Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, any road with a car-first high-speed design should be closed to pedestrians and bikes.
But as y'all have pointed out, good luck getting the money and support to make that happen. You will need additional RoW to widen it and close off the driveways, storefronts, adding barriers and re-configuring the road.
Well, that's probably never happening, so might as well look at realistic solutions. BTW...what do you consider "high speed"?
Quote:
But please, go on and detail how you think a pedestrian ban on Peachtree will work.
I don't think there should be one. Hence the .
Do you have any stats on how many pedestrian deaths are people who were simply walking on the sidewalk and got whacked, or got run over at a driveway vs. getting hit while randomly walking across a major road, not at a crosswalk, at night, without judging when it's safe to cross?
You should take a trip down Fulton Industrial any time, 24 hours a day, between MLK and Commerce Circle. It's a 3/4 mile stretch with six signalized intersections in that span. Three of them have striped crosswalks, while the others are just intersections (which still have red lights allowing one to cross). However, people just walk in the road at will, anywhere and everywhere, without paying the slightest bit of attention to road traffic. They often even walk across the exit ramps from I-20 while the ramp has a green light. And much of this is in the middle of the night (I often travel home between 11pm and 3am). This is not safe in any way and should be illegal. But in this state, it is not. These people are not looking out for their own safety or anyone else's.
Quote:
In the mean time, we need to real options to make that road safer for all users. One fair incremental improvement is the road diet with protected bike and pedestrian facilities that you were suggesting earlier.
That's as much as you will ever see on most roads within the metro. They changed Peachtree to have a center lane, but they should have changed it as I said above. I believe I was in support of the plan to do so back when it was it was being planned.
Adding a dedicated center lane for turns, which is not a traffic lane, is exactly what this road needs. Having a dedicated turn lane reduces the amount of swerving back and forth in and out of the left lane. It also provides a place for people turning left out of businesses to go if traffic is heavy on the other side, rather than having to wait for both sides to be clear. And it could have been done with bike lanes added as well. Now, it will be all of that, but without bike lanes, which serves only to please the white-hairs.
Quote:
And yes, making a road feel less safe so people drive slower which in fact makes it more safe as a result is exactly right. Is that really that mind blowing?
Surely there are ways to make people feel the need to go slower without actually putting obstacles right there. There's a difference between making it feel one way, and actually making it dangerous. Here's another question: how can we get pedestrians to stop crossing the road at will instead of using crosswalks or actually waiting until there's a clear road? Maybe put trip wires all along the curb to, you know, make it less safe? Or, are pedestrians a special breed who deserve to do whatever they want?
Do you have any stats on how many pedestrian deaths are people who were simply walking on the sidewalk and got whacked, or got run over at a driveway vs. getting hit while randomly walking across a major road, not at a crosswalk, at night, without judging when it's safe to cross?
You should take a trip down Fulton Industrial any time, 24 hours a day, between MLK and Commerce Circle. It's a 3/4 mile stretch with six signalized intersections in that span. Three of them have striped crosswalks, while the others are just intersections (which still have red lights allowing one to cross). However, people just walk in the road at will, anywhere and everywhere, without paying the slightest bit of attention to road traffic. They often even walk across the exit ramps from I-20 while the ramp has a green light. And much of this is in the middle of the night (I often travel home between 11pm and 3am). This is not safe in any way and should be illegal. But in this state, it is not. These people are not looking out for their own safety or anyone else's.
Yep. It is not reasonable to not expect people to go out of their way to cross the street. Trying to ban people from streets with silly laws like "jaywalking" are utterly ineffective.
If you are trying to make the case for why a "pedestrian ban" is not a reasonable solution to Peachtree Street and why we need to focus on slowing cars, improving flow, and making Peachtree safer for all users you are succeeding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by samiwas1
Surely there are ways to make people feel the need to go slower without actually putting obstacles right there. There's a difference between making it feel one way, and actually making it dangerous. Here's another question: how can we get pedestrians to stop crossing the road at will instead of using crosswalks or actually waiting until there's a clear road? Maybe put trip wires all along the curb to, you know, make it less safe? Or, are pedestrians a special breed who deserve to do whatever they want?
