Tag Archives: street design

solar sidewalks

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At first I thought this article was called Tampa tries sidewalk solar panels as backup power for traffic, but then I noticed it is just for traffic lights. This seems a bit underwhelming, but it’s something. Here in Philadelphia, the instant response to any idea involving sidewalks will be “yeah, but they’re private”. It’s a convenient excuse, just put the legal/financial responsibility for half the transportation system on the backs of private property owners and pretend that’s working. People can’t actually afford to maintain the sidewalks, and the government mostly doesn’t enforce the ordinance because that would be very bad politics. So aside from the occasional successful lawsuit, we get unmaintained sidewalks. So maybe if the sidewalks could generate a bit of revenue to help pay for their own maintenance, this could be a step forward. Just a thought – let the chorus of “yeah but” begin.

what to do about blocked bike lanes?

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Some cities are considering a “bounty”, where a person reporting a blocked bike lane would receive a portion of the ticket proceeds.

I’m not sure the bounty is necessary. Even having the option of submitting a photo of a vehicle blocking a bike lane, including its license plate, and knowing the owner will get a ticket might be enough to get many bicyclists to do this. (and just a reminder that most if not nearly all bicyclists are also drivers at least some of the time.)

Other ideas include providing more temporary loading and delivery zones in residential neighborhoods. To me this is not an alternative, but something that is almost a no-brainer. Poor, unimaginative and ignorant design is what creates a lot of these conflicts in the first place.

The Texas anti-abortion law allowing any private citizen to sue a doctor who provides an abortion made me think – now that we have opened this door a crack, what is to stop any state applying this approach to any law. For example, pass a law allowing any citizen to sue a driver for parking illegally or running a red light. This seems like less of a stretch than the abortion thing, because if you are in a position to take the photo, you are being put at risk by the activity and you should have a case.

the U.S. playbook for unsafe streets

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Seriously, solutions exist on how to design and build safe streets. NACTO has published a set of line-by-line modifications to the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

One thing I’ve learned halfway through an engineering career (but I’m not claiming to be a practicing transportation engineer or expert) is that change doesn’t occur at the site or street scale until best practices from elsewhere filter down to what I call the local “playbook” for design. The playbook is the set of codes, ordinances, regulations, design standards, performance criteria, standard plans and drawings, manuals, guidelines, etc. that a local community uses for design. The status quo in these documents usually has some reason for existing, but it also has enormous inertia, to the point where it can take decades for a clear solution to a problem to make its way into actual on-the-ground designs, and today’s designs can represent solutions that were appropriate for conditions as they existed decades ago.

Local professionals and bureaucrats are not always ignorant, but they are harried and operating under pressure that leaves little time for learning. There is a certain cynicism that sets in, at least in the engineering industry, and in my opinion the “STEM” approach to education tends to nudge more literal minded thinkers (who tend to be good at math and logic) into the industry while discouraging more creative thinkers. Revised curricula and continuing education for planners, engineers, architects, the construction industry, and public officials can be part of the answer. Grass roots advocacy can also be part of the answer. But changes to official documents at the federal level can really help get the ball rolling, because states often follow suit (slowly), and then local projects are often required to follow these documents to be eligible for state and federal funding. Just one small example is that in Pennsylvania, there is (or was until recently, I’m not sure of the status) a law that cars had to be parked within a certain number of inches of a curb. Sounds reasonable enough, until you realize that it actually makes modern protected bike lanes illegal! There are lots of little things like that, and then there are big things like safe intersections with different signals for motor vehicles, bikes, and pedestrians.

causes of death during the Covid-19 crisis

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CDC has a data table on excess deaths during the March-August 2020 period. Obviously, people died of Covid-19 itself, but they also died of other things indirectly caused by Covid-19.

  • 257,000 excess deaths compared to long-term average (I’m rounding numbers to the nearest thousand and nearest percent or so, although when I do math I will round after I do the math)
  • 174,000 due to Covid-19 disease itself – this is around 70% of the total, so 30% of the excess deaths were indirect (and/or random bad luck)
  • Drug overdoses were 13% higher than normal, but suicides were 6% lower than normal. These two things usually go together so there is a bit of a mystery here.
  • Homicides were 6% higher than normal. They don’t break down how much is domestic violence related versus street violence. I would imagine bar fights were down significantly.
  • “Unintentional injuries” were higher than normal. I imagine this is things like falls and drowning, but not motor vehicle crashes because those are separate. Maybe people hurt themselves doing things around the house. Unfortunately, we tend to take more risks doing similar activities around the house than if we were doing them at work.
  • Motor vehicle crashes were down slightly, but the drop was not statistically significant. Given the very significant drop in traffic last year, this suggests to me that deaths per mile traveled were high. I know pedestrian and bike deaths were disproportionately high last year. I would attribute a lot this to people driving faster and more recklessly on (perceived to be) empty streets and highways. This is unfortunate, but mostly human nature and needs to be solved by better street design. Solutions exist, we just need to reach out and grab them my fellow Americans!

