Big Pickup Trucks and SUVs Kill

 According to the New York Times (""The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s" (NY Times article on taller hoods and larger blind-spots)"), 10% of the increase in pedestrian deaths--which have risen at a rate in the US higher than other countries--is because people's purchases shifted from low profile cars to high profile trucks and SUVs.  And that 10% number only includes deaths on roads, not in parking lots, private roads, or driveways.

Left turns are the biggest source of crashes resulting in death.  The way that the article describes the various blind zones of the Chevy Silverado truck are exactly the circumstances that killed an elementary school child in my neighborhood a few years ago ("Salt Lake City girl struck, killed in crosswalk near elementary school," Salt Lake Tribune).

It was worse than shown in the simulation because the driver was short, making the blind zones even bigger.  From the Times:

To analyze how these blind zones have changed, we used a three-dimensional scanner to compare sightlines in four of the most common pickups today — the Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150, GMC Sierra and Toyota Tacoma — with their counterparts from the 1990s or early 2000s.

The Silverado’s blind zones have nearly doubled.

The Sierra’s and the Tacoma’s grew by about 60 percent.

The smallest increase was the F-150’s. Its blind zones grew by about 25 percent.

Money. ‘King of the Road’. 

Our overall findings match what we found in court records and heard from dozens of experts who reconstruct crashes for police and lawyers. Today’s S.U.V.s and pickups promise more: more seats, more space, more safety, more power, more domination, more prestige.

And, for automakers, more money.

They are the source of virtually all of the U.S. auto industry’s profits, said Mark Wakefield, an industry expert at the consulting firm AlixPartners. For nearly a decade, Ford and G.M. have said in their annual reports that their earnings depend on larger S.U.V.s and pickups. The cost of making bigger vehicles is usually not much higher than it is for cars, because they are often built in automakers’ most efficient factories and the extra raw materials are relatively cheap.

Left: 1998 Chevy Silverado.  Right: 2021.

Yet customers are willing to pay much more for them. The average sticker price for a full-size pickup is $70,000, double that of a sedan, according to Cox Automotive. (Some people pay more to soup up their trucks with “lift kits” that raise their suspensions.)

Totally unsurprised: The Mazda that drove onto the Seattle Light Rail tracks was from Utah

Utah's predominant license plate features an arch rock formation from the Arches National Park.

On the light rail tracks at Mount Baker Station in Seattle.

I am totally unsurprised that the person involved in the incident in Seattle ("How did an SUV get onto (and off) the Mount Baker light rail platform?," Seattle Times), was from Utah.

 Every person from every other place thinks X drivers are the worst.  But Utah drivers are so timid.  They won't enter an intersection when the light is green, they wait behind the line, so traffic backs up. 

It's interminable sometimes to get through a four way intersection because people hesitate and/or if you're traveling straight in the other direction, you wait for that car to clear in the other lane, rather than moving simultaneously.

Scary.  Terrifying.

So many wrong way drivers on the freeways, often resulting in crashes and deaths ("I-80 closed after fleeing suspect causes wrong-way crash near Salt Lake City," Fox13, "Wrong Way Accidents: What They Are and How They Occur").

And there are multiple accidents every year on the light rail, mostly in Salt Lake but in the suburbs too ("One person injured following collision between TRAX train and vehicle," Fox13).

Outside the Delta Center, where professional basketball and hockey games are played in Downtown Salt Lake City.

There is no question that "design flaws" do contribute to these kinds of accidents.  Car-centric people have a hard time conceptualizing mixing traffic with a train car.

And wrt wrong way crashes, to be fair, when we were growing up, mostly you entered a freeway from the right side of the road.  

I can see an impaired person thinking that's the case, not paying attention to signs, and entering on the right, despite the Wrong Way and Do Not Enter signs ("Driving in the Right Direction: State Efforts to Combat Wrong-Way Driving," National Conference of State Legislatures).

