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This is a growing trend and you can expect more of it. The end game is ongoing removal of arterials, concentrating traffic onto the freeways and a few remaining large arterials. The idea is to make driving more painful and get you out of your car. I give no value judgement here, nonetheless, that is the plan.
This is a growing trend and you can expect more of it. The end game is ongoing removal of arterials, concentrating traffic onto the freeways and a few remaining large arterials. The idea is to make driving more painful and get you out of your car. I give no value judgement here, nonetheless, that is the plan.
Maybe so. How about those stop lights at all the freeway onramps? 40 years ago someone would have been fired for coming up with such an idea.
Who would have thought merging into 65mph - 70mph traffic from a dead stop is a fantastic idea? All it does is make the cars already on the highway hit their brakes. Fabulous idea! Like getting on the Bay Bridge heading south from Treasure Island.
This is a growing trend and you can expect more of it. The end game is ongoing removal of arterials, concentrating traffic onto the freeways and a few remaining large arterials. The idea is to make driving more painful and get you out of your car. I give no value judgement here, nonetheless, that is the plan.
I wonder why the plan would be to get us out of our cars? CA makes a lot of money off of vehicle registration renewals.
20 seconds or 1 minute? During commute hours? Maybe 20 seconds or 1 minute per thousand feet at best. I drove that stretch on Saturday for the first time in like a year. You won't be able to pass anyone in any direction. Before the slower traffic would stay to the right. Can't do that anymore.
My parents used to live across the street from the main entrance to Canada back in the 80's and 90s and I used to take that road every day basically. I remember when the water pipe that runs right below the road burst and ruined the entire street for months. Right at the bottom there was always a cop waiting for someone to come down that hill too fast, even on a raining Christmas Eve I remember once. Now it's going to be school bus tickets which are a few times greater in price than going 10mph over the posted speed limit. And the majority of people ticketed will be traveling in the opposite direction. I can about guarantee you on this.
The entire stretch from nearly Alameda De Las Pulgas all the way to the up to the top of the hill is now NOT considered a multi lane road. Which means, if a school bus stops to load and unload kids, BOTH directions of traffic need to stop, "for safety reasoning". Post a link to the last time a kid was hit while trying to either get on or right after getting off a school bus on Farm Hill BLVD. But when it was a multi lane road, only the traffic on the side that has the school bus had to stop. So this is also going to cause traffic to back up each time a school bus stops. Bigger point is, just because they remove it from being a multi lane doesn't mean it's any safer for kids to get on the school bus. Only purpose is to collect revenue from people who are not so familiar with the little School Bus law.
Lastly, the residents on that stretch are really going to love full stream bumper to bumper traffic Monday through Friday. Get their Hepa filter vacuums ready because the removal of car, bus, truck exhaust soot is going to be an ongoing everyday chore, especially for the cars, buses and trucks gassing on and off at 3mph while heading up the hill.
I don't know the details of Farm Hill. We were drilling in to Broadway in Oakland, which recently reduced from 3 lanes in each direction to 2 with a buffered bike lane. I was just illustrating that not all changes have a big impact on drivers.
With all due respect, 1)roads are not just for the people who live along them and 2)except for elementary school kids, people who live along a road knew the structure of the road before they moved in. I understand that, say 8pm-6am and 10am-3pm the road is under-used. And the speeds people traveled at those times may have been scary to residents. But, there are other solutions for that (e.g., timing lights so if you go the speed limit you don't have to stop but if you go faster you have to stop repeatedly).
The problem is 6am-10am and 3pm-8pm, when it is often gridlocked. Its a perfect storm of kids getting to and from school the same time traffic is escalating, as Broadway is a main thoroughfare (like it or not) to 24/980 to the north and 880 to the south. When it had 6 instead of four lanes of traffic it was not gridlocked during those high volume hours.