So I think these data support the idea that street designs and a health care system that are at least average compared to modern developed countries would have saved U.S. lives during the pandemic, and would continue to save lives in the future. So can we have nice things or not?

sidewalk robots are legally pedestrians in some states

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Including, surprisingly, my state of Pennsylvania, which is rarely at the forefront of anything new. I am cautiously optimistic about this. It sounds like some pedestrian and bicycle advocates (I include myself in these groups) are against this. But I think slow-moving, light, predictable vehicles should not be a big problem. Fast, unpredictable vehicles driven by humans on infrastructure that does not consider the existence of pedestrians and bicyclists are what usually kills people. Also, every package on a slow, light, predictable robot is one that is not on a truck, and that should reduce the number of trucks over time. Trucks disproportionately kill people – pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists alike. I realize that trucks also create some jobs, and job losses need to be dealt with through unemployment, education and training.

I see some problems looming, and these are infrastructure problems that need to be solved. Here in Philadelphia, sidewalks are often blocked by construction and parking because the law is either too lax or not enforced. Bike lanes often do not exist, and when they do they are often poorly designed, unprotected and unmaintained. Ramps for disabled people (which also help the rest of us, especially parents pushing strollers) often do not exist, are in a state of poor repair, collect water every time it rains, or are simply blocked by, again, construction or illegal parking. These are design and operational problems that have solutions, and the relevant public agencies (more than one, but one in particular) are either ignorant or incompetent or both. We need to fix the public agencies before we can design streets, bike lanes and sidewalks that are really going to work.

There’s another issue here. I don’t have the time, money, or expertise to sue individual contractors, landowners, or public agencies because they are blocking my walking path or bicycling lane. An Amazon or a UPS or a Google or an Uber will have these resources. This might be okay if it forces some change on big entities with deep pockets. This could be a problem for the individual homeowner or small business owner though. In my city, technically the sidewalk in front of my house is private property but public right-of-way. That means I can’t stop people from walking past, I can’t modify it significantly, but I can be sued or forced to repair it if it is not up to code. This might make sense on paper, but in practice cities are very lenient enforcing this on the small-time homeowner unless there is a serious incident. Sticking every homeowner in a city with a $10,000 repair bill (you might as well replace water and sewer lines while you are at it, which many people also don’t realize they own and are responsible for) would be a big burden on the middle class on down. Sidewalks are obviously public infrastructure and really part of the street, but this is one way cities push responsibilities and costs to the citizenry and try to keep taxes down a little bit. Taking over the sidewalks and raising enough tax revenue to keep them in a state of good repair would probably be the best answer from a technical and economic standpoint, but this would be a big legal and financial change for city government.

My utopian vision is for walking, bicycling, and slow, predictable, light, soft rounded vehicles to gradually displace most of the trucks, taxis and private cars that are out there. There would be less traffic at this point, almost no need for parking because the vehicles can just stack themselves somewhere out of the way when they are not in use. Maybe you only need one travel lane for big vehicles at this point (we’ll still want ambulances and fire trucks, although really I think these can be a bit smaller and quieter and still do the job), and robots, bicycles, and pedestrians can all have their own dedicated spaces and signals. You would have lots of room opened up for green infrastructure, sidewalk cafes, park benches, fountains, or whatever else you want to do. There is no technical or economic reason it couldn’t be done, and it would be cool. Cynicism, ignorance, and poor leadership are the reasons it won’t be done, at least not in most U.S. cities anytime soon.

freight vehicles and urban design

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Next City has a roundup of ideas for more efficiently accommodating freight vehicles in dense cities.

  • Better, cheaper (or even free to the user) public transit, so there aren’t so many cars clogging up the streets trucks need to drive on
  • “logistics hotels” where goods from many sources can be mixed, matched, and put on smaller vehicles appropriate to city streets (this is kind of how a port works?)
  • “design infrastructure like intersections and bus lanes with interactions between freight activity and vulnerable road users, like children, in mind” (sounds good, if a bit non-specific
  • Design trucks so they just aren’t so dangerous
  • Better allocate curb space to get more deliveries out of fewer vehicles

I have a few more ideas.