Yes, there are other options to lowering design speed you can go read about such as reducing lane width and more curves.
Barriers to protect pedestrians and bikes from cars also have the effect of also reducing pedestrians crossing into vehicle lanes. But pedestrians are not the source of the danger. Cars are the danger to both themselves and others. If you just have pedestrians no design efforts are needed to make the street safe. You can have just an unmaintained dirt path and people will be just fine.
But pedestrians are not the source of the danger. Cars are the danger to both themselves and others.
BS. If a road is supposed to be "for all users" then all users should have to follow the rules of the road. And walking out into the middle of a road not at any designated crossing spot (except for small, neighborhood roads) should not be allowed. But, you yourself are saying that pedestrians are too selfish to care about safety or any rules, and thus everyone else must look out for them and coddle them. This is the issue here: you are straight up saying that pedestrians can't be bothered to assume responsibility for their own safety. Even worse: you are saying they shouldn't have to! That's a very, very fascinating curve ball in this whole discussion and really answers a lot of questions people here have.
BS. If a road is supposed to be "for all users" then all users should have to follow the rules of the road. And walking out into the middle of a road not at any designated crossing spot should not be allowed.
Sounds like the road isn't designed for all users then, is it? The road is for cars and pedestrians are pushed off onto sidewalks (if they are lucky) which are usually on private property and maintained by private property owners.
I know you really want to find a way to push this as a shared responsibility thing on to pedestrians and are trying to imply things like wearing dark colored clothing somehow makes getting run down by a high speed car your fault and not the fault of bad, unsafe design. But the danger all really does come from cars. People are just fine and safe walking wherever they want without a need for speed limits, traffic laws, wearing any certain color clothing, stop signs, stop lights, striping, pavement, barriers, grade separation, ect as long as cars are not around. The costs, danger, and onus of designing for safety all fall on trying to add faster modes like cars and trains into the mix. People will die unless you either design for mixed uses at speeds < 25mph or seperate the uses.
Heck, even without any pedestrians around, it takes a lot of design effort and money to keep drivers safe from running into each other as well as large fixed objects. You know, like relocating utility poles away from the road because drivers are unable to stop running into them. Something you don't have to worry about if it is just pedestrians or cars slowed down enough to safely mix uses
Sounds like the road isn't designed for all users then, is it? The road is for cars and pedestrians are pushed off onto sidewalks (if they are lucky) which are usually on private property and maintained by private property owners.
I know you really want to find a way to push this as a shared responsibility thing on to pedestrians and are trying to imply things like wearing dark colored clothing somehow makes getting run down by a high speed car your fault and not the fault of bad, unsafe design. But the danger all really does come from cars. People are just fine and safe walking wherever they want without a need for speed limits, traffic laws, wearing any certain color clothing, stop signs, stop lights, striping, pavement, barriers, grade separation, ect as long as cars are not around. The costs, danger, and onus of designing for safety all fall on trying to add faster modes like cars and trains into the mix. People will die unless you either design for mixed uses at speeds < 25mph or seperate the uses.
Heck, even without any pedestrians around, it takes a lot of design effort and money to keep drivers safe from running into each other as well as large fixed objects. You know, like relocating utility poles away from the road because drivers are unable to stop running into them. Something you don't have to worry about if it is just pedestrians or cars slowed down enough to safely mix uses
Peachtree Street IS a mixed use street regardless of how you put it. Gasoline Tax goes into maintenance of that road as it does for every road in the state. What you are describing is unfavorable pedestrian conditions, but it has nothing to do with the streets intended purpose but more less its design. But dont get your hope up on an idea that they are going to box the road in between clusters of development and bricking the surface on a major arterial road that feeds right into the heart of the city just to slow traffic down.
Sounds like the road isn't designed for all users then, is it? The road is for cars and pedestrians are pushed off onto sidewalks (if they are lucky) which are usually on private property and maintained by private property owners.