Broadway was absolutely gridlocked at those hours long before they reduced it to four lanes. I have lived here for a decade, and drive it daily, so I speak with confidence about my daily experience (which may well differ somewhat from yours, if your commute is an hour earlier or later). The lane reduction did not create the gridlock (although neither did it improve it--but it did not set out to). The goal was to improve the overall function of the road for a diversity of users, not just bikers and not just drivers--pedestrians have also benefited, as have transit riders. (There is a major transit project going in right now to time the lights for the buses.) FWIW, most of the grandparents who live along this corridor either walk or ride the bus (and they were a significant factor in moving forward with this project, because this area has a very large senior population due to a number of high-rise senior housing developments).
Your point that a road is not only for the residents of the community it runs through is well taken, but in this case, designing the road to serve commuters was causing measurable harm to the people who lived along it--hence the need for a compromise that could continue to meet needs of commuters, even if not quite as well, while also meeting needs of residents and other road users. And yes, it was studied ad nauseam--there are countless studies of the traffic patterns (okay, maybe not countless, but I can think of at least half a dozen just in the past few years that included traffic counts, many including bike counts) along with an EIR. The delay the studies found (and that I have found in reality, with the exception of the left turns) is minimal compared to the overall delay that exists on this road by virtue of the number of cars that use it at peak periods. We are also still in the early phases of the overall road improvement process, which includes not just adding the bike lane, but making transit improvements to allow the bus line along Broadway--the busiest route in Alameda County--to run more efficiently (hopefully encouraging more people to ride it rather than drive, which in turn will improve your commute).
The same situation existed along Harrison and Oakland Avenues, which have a similar traffic pattern--very congested during commute hours, and very little traffic the rest of the day. These two roads also had lane reductions that did nothing for congestion, but it has been a night and day change for those of us who live in the adjacent neighborhoods and must walk or bike these roads. The speed of traffic has slowed considerably and you can cross the street far more safely. It's not always trivial for people to just walk a few blocks out of their way to use a quieter road to get to school or work or stores (and in fact in this area, there aren't a lot of ways to do this--Oakland isn't a grid east of Broadway, so there are very few through streets; the only parallel routes that go through are Telegraph and Harrison, which are also commuter arterials). It is far easier for a driver to choose another route into downtown, or to get on the freeway downtown rather than take surface streets across town.
Finally--no, the road wasn't like this when all of the residents moved in. There are families in the neighborhoods along Broadway (and especially in some of the senior communities) who have been there for decades; Broadway had a streetcar running down the center of it when they moved here. Roads change over time to accommodate changing use patterns. Broadway has been reinvented in significant ways many times over the years, and I'm sure it will be again. This is just the latest iteration; if it doesn't prove to make the road safer and more functional overall over the long term, I have no doubt that there will be new ideas brought to the table.
I wonder why the plan would be to get us out of our cars? CA makes a lot of money off of vehicle registration renewals.
Local government is becoming full of bike activists and their sympathizers. They're bias decision making process is completely influenced by a pro bike anti vehicle agenda & mentality. The funny thing is they can't see the big picture outside the box in regards to how much funding comes from annual vehicle registration renewal fees, and other revenue from moving violations, parking fees, and bridge tolls. If cars were completely 100% gone, they'd have to come up with new ways to drum up revenue.
Here's one such example of what happens when more bikes are used:
And when I was listening to many cyclists being interviewed, the vast majority of them were pissed and claiming they would either not bike or not visit Sausalito altogether.
I was all set to accept what artemis said, until the final paragraph, which reads:
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
Finally--no, the road wasn't like this when all of the residents moved in. There are families in the neighborhoods along Broadway (and especially in some of the senior communities) who have been there for decades; Broadway had a streetcar running down the center of it when they moved here.
The key system was dismantled in 1950. Technically, someone who was 1 year old living on Broadway in 1950 is now 66. BUT, the number of 1950 infants who lived on that stretch of Broadway 66 years ago and still live there is extremely small, and perhaps zero. So, no, the current residents did not move in when there was a streetcar running down it; since 1950 Broadway has been a broad way for car traffic.
Consequently, I think what I thought before--people moved to a major car thoroughfare and now they are complaining. Just like people who buy houses next to the airport, and then complain.
This realization made me re-consider the other sections of the post. Several corrections are required:
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
Broadway was absolutely gridlocked at those hours long before they reduced it to four lanes. I have lived here for a decade, and drive it daily, so I speak with confidence about my daily experience (which may well differ somewhat from yours, if your commute is an hour earlier or later).
