[lbo-talk] NY blocks mayor's congestion plan

[John Thornton]

Jordan Hayes wrote:
>> Traffic calming devices have completely eliminated the cars careening
>> down this street at 60 mph trying to "make up time".
>>     
>
> Yes, they've moved on to someone else's street.
>
> It's whack-a-mole, and it's a perfect example of the kind of 
> well-intentioned-but-still-wrong thinking that leads to congestion 
> pricing.  You have to fix the problem -- in this case, a wide 
> residential street with not very many stop signs needs to have ... wait 
> for it ... sane traffic control.  And if people are cutting through 
> there because the main roads are congested ... wait for it ... you have 
> to fix the congestion!  It's usually a combination of left-hand turns, 
> lax enforcement of parking restrictions, not enough loading zones, 
> poorly timed lights.  Fix that and you won't have to worry about people 
> cutting through trying to make up time.
>   

No it didn't move to "someone else's" street.
It went back to the streets that were designed to handle that traffic 
and move it off of a residential street was that was never designed to 
be used as a thoroughfare.
Now the wide residential street has sane traffic control thanks to the 
traffic calming devices installed.
The problem wasn't really congestion although those streets carry a lot 
of traffic relative to the total flow in town.
This was just people looking for a shortcut as people are wont to do. 
The perception of congestion is relative. To people used to a small town 
some of this cities streets seem congested but they aren't really.
Even if we assume that real problematic congestion caused people to seek 
this unsafe shortcut why not install traffic calming devices on 
residential streets if they work?
Should everyone just wait the two years necessary for the city to widen 
the other thoroughfares before their residential streets are safe again?
Enforcement didn't work. The city tried it and it would only temporarily 
reduce the problem. Everyone know the enforcement will eventually move 
on to another location but the traffic calming devices are there 
permanently.

I live in smallish city ~200,000. Traffic is only a problem on one end 
of town where, through complete lack of any foresight, the worst 
interchanges imaginable went in around the cities major new retail 
developments. Easy access to retail spaces and an ability to handle 
large traffic loads seldom coexist peacefully in the midwest but this is 
a particularly egregious example even by those standards.


>> Don't lump all traffic calming together.
>>     
>
> You said it best:
>
>   
>> I'm a big fan of traffic calming if done correctly.
>>     
>
> Still waiting for it to be done correctly ...
>
> /jordan 

Wait no longer. The one in my neighbourhood was as near to perfect as 
possible. People no longer speed through a residential area attempting 
to bypass the thoroughfares in order to save 2 minutes. You will seldom 
find me with anything nice to say about my current home but they did get 
this one right.
They've put in horrible one way streets in an attempt to solve 
congestion problems. They've made a mess of their old central business 
district. They are generally incompetent because the city won't pay for 
good planners and the good-ole'-boy network is very strong here. In 
spite of that the traffic calming in my neighbourhood worked perfectly 
to do the job intended.

John Thornton