Yes...pedestrians are on the sidewalk, which is part of the road's ROW. And bikes would be in bike lanes. Wait...are you honestly stating that over the entirety of the metro, pedestrians should just be able to walk at will in the middle of the road, even standard arterials? No, no...that can't be it. I mean, only someone completely devoid of reality would believe that.
Quote:
I know you really want to find a way to push this as a shared responsibility thing on to pedestrians and are trying to imply things like wearing dark colored clothing somehow makes getting run down by a high speed car your fault and not the fault of bad, unsafe design. But the danger all really does come from cars. People are just fine and safe walking wherever they want without a need for speed limits, traffic laws, wearing any certain color clothing, stop signs, stop lights, striping, pavement, barriers, grade separation, ect as long as cars are not around. The costs, danger, and onus of designing for safety all fall on trying to add faster modes like cars and trains into the mix. People will die unless you either design for mixed uses at speeds < 25mph or seperate the uses.
Well, unfortunately for you, your beliefs are in the far fringe minority, and most people would find them crazy. Pedestrians absolutely need to be responsible. The fact you think they should not have to be is absolutely mind boggling to me. I honestly cannot comprehend such insanity. I mean...am I the only one who thinks this is beyond nuts?
Are you also against workplace safety rules/laws?
There will always be different roads for different uses around a metropolitan area like this, and there will always be roads at gut-wrenching speeds over 25 MPH. You keep saying you're not trying to turn the entire metro into a 25 MPH safe zone, but that is exactly what you propose repeatedly, outside of fully limited-access highways. That works in downtown core type areas. It does not work over massive metro areas. Almost no place, anywhere, is like that. Because it's just not realistic.
How could you even economically support every street in the metro being a walkable, narrow, sidewalk-shop-filled corridor?
I know y'all are struggling with this but: high speed cars and pedestrians are deadly together. It doesn't matter how inconvenient that is because you want to drive fast everywhere, but it is a fact. You are going to need to accept that you will often need to drive a mile or two out of your way in many instances to get to a high-speed route. (Oh the horror!)
If you have destinations on the street and no barriers separating it, it is not reasonable to think people (or a chicken) will not cross the road.
Unreasonable laws will not be followed.
It is not like if you spend enough time arguing with me about it on the internet I will turn around and tell every pedestrian to stop jaywalking and they will listen to me and stop. I am just telling you that is the way it is. It is human / animal nature.
You also need to go reread my entire posts and look more at the examples I have proposed. Limited access highways are not the only alternative and < 25mph design speed is way more common and varied than you imply.
Maybe you need to travel more. Because it is the norm outside the US.
Or heck, look outside your front door. It is really the norm here too. Get out of your strawman boxes of thinking the only two safe options are urban sidewalk shop corridor or rural interstate highways. You probably already live on a street with a <25mph design speed where modes mix. I know most everywhere in suburbia I have lived is that way. No sidewalk but you simply walk / bike down the middle of the street. It is not that radical of an idea you know.
Unsafe stroads are the exception and just where we have tried to concentrate suburban style commercial development and highspeed traffic on a corridor that was not built for it. That is what we need to fix.
But regardless, the scale doesn't matter, if it was every road that was unsafe and killing / harming many it still has to change. Things like every gas station and car using leaded gasoline is still not a valid reason to call it "unrealistic" and not transition to unleaded once we realized it was not safe.
And Peachtree is the perfect place to start this discussion if you are intimidated by eating this elephant. It is not like there is something magical that happens to the land or the laws of reality when you cross from Midtown to Buckhead. It is all environment and rules built by humans. And humans can change that depending on which direction we want to go to make Peachtree in Buckhead safe. Either slower traffic and mixed uses, or closing storefronts, adding barriers, and high-speed traffic.
And why are you having so much trouble with this? I supported the road diet of Peachtree you proposed earlier as a solution to improving safety there. What else are you looking for? The only unrealistic notion here is that we will never change our streets to make them safer.