But a lot of it isn't the result of design flaws so much as it is driver error and recklessness.  It's hard to design that out of the system when so many people are imprinted with an automobile-centric and dependent mobility paradigm.

Especially in the Salt Lake Valley.  Utah is touted as being environmentally forward through its Envision Utah program ("Progressive Planning in Conservation Communities") but it's the epitome of sprawl.  

And the Legislature and Executive Branch are pretty much pro-growth anti-environmental, unless they have no other choice, like with the Great Salt Lake (" This article is more than 1 year old Utah’s Great Salt Lake rings climate alarm bells over release of 4.1m tons of carbon dioxide," Guardian).

Soon to be history: The Olive trees of Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale

 Apparently, the Black Olive trees linking the median of Las Olas Boulevard are aging, wracked by termites, etc.  But they are beautiful trees.  All will be removed over the next two to three years in favor of the construction of a new road pattern. ("Las Olas tree — doomed by termites — to be chopped down Thursday," "Fort Lauderdale to bid farewell to beloved black olive trees on Las Olas," South Florida Sun-Sentinel).

Photos: Amy Beth Bennett, South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Shade is a valuable commodity in climate change scenario when temperatures keep climbing.  Especially in the hot climes of Florida.  Photo: Carline Jean, South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Unlike the majority of the Fort Lauderdale Commissioners, I don't think I would have voted in favor of the destruction.  The median will be eliminated in favor of wider sidewalks ("Famous tree-lined median on Las Olas needs to go, Fort Lauderdale commission agrees" ).

Highway departments don't like such urban design treatments because they see the immobile objects of big trees as hazards if automobile operators lose control and crash. Still they are a distinctive feature that is unduplicated elsewhere ("Take out trees on Las Olas and you’ll turn into Anywhere, USA, critic warns Fort Lauderdale").

Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Ten | Park transportational access

In 2024 I wrote a series of articles on Gaps in Park Master Planning, based on my experience sitting on a park board in Salt Lake City, with interesting inter-governmental relationships in that the park is jointly owned by the city and county, overseen by an independent board--as a kind of proto parks conservancy (like Central Park in New York City) but never with the investment or effort to develop the conservancy element ("Creating a Park Conservancy that Fits," Parks & Recreation).  My work on various projects in DC as well as on the Eastern Market public market board prepared me well for these issues.

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part One | Levels of Service"

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Two | Utilizing Academic Research as Guidance"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Three | Planning for Climate Change/Environment"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Four | Planning for Seasonality and Activation"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning, Part Six | Art(s) in the Park(s) as a comprehensive program"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Seven | Park Architectural (and Landscape Design) History" 
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Eight | Civic Engagement"
-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Nine | Second stage planning for parks using the cultural landscape framework" 

But while I have written a bunch about parks and transportational access, I didn't think to include that as another topic in the series.  The challenge is to ensure that as many parks as possible are accessible by transit.  This, and other forms of accessibility, should be covered in a parks master plan.

-- "Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Ten | Park transportational access" (2025)

A Toronto Star article, "When it comes to public spaces, like High Park and the Islands, access shouldn’t be a hurdle," reminds me that I have written about parks access issues for a decade or more, that I am dealing with it specifically for Sugar House Park (a project that is likely to take at least six years, and I hope it will include artistic intersection treatment, plant-related transit shelters, and median plantings, alongside a park-side bicycle lane and road dieting--taking one lane of the major east-west street abutting the park), and that this is definitely a gap in parks master planning, tricky because the access points are usually under the jurisdiction of local and state highway-transportation departments.

High Park Movement Implementation Strategy.

The article goes on to discuss High Park, where the city made a bunch of controversial changes making car access and parking more difficult ("High Park car ban: Can the city's changes ease the anger?").  From the article:

One year later, critics say that while the city moved quickly to close the park to vehicles, it hasn’t followed through with timely supports for people with mobility challenges, who can’t walk in from the perimeter, access the shuttle that runs from High Park subway station, or use the trackless train that runs through the park, but is not wheelchair accessible.

