Recently there’s been a bunch of articles about “second-generation traffic calming.” The basic idea is simple, but sounds crazy: remove all signs, traffic lights, and lane markings. Eliminate the curb separating the sidewalk from the street.
This does several things. It emphasizes the street as a space to be shared between pedestrians and drivers. It encourages drivers to slow down (although the street may also need to be narrowed as well). Once the speed is down to about 20 mph, then drivers are slow enough to negotiate around other drivers and pedestrians without the need for signs. And since intersections don’t have stop signs or traffic lights anymore, total travel time actually goes down, because you no longer have to come to a complete stop at intersections.
This is already being tried in Europe with good results. Could it work here in the U.S.? I could see it working in some downtown and suburban residential neighborhoods; in fact, it’s already working in West Palm Beach, Florida, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it tried out in my neighborhood. But doing this on a 6-lane arterial surrounded by strip malls would be a bit much.
A Path to Road Safety With No Signposts • New York Times • January 22, 2005
Roads Gone Wild • Wired Magazine • December 2004
Why don’t we do it in the road? • Salon • May 20, 2004
Okay. This bright idea had better not make its way up here. People here don’t know how to drive even when they DO have signs telling them what [not] to do.
Whoever came up with this cockamamie proposal clearly has no clue what’s really going on out there on the roads. Road speeding/danger/stress has absolutely nothing to do with signs or perceptions of streets being shared spaces, and absolutely everything to do with the fact that people drive with everything on their minds except driving. Here’s what’s going on in the mind of the typical North American driver going through the suburbs– and this assumes the driver is NOT on a cell phone:
“Maaan what’s up with this traffic! I’m going to be late to work for the third time this week. My boss is going to eat me alive. Hey, but he sure is cute. Maybe he’ll notice me this time. I oughta get my hair re-permed. Maybe I should give Alice a call again. Oh, but she’ll want to color it again. Aaahh! That last appointment turned out sooo ugly. Made me look like that whore on American Idol. But that other guy from New York was cute. Maybe I should try out. Whoops! Was that a stop sign? Oh well, probably doesn’t matter. …BUMP! Maan, that pedestrian bouncing off my roof sure looked ticked. What’s his problem anyway? He’s probably rich, and doesn’t have to deal with a boss who’s as big a jerk as mine…”
Since we know the average American has the mental capacity of a walnut, and can barely understand street signs as they are, how can we possibly expect them to navigate without them– or worse, figure out how to mentally shift between signed zones and non-signed zones?
You know what I think is really going on here? This is a big conspiracy by the broadband industry to make our roads so dangerous as to be not worth the trouble, and in so doing force the entire population of the country to telecommute.