I know y'all are struggling with this but: high speed cars and pedestrians are deadly together. It doesn't matter how inconvenient that is because you want to drive fast everywhere, but it is a fact. You are going to need to accept that you will often need to drive a mile or two out of your way in many instances to get to a high-speed route. (Oh the horror!)
Says the guy who proclaims that pedestrians cannot and should not, in any way, be expected to walk a few hundred feet to a designated safe crosswalk.
Quote:
If you have destinations on the street and no barriers separating it, it is not reasonable to think people (or a chicken) will not cross the road.
Unreasonable laws will not be followed.
Wait...so now it's unreasonable to expect a person to cross at a safe point? Jesus Christ! So, then nothing is ever the pedestrians' fault. Yeah, no.
Quote:
It is not like if you spend enough time arguing with me about it on the internet I will turn around and tell every pedestrian to stop jaywalking and they will listen to me and stop. I am just telling you that is the way it is. It is human / animal nature.
So, what you are getting at is that pedestrians are disrespectful of everyone else and have a chip on their shoulder and think the entire rest of the world should drop their lives for them? Because that's what it sounds like. "You cannot expect me as a pedestrian to do my part, so you're just going to have to work around me." That is exactly what you sound like.
Quote:
Maybe you need to travel more. Because it is the norm outside the US.
I've spent at least a week (sometimes more than a month) in more than sixty international cities, in 20 countries, on four continents. That's in addition to 175+ US cities. I have traveled plenty.
Quote:
Or heck, look outside your front door. It is really the norm here too. Get out of your strawman boxes of thinking the only two safe options are urban sidewalk shop corridor or rural interstate highways. You probably already live on a street with a <25mph design speed where modes mix. I know most everywhere in suburbia I have lived is that way. No sidewalk but you simply walk / bike down the middle of the street. It is not that radical of an idea you know.
Yes...in RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS!!! These are not synonymous with cross-city arterial roads. Are you being intentionally obtuse??
Quote:
And why are you having so much trouble with this? I supported the road diet of Peachtree you proposed earlier as a solution to improving safety there. What else are you looking for? The only unrealistic notion here is that we will never change our streets to make them safer.
Because my version doesn't slow cars down to 25 MPH. That's not reasonable for a cross-city arterial. 25 MPH is how fast we drive in residential neighborhoods.
You seem to have some anger issues towards pedestrians. I am just pointing out human nature. That is not going to change no matter how much you personally don't like and complain about it. People will cross the street, regardless of if you paint a crosswalk there or not.
We need to design our cities / streets with human nature in mind. It is not acceptable for people to die by the hundreds crossing the street regardless of jaywalking laws or who you want to label as "responsible". Our streets must be made safer for all.
"Residential neighborhood" is just a label. Nothing magical happens to the street just because you put a label on it. Be that label "arterial". "urban", "residential". No label makes designing unsafe streets acceptable.
Take the below example. Is this a "Residential neighborhood" or a "cross-city arterial"? Point is, regardless of what label(s) you put on it, roads like this are a sin. This is no place for a home to safely raise a family. Be that a single family home or a 40 story condo high-rise.
BTW, the closest cross walk here is a half mile away. That means if a kid growing up in this house wants to visit their best friend across the street, you are expecting them to walk a mile. If you are fine with that kid getting run down because they didn't add 20 minutes on to the trip to get to their friend's house across the street to satisfy your expectations, you have no soul.
Hey, but they got the utility poles set back behind the sidewalk so it must be safe, right?
As we update streets like this, they have to be made safer in one of two ways: Either keep them high-speed, buy up the parcels along them, close the driveways, add barriers / medians, and protected pedestrian & bike facilities. Or, give them a road diet / slow the design speed, and make it safe for other users to be in the street at the same time as a car.
You seem to have some anger issues towards pedestrians.