  • Don’t forget some kind of temporary parking for contractors and delivery people serving urban customers. It doesn’t have to be free, but it should be reservable.
  • Don’t forget garbage trucks, unless we are going to think of a better way to deal with garbage or get rid of garbage entirely.
  • Alleys can work well for trash and deliveries, if they are designed with that purpose in mind. They can provide play space and just generally space for people to spread out the rest of the time (but NOT if they are just a bunch of garage entryways).
  • I still want my robot deliveries, both ground and air! In my city though, robots using the sidewalks for deliveries will need them to be in a better state of repair, and that won’t happen because sidewalks are technically the responsibility of homeowners, many of whom are poor and/or don’t even know the sidewalks are their responsibility. On the few streets with incompetently designed, unenforced, and unmaintained bike lanes, the robots’ wheels and gears will get all gummed up with the blood of children and old people who believed the mayor’s promises to build safe protected bike lanes like they have in Europe.
  • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. COPY DUTCH STREET DESIGN NOW!!! Just don’t let it go to their heads, the smug bastards…

August 2020 in Review

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Goodbye summer, hello fall (or do you prefer to say autumn?) in this weird and consequential year.

Most frightening and/or depressing story:

  • We just had the 15-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a major regional crisis that federal, state, and local governments failed to competently prepare for or respond to. People died, and decades later the recovery is incomplete. Coronavirus proves we learned nothing, as it is unfolding in a similar way on a much larger and longer scale. There are many potential crises ahead that we need to prepare for today, not least the inundation of major cities. I had a look at the Democratic and (absence of a) Republican platforms, and there is not enough substance in either when it comes to identifying and preparing for the risks ahead.

Most hopeful story:

  • Automatic stabilizers might be boring but they could have helped the economy in the coronavirus crisis. Congress, you failed us again but you can get this done before the next crisis.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both:

  • Vehicle miles traveled have crashed during the coronavirus crisis. Vehicle-related deaths have decreased, but deaths per mile driven have increased, most likely because people drive faster when there is less traffic, absent safe street designs which we don’t do in the U.S. Vehicle miles will rebound, but an interesting question is whether they will rebound short of where they were. One study predicts about 10% lower. This accounts for all the commuting and shopping trips that won’t be taken, but also the increase in deliveries and truck traffic you might expect as a result. It makes sense – people worry about delivery vehicles, but if each parcel in the vehicle is a car trip to the store not taken, overall traffic should decrease. Even if every 5 parcels are a trip not taken, traffic should decrease. I don’t know the correct number, but you get the idea. Now, how long until people realize it is not worth paying and sacrificing space to have a car sitting there that they seldom use. How long before U.S. planners and engineers adopt best practices on street design that are proven to save lives elsewhere in the world?

traffic-related death during the shutdown

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The National Safety Council (a nonprofit group) has some numbers on deaths caused by cars during the coronavirus crisis.

Preliminary estimates from the National Safety Council based on May data from all 50 states indicate that for the third month in a row, road users in the U.S. were at a higher risk of dying from a motor vehicle crash. As reported in Injury Facts, the fatality rate per miles driven in May – when most of the country was deep in quarantine from the pandemic – jumped a staggering 23.5% compared to the previous year, despite far less traffic on the roads. The number of miles driven in May dropped 25.5% compared to the year prior. The increased rate comes in spite of an estimated 8% drop in the number of deaths for May compared to the prior year. Overall, the mileage death rate per 100 million vehicle miles driven was 1.47 in May compared to 1.19 in 2019.

National Safety Council

There are some questions you could ask, like how do the 2019 numbers compare to the average of the last 3 or 5 years. But I also know we have seen an unusual number of grisly pedestrian and bicyclist deaths in my city this year (these make the news, while people dying in highway accidents sadly aren’t even headline news because we are so used to and accepting of this totally unacceptable risk.) I think it is pretty obvious what is going on. Narrow lanes, trees, parked cars, and other traffic send a message to the human brain to slow down. For some reason, seeing human beings walking or bicycling causes some people to slow down, while others seem to be oblivious, reckless, or occasionally intentionally aggressive. Most of these people are not bad people the rest of the time. It just seems to be human nature to speed up when we see an open space in front of us. So decreasing traffic, in the absence of better design measures and consistent enforcement, won’t solve this problem. Education may help but doesn’t seem to reach everyone. I think design is the answer and I’ve said it before – just copy the Dutch street design manual and be done with it.

#unblockbikelanes

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Just following up on yesterday’s “paint and pray” post about ignorant, unsafe street designs killing people in New York City and Philadelphia. There is a Twitter hashtag called #unblockbikelanes. Maybe the Philadelphia Police and Philadelphia Parking Authority look at it on occasion. Maybe they don’t. Maybe the engineers at the Philadelphia Streets Department will be inspired to learn about safe street design. Maybe they won’t. Either way, it’s indisputable photographic evidence that may eventually have a variety of uses.

https://twitter.com/printtemps/status/702941757009326080

Resources for safe street design:

augmented reality on Google Street View

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Google is rolling out some augmented reality features intended to assist pedestrians in Street View.

The feature overlays a live video feed on the map. Directional arrows and street names appear on the video feed to provide more intuitive navigation and give the user a sense of exactly where they are and where they need to go.