I've lived here for over two decades, and it was not gridlocked. It had heavy traffic, but the traffic moved. Now, during rush-hour it often does not move. Failure to move is grid-lock; heavy traffic is something else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
The lane reduction did not create the gridlock
Yes, it did.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
The goal was to improve the overall function of the road for a diversity of users, not just bikers and not just drivers--pedestrians have also benefited, as have transit riders.
This is the kind of thinking that leads to bad decisions. Let's just agree that the function of the road improved for bikers and pedestrians and transit riders. Even so, was that improvement purchased at the cost of a loss on nearby streets? Only a holistic assessment can determine that. All the studies cited, I see not a shred of evidence such an assessment has been done. And, if, as my experience negotiating the area suggests, car traffic levels and speeds have increased on parallel streets, then, even IF some groups have a better experience on Broadway, it is a failure, not a success.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
FWIW, most of the grandparents who live along this corridor either walk or ride the bus (and they were a significant factor in moving forward with this project, because this area has a very large senior population due to a number of high-rise senior housing developments).
True, but I doubt that increasing the number of cars wrecklessly turning off of Broadway to get to side streets is going to work well with senior citizens. But I suspect most of the senior citizens you seem to be referencing will respond by simply avoiding the issue by not walking during rush hour. Hard to see how that's a "win!" for this re-design.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
Your point that a road is not only for the residents of the community it runs through is well taken, but in this case, designing the road to serve commuters was causing measurable harm to the people who lived along it--hence the need for a compromise that could continue to meet needs of commuters, even if not quite as well, while also meeting needs of residents and other road users.
The harm is a chosen harm. Let me be clear--there is NO place one can live that doesn't have a downside. When you pick a place to live you pick the downside(s). Live in the hills? Have to drive for a loaf of bread and fear wildfires that will block roads. But, earthquakes, you're probably fine. Live in the flats? No need to drive everywhere, easy egress in case of fire (well, unless they keep choking roads), but greater earthquake risk. And so on. All that the road change has done is raise property values for people along that stretch while costing other people more time, reducing air quality, and lowering the quality of life of people on side streets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
And yes, it was studied ad nauseam--there are countless studies of the traffic patterns (okay, maybe not countless, but I can think of at least half a dozen just in the past few years that included traffic counts, many including bike counts) along with an EIR. The delay the studies found (and that I have found in reality, with the exception of the left turns) is minimal compared to the overall delay that exists on this road by virtue of the number of cars that use it at peak periods.
That's not the relevant comparison. People have to get from point A to point B. The issue is "What routes will we have for them to do that?" Confining our attention to Broadway, the route they had before the change took X minutes. Now it takes X + Y minutes. Y is the cost (per person) of the change. People will try to reduce that cost (and, parenthetically, not everyone can just decide to not drive--maybe they're driving to public transportation, a carpool, or to pick up kids from school). They will take side streets, speed, change lanes quickly, to try to shave that Y as low as possible.
Also, all roads would move faster if no one ever turned off of them. Saying "with the exception of left turns" is to turn the discussion into one about a fantasy. Thus, we have to keep the left (and right) turns in the analysis. I mean, if you can say "except for left turns" I can say "except for red lights"; both claims are nonsensical.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
We are also still in the early phases of the overall road improvement process, which includes not just adding the bike lane, but making transit improvements to allow the bus line along Broadway--the busiest route in Alameda County--to run more efficiently (hopefully encouraging more people to ride it rather than drive, which in turn will improve your commute).
I rarely drive. When I commute I (in order of frequency) bus, BART, walk, bike, then drive. But, when I drive I need to do so. That's the culture of the region. When I pick up my mentor kid I cannot do it by busing to his house, busing to our outing, and so forth. There's not enough time. And I am not alone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
The same situation existed along Harrison and Oakland Avenues, which have a similar traffic pattern--very congested during commute hours, and very little traffic the rest of the day. These two roads also had lane reductions that did nothing for congestion, but it has been a night and day change for those of us who live in the adjacent neighborhoods and must walk or bike these roads. The speed of traffic has slowed considerably and you can cross the street far more safely.
