Some car-brained thinking in here. I'll take a different road rather than go the speed limit in front of a school.
What did resonate is putting a 40km/hr limit on a 4-lane stroad doesn't fix speed issues. Roads need to be designed for the speed you want drivers to go.
@dhope Unfortunately, traffic calming doesn't seem to work either. I've observed two generations of so-called "traffic calming" on my residential street (first, flexi-posts, and now chicanes).
The average (mean) speed is probably lower, but that doesn't matter: the ones that matter are the peak speeders (say, the top 5%), and now they just weave dangerously around the obstructions without slowing down, putting cyclists and pedestrians at even greater risk. 🙁
The humble brick paver. Perhaps the perfect traffic calming device. This street in my area is the only one where I don’t regularly see people driving at excessive and unsafe speeds. Why? Because speeding down this street will absolutely destroy your car!
#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
@daihard yeah it needs to have a bypass so you can keep riding while oncoming drivers deal with each other only, instead of trying to beat you to it, or some other nonsense where they are in your way. It's not rocket science, but it does require a DOT to remember that bicycles exists, which is an advanced skill. #BikeTooter#TrafficCalming#Bollards#Bollards#Bollards
Narrow the street with big stone planters, and the Mercedes drivers will be forced to slow down lest they scratch their fancy car. #madrid#urbanism#trafficcalming
if you want to change the culture, fire cops (and traffic Engineers) who say stuff like "there are motorists out there that are driving in a way that kills people. Absolutely. But there are also people that are on bikes or pedestrians that need to be also more careful with what they’re doing. So it is a shared responsibility ..."
This #chokePoint is how you combine #trafficCalming and safer #crosswalks, with more cost-effective #EdgeLaneRoads. Instead of #YellowCenterlines forcing people on bikes to "share" with cars, two-way car traffic shares one center lane. The #AdvisoryBikeLanes can be used for two drivers to pass each other, but by default, those spaces are dedicated to people walking and biking. (SW 45th, #SWTFpdx, so many streets need this, not blinking lights and victim-blaming.)
Exhibit A: Why you can fix a dangerous street with a sign.
The #StopSign in this video was a great first draft at calming traffic on this neighborhood street, but it's no longer effective. This video shows 48 times drivers--including professionals with CDLs--ignored it over a few hours' worth of filming in April 2023.