(Note this comes up with Sugar House Park too.  But it's a county park, and the Salt Lake Valley is the epitome of sprawl.  A car free park would significantly reduce participation.  Making the park car free just seems like picking at a scab.  Although I hope to start a program of weekend "Open Streets" over the course of the year.)

Goals.

First is the issue of physical access.  Is it easy to get to a park by walking, transit, trails, or car?  Most park access planning is focused on the car.  

Second is the issue of equity. When you require a car to access a park that this triggers equity concerns, and transit (and transit fare assistance) should be provided.  

Third, city park access on the perimeter may need greater focus.  For a "regular" city or county, the traditional transit system can suffice.  E.g., in Salt Lake City, most major parks are accessible via regular bus routes, although this access isn't necessarily well integrated into the park.

Sugar House Park, 1300 East.

Fourth, it's important to plan for seasonality, specifically winter, for city parks and trails, and snow clearance ("Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Four | Planning for Seasonality and Activation").  People use parks in winter.  So snow clearance may be an important issue, but may often be ignored.  Also in the early morning and evening when light diminishes.

Elements.

Railroad tourism to large national parks "out west" was the foundation of recreational passenger service.  It set the stage for park tourism, in both the US and Canada.  While many of Canada's parks still have train service, with US national parks it's hit or miss.  Except for a couple of private rail services focused on high end service and access.

Access.  Like with Toronto's park islands in Lake Ontario, the past blog entry "Revisiting: Access to Theodore Roosevelt Island, a national park in Washington, DC," discusses how a park in the Potomac River can only be accessed by a bridge from Virginia.  Ferry service from DC isn't provided.

Zion National Park shuttle bus.  Flickr photo by SoCal Metro.

National Parks.  The National Park Service does have a Transportation program, focused on reducing traffic congestion, visitor management, and preservation of natural areas within parks--the parks would be overwhelmed if people only used cars to get around within a park.

But generally these services are offered within parks, not to parks.  

Forests.  The USFS is much less developed on this element.  While many USFS sites are remote, a number are not, with major forests near or in major metropolitan areas like Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City, or other cities and tourist destinations like Sedona (USFS Urban National Forests).  

Pasadena is piloting a transit shuttle to the Angeles National Forest ("Urban Transit to Trails: Mt. Wilson Express Shuttle") with support from the federal park transportation access program.

Traffic congestion at Yellowstone National Park.

Dams and Fish and Wildlife installations.  Almost by definition these won't be accessible because they tend to be located far from cities.  Although local transit systems may provide service.  A fish and wildlife site in Metro Detroit is accessible by bus ("North America’s only international wildlife refuge is on the Detroit River. Visit by bus," Bridge Detroit).

Trailhead Direct transit shuttle, King County.

Local and state parks.  However, many parks are accessible through regular transit services, or special, usually seasonal park-focused transit such as in King County, Washington ("Yes, hiking. No, traffic. Trailhead Direct offers car-free travel from Seattle to the mountains," KUOW/NPR), Los Angeles County, Boulder, Sedona, etc.

Colorado's Bustang state supported inter-city bus service provides access to some state and national parks.

Salt Lake County.  The County is home to the Wasatch section of the Uintah-Wasatch-Cache National Forest but isn't accessible by transit.  

There is an exception with SkiBus (constantly being reduced because of lack of drivers) and some service in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  I've proposed the creation of what I call the Salt Lake County Recreational Transit District to provide such services.  

Park City Transit bus.

Resort communities.  Many resort communities across North America have transit services.  As a transportation demand management program, they are often free to use, to encourage both employees and visitors to ride.

For example, Park City and Summit County in Utah.  Summit County's High Valley Transit has even stepped in and replaced a service between Salt Lake City and Park City, that UTA said they couldn't provide.  Since HVT is free, so is bus route, which used to cost $5 each way.

