Lanes of Peachtree Road to close for months as crews move utility poles (Buckhead: tax, dangerous)

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by MattCW

Or we could just quit trying to make a major arterial road act like a quiet neighborhood street.

Or we could just quit trying to make a neighborhood street act like a major arterial road.

You got two choices: make it safe for all users and slow the cars or make it a road, safe for fast moving cars, and remove access to all non-drivers.

It cannot be all things. We got to go one way or the other, and to make it a safe road we need to close off the driveways / eliminate turns outside of major intersections, remove obstacles near the roadway, and separate pedestrians / bikes / scooters away from the road so drivers can safely travel at high speeds.

Unlike Peachtree out side the perimeter (Peachtree parkway), I do not think there is a reasonable way to make Peachtree a safe arterial road like that inside the city limits and so we will need to go more in the direction of the render above (which is of Peachtree St) and make it a safe street for all modes. If people need to drive fast they will need to go over to the car-only roads & highways running parallel which are designed for high speeds.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Agreed. Though, I am not advocating changing speed limits, speed limits' impact is pretty minimal. I am saying change the design speed. And things like obstructions near the roadway lower the design speed.

So, what you're saying is...make things more unsafe and increase the chances of an accident in order to make people drive slower. Solid plan.

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

No offense or anything but they are placed well out of the way of drivers. If someone veers off the road and hits one then I have to question their ability to control a vehicle. If we have to relocate powerlines which are not on the road in any case away to save them drivers, we have a bigger problem than power line placement

Not really. Take one like this, for example. The lane is only 8.5' wide, far less than an arterial lane should be, and that pole is less than 12" off the side of the road. All it takes is someone starting to change a lane into your lane, and sending you right into that. That's terrible design. But, traffic poles being there has nothing to do with pedestrian safety. That's a red herring.

Originally Posted by jsvh

On the other end, you could make the speed limit 70mph (or more likely, remove it all together) on a street designed like this and basically no one will go over 25mph:

Look at all those obstructions near the street! Oh the horror and danger!!)

The funny thing is, you're actually serious.

Originally Posted by jsvh

Or we could just quit trying to make a neighborhood street act like a major arterial road.

Peachtree is not a neighborhood street, and should not be designed as one. No one is advocating neighborhood streets to be like major arterial roads. But what you guys fail to understand almost universally, is that the more you choke off arterial capacity by trying to turn them into slow, narrow, artsy urban-fabric utopias, you will see an increase of drivers using those neighborhood roads as alternatives. You just don't get it.

You got two choices: make it safe for all users and slow the cars or make it a road, safe for fast moving cars, and remove access to all non-drivers.

So, we have only two styles of road: limited-access roads like Peachtree Industrial; or quiet, tree-lined, wide-sidewalk, walkable neighborhood-style streets? I'm assuming you don't understand how impractical that is and why almost no decent-sized city is like that outside of the city core.

It cannot be all things. We got to go one way or the other, and to make it a safe road we need to close off the driveways / eliminate turns outside of major intersections, remove obstacles near the roadway, and separate pedestrians / bikes / scooters away from the road so drivers can safely travel at high speeds.

Sounds good...how about big metal barricades along the road requiring pedestrians to cross only at signalized intersections.

Unlike Peachtree out side the perimeter (Peachtree parkway), I do not think there is a reasonable way to make Peachtree a safe arterial road like that inside the city limits and so we will need to go more in the direction of the render above (which is of Peachtree St) and make it a safe street for all modes.

Comparing the inner downtown area to the rest of the city pretty much negates your argument. They're very different beasts with different purposes. We're too spread out for the entirety of Peachtree street/road to be dedicated to cute walkable shops like your render. Now, if you're only really concerned with talking about the inner downtown/midtown core (since I think you rarely venture out of it), you should clarify that. Because it makes a big difference.

If people need to drive fast they will need to go over to the car-only roads & highways running parallel which are designed for high speeds.

Like what? What roads run parallel to Peachtree north of 85? And why wouldn't you then go after those roads as well?

