Why I hate "Traffic Calming"
The traffic engineers in my area (Howard County, Maryland) have become enamored with "traffic calming" - the idea is explained here, but it can be explained a lot more succinctly: someone let the highway department have too much fun with a batch of play-doh, and they decided to toss the shapes they created onto the roads. Here are two pictures of some of the stupidity in action in my neighborhood:
The road hazards here are in the center of the road, going around a turn. In the winter - as you can see above - they can't be plowed properly. Heck, the snow and ice in question fell a week ago, and there it is, still in the roadway. In fact, chunks at the end of these are missing, as plows have previously ripped them out. Worse, snow and ice are just left in the center of the street between the hazards (fun if you want to turn across it).
Even when there's no snow, you should see school buses try to make their way around these - or moving vans, or emergency vehicles. As best as I can tell, the morons who advocate these things have never actually driven a car. When I get a chance, I'll take a photo of the lovely "S" turn they've implemented in a different part of the neighborhood - that one actually aims you into oncoming traffic. These things are just stupid, and many of the chokers they've put up have eliminated bike lanes as well.
Technorati Tags: driving
Comments
Some good, some bad
[George Paci] February 20, 2007 1:44:06.792
The particluar examples of traffic calming mechanisms you cite seem pretty dumb (at least in an area where plowing ever happens, as opposed to Florida, or my street in DC). And apparently counties went nuts with it a few years back when Maryland's state government threw a lot of money at it, and came up with all kinds of crazy approaches.
But it's not all bad, and it's a welcome swing back from the motor speedways we got when zoning changed to specify streets wide enough for two fire engines to pass each other on them (with parking, I guess). A good example is Columbia Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts: block-by-block realignment, plus a few speed tables and narrowings for pedestrian crossings, make it very uncomfortable to go 35 MPH, while keeping it very easy to go 25 MPH.
In fact, if there's one truly great thing to come out of the traffic calming movement, it's speed tables (a.k.a. speed humps, if you're not worried about adolescents absconding with the signs). You can drive right over them at the posted speed with no ill effects, unlike speed bumps, which you practically have to come to a complete stop for these days. (I lost an engine to a far-too-high speed bump in Arlington that I raced over at about 1.5 MPH.)