With the support of Colorado DOT, Amtrak service runs from Denver to Winter Haven during ski season.  The Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad provides for bike access to the Cuyahoga Falls National Park.  Amtrak provides access to the Great Allegheny Passage Trail too, among others.

Water access.  A new 10-year plan to reduce traffic and improve safety and accessibility on Belle Isle calls for, among other things, bringing ferry service back to the island park and Detroit River ("Belle Isle’s 10-year mobility plan could see return of ferry service," Crain's Detroit Business). Nearer term, recommendations for two-way bicycle lanes circling the island, completion of the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Trail and new wayfinding signs to help visitors find their way around are set to happen this year.

-- Belle Isle Park Multimodal Mobility Study

As mentioned above, Roosevelt Island in the Potomac River is not accessible from the DC side, only from Virginia.  This can be typical for parks in rivers.  

NPS does have some water transit access services, as do some localities, like Toronto and a ferry to Toronto Island Park, even if it is substandard ("Toronto's public spaces need results – not more plans," Toronto Globe & Mail).  Governors Island from New York City has a well regarded ferry service.

The National Park Service also supports "water trails," trails organized to connect parks, for people using waterborne vessels.

Trails.  Ideally, trail connections to parks are part of a broader system of regional trails.  Many cities and states have trail systems linking parks such as Philadelphia's Circuit Trails.  Akron, Ohio is a hub for three different trails, the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail, and the Freedom and Buckeye Trails.  The Great Allegheny Passage trail connects Pittsburgh to Washington, DC, partly via the C&O Canal National Park.  GAP has a Trail Towns economic development program to assist local communities with building bike tourism.

Increasingly, provision of trails within and to and from parks is less of an an issue.  If anything, trail access to parks is a high priority. Some parks have trail systems within a park as well.  The east coast Appalachian Trail and the west coast Pacific Coast Trail run along the entire coast of the US, and include both national and state parks on their routes. 

Access at Parks.

Parking.  While the point of this entry is facilitating non-motor vehicle access to parks, parking planning is a necessary element to accommodate users in ways that protect natural resources and other park users.  National and state parks usually charge a fee per vehicle.  Some regional parks in various jurisdictions, as well as beaches often charge for parking.  

Tillamook County, Oregon charges a parking fee at many of its parks and boat launches--$10/day or $55/year.

Sidewalks, intersection crossings, etc.  Does the park perimeter have a sidewalk?  Is the park accessible from nearby streets? 

Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

Are primary intersections into the park properly signalized and safe?  Are there opportunities for special entrance treatments incorporating artistic elements more generally or park specific?

From "Q & A with Cassie Wilson, a disabled Portlander and new bike rider," Bike Portland blog.

Americans for Disabilities Act.  Similarly, the park has ADA issues, and those continue to be addressed, limited by our budget and planning resources.

Salt Lake City did an ADA access plan for its parks and public buildings (ADA Self Evaluation and Transition Plan). 

More parks are taking care to provide ADA accessible trails and special mobility equipment to access them ("Building An Inclusive Park System For All Abilities," NY State Parks, Tillamook County, Oregon).

Intra-park mobility.  Most local and state parks have some issues where mobility access is inadequate in some way.

Sugar House Park has a biking and walking path as part of the street right of way.  It's less likely to vulnerability because the street ROW is one way--although that doesn't prevent wrong way driving or other mistakes.

But perhaps this could be separated from the road by being slightly elevated, in terms of its own paths.

Montreal.

Bicycle parking at a playground in Liberty Park, Salt Lake City.

Bicycling.  Bicycle parking, access to repair equipment, air, and perhaps electric charging for bicycles are park planning issues.  In terms of bicycle parking, providing secure parking for all types of bicycles, including cargo bikes and electric bikes, should be a part of the planning process. 

Access to bicycles is partly an equity issue.  Many parks have bicycle rental concessions. But that costs money. 

