overpriced, too-little-too-late stuff like around Tilikum, Naito, and soon SW 4th. #tacticalUrbanism like Jersey City, Paris, Seville, Amsterdam 50yrs ago
“‘It comes across as well-intentioned, but this is a classic delay tactic by people who oppose improvements,’ said Luke Bornheimer, an advocate who pushed for the [improvements]. He now fears the idea will be shipwrecked on the rocks of committee meetings and community feedback.”
@jef@marcprecipice@LukeBornheimer the "outreach" process and careful planning is based on changes being set in stone, but the designs they bring after years of planning are crap. City street changes need to shift to #tacticalUrbanism: provide some notice (on the street) & chance for input, put some stuff in the street that yields a safer environment, with posted information about how to provide further input, iterate. AFTER the entire bikeway network is low-stress & connected, pour concrete.
people keep literally saying exactly how to transform your city urgently and without a lot of money but mayors and traffic Engineers just roll up the windows and stare straight ahead at a red light. #ClimateAction#Transportation#InducedDemand#TacticalUrbanism#JFDI
"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
Now, 2014 was before Portland adopted Vision Zero, but their prompt and expensive removal of #TacticalUrbanism stuff is still the norm (see e.g. twitter.com/BlockOpsPDX/status/1699509746339074365 ) gotta tear it out and talk about it for months or years, and somehow they just can't seem to get ahead of cars
@danlyke I think it would lead to guerrilla bollard installations, #tacticalUrbanism etc. Ambiguity is one thing, but drivers will only slow down if there is a clear risk of damaging their vehicle.
#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
Years ago, @vmbrasseur gave a talk at OSCON/osbridge about the importance of failure, as a way to learn, as a key to innovation, about how failure needs to happen or you become averse to change. I haven't really thought about how using that wisdom in my software experience has shaped my opinion about how cities should do public works & planning, #transportation, #zoning, #tacticalUrbanism, etc until this #StrongTowns video. Prototype, test, measure, don't guess. #JFDI
8% of streets cause the majority of fatal crashes but does anyone understand that making those streets safe requires getting people out of cars? #VisionZero needs #VMTreduction, not flashing lights.
"The reaction from walkers, bikers, families, and nearby business owners was overwhelmingly positive."
“We'll have to see how we can apply pressure and what it takes to get the city leaders to listen or do something for safety.” (Try not letting #trafficEngineers over-inflate the costs with their convoluted excuses for trying to preserve car speeds.)
Person gets hit biking on left sidewalk / counterflow, because driver turning right out of parking lot onto busy street was only looking left. Do we think this is a driver error? (Driver was not cited. 🙃) Street has four lanes for trucks and none for bikes. 😞 infrastructure damnit #crashNotAccident
@bluGill yes but I bet if we had infrastructure which caused damage to the car when you make those mistakes, we would get the insurance companies to put that together for us. We could put buckets of sand in the street with a flag in them & be having some car-free #schoolStreets tomorrow #tacticalUrbanism, pilot projects, #StuffInTheStreet needs to be the way we do transportation project design + outreach, as operational problem-solving on a #SafeRoutesToSchool scale that gets kids out of cars.
Amazing stuff in this video of Denver's #quickBuild#tacticalUrbanism street designs @activetowns this is what north america's #trafficEngineers need to be doing, like mini-roundabouts for the price of a speed hump 😍, choke points mid-block on side streets, let's go!!! I particularly love how much they are squeezing these car lanes, if you want to change culture, only give #drivers like 3in of slack and engineers can go "🤷 just slow down, it'll fit" 😎 #ClimateAction