The thing they did that made a difference was install mid-block traffic signals. Everything else has not had much effect, if I understand what section you are referencing. Further, those are not major thoroughfares. They run a fraction of the length Broadway runs, and much of their distance is residential. Its not the same situation at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by artemis78
It's not always trivial for people to just walk a few blocks out of their way to use a quieter road to get to school or work or stores (and in fact in this area, there aren't a lot of ways to do this--Oakland isn't a grid east of Broadway, so there are very few through streets; the only parallel routes that go through are Telegraph and Harrison, which are also commuter arterials). It is far easier for a driver to choose another route into downtown, or to get on the freeway downtown rather than take surface streets across town.
Another reason the cases are different. The area I am focused on DOES have a grid pattern. The area you mentioned of Harrison does not. For that and many other reasons I would not have opposed some change, and have seen no problems with its current arrangement. The same cannot be said of Broadway.
TL;DR? Broadway's streetcars were dismantled 65 years ago, so virtually no one who moved there moved there thinking it was a lazy road (as if streetcars don't make noise, anyway). The change transfers property values from people in adjacent streets to those on Broadway. Senior citizens are endangered by all the new turning that the road will now motivate. Mid-block traffic signals are another effective way to slow traffic and aid pedestrians. The Oakland and Harrison changes are not comparable because Broadway was a major thoroughfare, and the former two are not. For these reasons, the Oakland Harrison changes may have been positive, but the Broadway changes will not prove to be.
Err, what? There are many families who have lived here for well over 65 years. (That was my point!) In fact, several older residents live in the homes that they grew up in that their families built in the 1910s. And yes, there was gridlock during rush hour on this stretch of Broadway prior to the lane reduction, even if you fortunately did not have to experience it.
There is not a grid pattern east of Broadway below 40th Street. This is not an opinion--anyone can see this easily by looking at a map. It's an ongoing challenge, because it does mean there's no easy way to designate an alternate bike/pedestrian path on an adjacent street. Webster and Piedmont do have bike lanes, but they both dead end into Broadway. I doubt many are taking side streets, because which side streets would you take? Very little connects, which was the problem to start with. Ours is one of the few side streets people do try to cut through on, and as it turns out, the left turn delay solves that problem handily. That said, the left turn issue is a problem that is fairly easily solved (and I presume they intend to solve it)--you just need a left turn arrow as part of the light cycle so that people waiting in the dedicated turn lanes have a protected turn. The left turners aren't affecting the flow of traffic otherwise.
With respect to Harrison Street and Oakland Ave, I'm talking about the stretch between MacArthur and 27th Street. There is one mid-block pedestrian signal there, but it was put in as part of the Whole Foods mitigation nine years ago, not as part of the more recent lane reduction. (It has helped enormously too but it was a separate project, and did not slow traffic noticeably--it just provide a protected pedestrian crossing point.) The traffic slowed after the travel lane was removed. (It was much discussed at the time, as many neighbors believed it was a honeymoon period, but we are a couple of years in at this point and speeds are still slower, which is promising.) I agree entirely that it's a different street environment given its residential nature, but the problem was very similar, and the hoped-for outcome--slower traffic with safer spaces for cyclists and pedestrians--was also very similar.
All of the studies of impact on traffic for the Broadway changes considered parallel streets and nearby intersections, and what the effect would be on traffic patterns there. It's required by law. The intent of such studies is to understand what the cost to the overall road network is if you make changes to specific roads; it's holistic by design (and often changes are made to other intersections to mitigate any effects on them).
You're right that not everyone has the option to avoid driving if they're going somewhere where either destination or time constraints make transit or walking or biking infeasible. There will be a cost to those drivers (and I'm often among them, when I drive). But many of them do have other options--the freeways, for one, which are not available to pedestrians, bikers, or local buses. And their needs are not inherently more important than the needs of the other users of the road, which is the broader point. It's a delicate balancing act of costs and benefits, and one group should not reap all of the benefits or bear all of the costs.
(Sorry to hijack, for those reading for info on Farm Hill Road, which is another situation entirely!)
Last edited by artemis78; 09-15-2015 at 11:11 PM..
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