I know I'm preaching to the choir and reiterating some of your points, Richard, but reducing the speed limit is meaningless without re-engineering the roads. Many of DC's residential roads were built to accommodate 40-50 MPH traffic, easily. Without significantly increasing the coverage of photo-enforcement zones, implementing Graz-style speed limits would have negligible impact on traffic patterns.
yep
I like to think of "re-designing" instead of "re-engineering" the streets. The engineers created the problems in the first place; leave them out of it! Let an urban-sensitive architect re-design the streets.
SF is just launching a liveable streets plan that will be used as a model for re-engineering their streets with input from traffic managers as well as planners. Most of their transit is street level, so you need the traffic managers there as well.
The draft report is comprehensive. You find it all here.
DDOT had a chance to show its progressive colors in conjunction with the Master Pedestrian Plan. Instead, however, it demonstrated its incompetence by abandoning a pedestrian signal being tested in Chevy Chase, DC/
The signal allowed Connecticut Avenue traffic to flow freely except when a pedestrian activated the signal to change so they could cross.
This brought all traffic to a stop. Drivers became frustrated so instead, DDOT is reconfiguring to a regular signal.
Why bother with a $12.8 Million Pedestrian Plan if you are going to simply acquiesce to a driving centric model.
It is a shame, really.
By the way, the signal significantly reduced accidents and pedestrian incidents.
There were none in the 17 months since its activation.
The DDOT Director cited "near misses" as the reason to change the signal. Doesn't every intersection have "near misses"?
Won't changing this signal decrease its 100% efficiency?
Commenting by HaloScan