[jsvh]

How exactly do you see Peachtree Street in Buckhead getting converted to function as a safe car-first road? You would need to buy up a lot of properties along Peachtree in order to close the driveways and get the space you need for things like wider lanes and barriers to separate pedestrian / bike facilities. I do not see that going over well. Nor is there money for that sort of thing.

Where exactly along Peachtree do you find it acceptable to function as a car-first road over a street safe for all users? As soon as it crosses from Midtown to Buckhead you think it is no longer acceptable to function as a street safe for all users to share?

Also, do you seriously think stroads like this:


Are safer than streets like this:


Or roads like this:


?

(spoiler, they are not)



The only reason millions of tax dollars should be going towards relocating utility poles away from the road is if we are converting Peachtree in Buckhead to be like Peachtree Parkway, and if that is the case, there are a lot of other steps and improvements that should come first. It should improvements to end up looking a more like the Las Vegas strip / roads in other major international cities where barriers near the roadway and in the middle of the roadway separate uses before we start moving obstacles further away from the roadway to end up like a Peachtree Parkway. Moving obstetrical away from the edge of the roadway is one of the last things to spend tax dollars on en route to a car-first high-speed route (if that is even the goal).

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

How exactly do you see Peachtree Street in Buckhead getting converted to function as a safe car-first road? You would need to buy up a lot of properties along Peachtree in order to close the driveways and get the space you need for things like wider lanes and barriers to separate pedestrian / bike facilities. I do not see that going over well. Nor is there money for that sort of thing.

Here's the thing: your version of "safe" and my version of "safe" vary wildly. To you, the only safe, acceptable road that is not limited access appears to be one that families could walk down the middle of. That is, of course, ridiculous. An ITP area of more than 250 square miles (and especially the larger metro of nearly 9,000 square miles) needs roads of every style in order to move people.

Where exactly along Peachtree do you find it acceptable to function as a car-first road over a street safe for all users? As soon as it crosses from Midtown to Buckhead you think it is no longer acceptable to function as a street safe for all users to share?

Once it crosses I-85, it's far less in the middle of dense urban buildings and provides a different function: getting people to and from the urban centers. In between, it's mostly low-density residential with a smattering of office and residential buildings. It's not really primed to support high walkability. That said, Peachtree appears to have mostly 80' ROW. It could function as a multi-use arterial with two-lanes in each direction at 10' each, a 10' center turning lane/median, a 4' bike/scooter lane with 3' buffer on each side, and a 6' sidewalk with 2' grass buffer on each side. At this point, the utility poles could stay on the edge of the road since vehicles wouldn't be traveling within inches of them, and it would also give pedestrians a larger buffer. That's about the best you could hope for.

Also, do you seriously think stroads like this:

Are safer than streets like this:

Or roads like this:

(spoiler, they are not)

No I don't think that that all. Where on earth would you even get that idea? No spoiler needed because that's so patently obvious. I'm also not so naive as to think that the entire city can function, or has the ability to even support, those types of streets in all locations unless we increase density by a factor of ten. That's truly bizarre thinking not even remotely in line with reality.

Let me ask an equally ridiculous question...do you seriously think that a 250 or even larger square mile area of streets like this...


...is remotely viable, in either an economic or functional sense without super-high density? Please tell me the answer is "no".

As for comparing it to the LV Strip, it would be GREAT if Peachtree could be like that: a 200' ROW with 3-5 lanes in each direction, barricaded sidewalks (so pedestrians won't walk in the streets except at designated spots), and numerous pedestrian bridges for crossing safely. I mean, it's almost exactly like many of the recommendations I've made, only to get derided as being pedestrian-unfriendly!

The only reason millions of tax dollars should be going towards relocating utility poles away from the road is if we are converting Peachtree in Buckhead to be like Peachtree Parkway, and if that is the case, there are a lot of other steps and improvements that should come first. It should improvements to end up looking a more like the Las Vegas strip / roads in other major international cities where barriers near the roadway and in the middle of the roadway separate uses before we start moving obstacles further away from the roadway to end up like a Peachtree Parkway. Moving obstetrical away from the edge of the roadway is one of the last things to spend tax dollars on en route to a car-first high-speed route (if that is even the goal).