I have issues with anyone who crosses a road without looking. Why is it dangerous for me as a driver to pull out of a driveway without looking, but okay for a pedestrian to walk into the road without looking? Why is it dangerous for me as a driver to drive without headlights or tail lights, but okay for a pedestrian to wear dark, non-reflective clothing at night while in a road? What gives the pedestrian special power?
Quote:
I am just pointing out human nature. That is not going to change no matter how much you personally don't like and complain about it. People will cross the street, regardless of if you paint a crosswalk there or not.
Are they not able to do that safely, looking at the road and figuring out when it is safe to do so, or is looking out for one's own safety not part of human nature?
Quote:
We need to design our cities / streets with human nature in mind. It is not acceptable for people to die by the hundreds crossing the street regardless of jaywalking laws or who you want to label as "responsible". Our streets must be made safer for all.
Short of everyone driving 5 MPH or somehow completely removing automobiles from the world altogether, there's only so far you can go. There will be areas that are safe and areas that aren't as safe. And in the areas that aren't as safe, pedestrians might actually have to pay a little more attention to the world around them. The whole metro cannot be this 25 MPH wonderland. That's hysterically naive.
Quote:
"Residential neighborhood" is just a label. Nothing magical happens to the street just because you put a label on it. Be that label "arterial". "urban", "residential". No label makes designing unsafe streets acceptable.
Well, "walkable urban" is also just a label. But yes...different types of streets and roads actually have different purposes. Some are small and slow, while some are larger and faster. It baffles me that you do not know this extremely basic fact of transportation design.
Quote:
Take the below example. Is this a "Residential neighborhood" or a "cross-city arterial"? Point is, regardless of what label(s) you put on it, roads like this are a sin. This is no place for a home to safely raise a family. Be that a single family home or a 40 story condo high-rise.
This is an arterial. Always has been, even before it was surrounded by houses. Its purpose is to move people from all the surrounding neighborhoods to other arterials or to major highways. It does so to the tune of 25,000-35,000 vehicles a day. Simply by virtue of the fact that people decided to build houses on it does not make it a neighborhood road, just like Memorial is not a neighborhood road, nor is Northside Drive.
I will agree with you on one point: this road should have much better sidewalks and more labeled crosswalks.
Quote:
BTW, the closest cross walk here is a half mile away. That means if a kid growing up in this house wants to visit their best friend across the street, you are expecting them to walk a mile. If you are fine with that kid getting run down because they didn't add 20 minutes on to the trip to get to their friend's house across the street to satisfy your expectations, you have no soul.
Stop acting like I am (or anyone else is) fine with kids, or anyone for that matter, getting run down. Fact of the matter remains: there are different roads for different purposes, and some of them will require the people crossing them to use more caution than others. That is a fact of life. You cannot treat the entire metro the same as some neighborhood road like this in Ormewood Park you talk about all time. The purpose of a road network is to move people. Small neighborhood roads lead to larger collector roads which lead to even larger arterial roads which lead to highways. Each one is designed to larger specs to handle the increased load. A road like the one pictured above cannot handle 30,000 vehicles a day. But without a road that can, you can't get 30,000 vehicles to the highway.
Just like with every other activity in life, you make it as safe as you can while still maintaining its function. And the function of our road network is to move millions of people per day over fairly long distances. This cannot be done on sleepy, cafe-lined roads. And since we could never build another limited access highway in town due to an uprising by people just like you, we have to go in between.
And by the way...you have absolutely no problem adding 20 or more minutes to almost every driving trip, so don't give me that baloney.
Quote:
Hey, but they got the utility poles set back behind the sidewalk so it must be safe, right?
It's perfectly safe if you actually pay attention, barring someone driving off the side of the road.
Quote:
As we update streets like this, they have to be made safer in one of two ways: Either keep them high-speed, buy up the parcels along them, close the driveways, add barriers / medians, and protected pedestrian & bike facilities. Or, give them a road diet / slow the design speed, and make it safe for other users to be in the street at the same time as a car.
Yes or no? Only two types of road. Small, narrow, slow roads like the one shown above, and limited access thoroughfare.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
.
Are you being intentionally obtuse??