No one is saying that Peachtree should be a "high speed" route, although I'm assuming that anything over 25 MPH is "high speed". But, it currently sports very narrow lanes with poles inches off the edge of the road (unless it's been redone in the past 15 months...I can't recall). There's nothing remotely safe nor well-designed about that. And there is no connection with pedestrian safety here, so that's a non-starter. Re-striping the road as I laid out above and improving the sidewalks is probably the better plan. But, Peachtree will never, ever be designed as a limited access road. It serves a different purpose, and a narrow boulevard with street-front cafes and cute shops for three miles straight isn't it.

BTW...that "safe/deadly/safe" graphic is pretty funny. I could make one just as effective, showing safer crosswalks, and then people just walking into the road at will, and then people wearing all black walking in the road in the middle of the night. You know, those who don't care about safety for themselves or anyone else.

[Need4Camaro]

One should note that Peachtree St / Peachtree Rd mostly grew around the development it entails with severe limits of RoW.
Las Vegas Blvd on the other hand was actually biult before most of the development that came within its vicinity and was biult as urban project to relocate a dense cluster of Casino's into a new strip thus Las Vegas Blvd had ALOT more pre-planning as it was concieved from that start what we see today.
There's almost no way Peachtree Rd could ever be designed as a large avenue with a vegetated median and extra large sidewalks. A more realistic alteration would literally have a street car running down the median of it.

Also, Peachtree Rd is not a neighborhood street, it is an arterial, a very long one at that. That road literally runs uninterrupted from Gainesville all the way into Memorial Dr just south of Downtown.

I use Peachtree Rd fairly often to visit some inlaws who live off of it. I see it as a city street. If people slow down and pay attention to their surroundings, there wouldn't be an issue with it.

[jsvh]

Safety is not some subjective thing. We can count the deaths and injuries. High-speed cars (>25mph) and other modes (walking / biking / scooters) do not mix.

That render above is of Peachtree is the design direction Peachtree inside the city limits should go in my opinion. However, yes, faster streets with separate pedestrian / bike facilities, divided lanes, and minimal intersections is a valid alternative if they really get the support to make that happen. But as you point out, you need 200' + RoW for roads like that, and that is simply not a viable.

Spending finite funds to take Peachtree in Buckhead towards a road diet and the "multi-use arterial" you layout is a fine intermediary step to improve safety in the near-term. However, as you point out, that layout does not require moving utility poles.

My original point still stands: Spending millions of tax payer dollars relocating these utility poles is a terrible idea regardless of your vision of what Peachtree in Buckhead should become.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

If people slow down and pay attention to their surroundings, there wouldn't be an issue with it.

The thing is, they won't. People will drive as fast as they can get away with. That is why design matters for safety.

We got to design for a slower, safer flow of cars mixing with other uses and turning in and out of driveways. Or we got to design for high-speed, reduced intersections, barrier protections car-first design.

We all seem to agree that the latter is not workable in the limited space in this stretch, regardless, spending millions of tax dollars moving utility poles is a waste for either alternative.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

We all seem to agree that the latter is not workable in the limited space in this stretch, regardless, spending millions of tax dollars moving utility poles is a waste for either alternative.

The utility poles are not being moved to help increase road speed or get people to drive faster. They're being moved to lessen the possibility that a vehicle can hit a pole that is inches from the travel lane and take out the utilities.

Secondly, this is a Georgia Power project. Georgia Power is not concerned with how fast people drive or what the road design is. They're concerned with protecting their assets. If you had a flagpole right on the edge of a narrow road, and once or twice the mail truck took it out, would you keep putting it back, or maybe move it a few feet away to protect it?

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

The utility poles are not being moved to help increase road speed or get people to drive faster. They're being moved to lessen the possibility that a vehicle can hit a pole that is inches from the travel lane and take out the utilities.

Secondly, this is a Georgia Power project. Georgia Power is not concerned with how fast people drive or what the road design is. They're concerned with protecting their assets. If you had a flagpole right on the edge of a narrow road, and once or twice the mail truck took it out, would you keep putting it back, or maybe move it a few feet away to protect it?

They need to move the poles far enough back to entirely avoid the sidewalks.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by Gulch

They need to move the poles far enough back to entirely avoid the sidewalks.

I do not disagree.