Bicycle sharing programs.  The original Tulsa Townies bicycle sharing system was designed to provide free bike use within Tulsa's Riverfront parks, although it is no longer in operation. Connecting four parks, Bismarck North Dakota has a park-based bicycle sharing system that is free to use.  Cities with widespread bicycle sharing programs provide bike sharing access naturally, although I am not familiar with any programs that provide free access for park users.

Bicycle sharing bikes on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Wayfinding and cultural interpretation signage.  Directional signage for trails can be inadequate, forcing reliance on online sources, which some of us prefer not to use.

This can be an issue with statewide trails, regional trails like the Denver & Rio Grande Trail in Davis County, Utah ("Denver and Rio Grande Rail Trail in Davis County, Utah: a great foundation, full of (missed) opportunity") and local trails.

It's also nice to have cultural interpretation signage along the way, about local history, waterways and other topics.

Many years ago, the Passaic County NJ Transportation Plan included an element on historic interpretation of transportation infrastructure within the county, including rivers and canals.

  

Programming.  Programs to promote bicycling and walking should be part of parks master planning too.  Community cycling rides, training programs for children, supported walks, etc., are some of the programs that could be offered.

Some parks do close streets ("Open Streets" programs) disallowing motor vehicles for special events and weekends.  This is especially true overseas.

Revisiting: Need for social marketing initiatives around installation of neighborhood traffic calming initiatives: Salt Lake City

In June I wrote "Need for social marketing initiatives around installation of neighborhood traffic calming initiatives: Salt Lake City," about animus about a traffic safety initiative in my neighborhood.  I made the point that car-centric people don't understand how imprinted they are with automobile dependence, and their unwillingness to consider other modes (walking, biking, transit) and users, in this case all the kids who live in the vicinity of this oversized intersection.

But I also made the point that the City Transportation Department could have handled outreach a lot better--basically they didn't do any.  I sent a pdf of the blog entry to the Department Director, and they responded.

These are photos of a couple of outreach devices they deployed, including a signboard in the roundabout and a flyer dropped off at area houses.

And just this week, the City Transportation Department continued to refine the street markings, in keeping with the idea that the roundabout is a prototype, a test.

Quote of the day: cars and pedestrians

There's an article, "Push. Pray. Walk: After yet another death, should Toronto replace these dangerous pedestrian crossovers?," in the Toronto Star about pedestrian crossings--not full traffic signals--and how there are plenty of close calls, and deaths from time to time. I like this particular paragraph.

Much of Toronto’s pedestrian infrastructure — and this goes for bike infrastructure too — was seemingly designed with the idea that the city’s drivers would have some baseline level of aptitude and care. Maybe that was always naïve. Maybe driver behaviour has just gotten worse in recent years.

Either way, the aptitude and care aren’t there.

The first paragraph called out to me, but these are good too.

We can debate the nature of the problem — I tend to think one root cause is a driver education system that licenses too many people without adequate training — but regardless, the response from city hall needs to be about emphasizing infrastructure that protects and separates pedestrians and cyclists from cars. That means red lights that enforce a stop instead of crossovers that are treated as optional, and concrete barriers instead of paint.

A lot of drivers aren’t going to like that — they already complain that there are too many traffic lights and lane restrictions as it is — but the reality, I fear, is that road safety measures that rely on driver responsibility are banking on an unrealistic expectation. Toronto’s bad drivers have shattered that basic trust too many times.

Need for social marketing initiatives around installation of neighborhood traffic calming initiatives: Salt Lake City

Gosh, years ago I wrote about an approach to planning I called "action planning," focused on implementation, and to be successful included elements of social marketing and branding and identity.

My thinking about planning and how it should be performed has moved from action planning ("Social Marketing the Arlington (and Tower Hamlets and Baltimore) way," 2008, "All the talk of e-government, digital government, and open source government is really about employing the design method," 2012), to best practice revitalization planning ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2017) to transformational projects action planning ("Updating the best practice elements of revitalization to include elements 7 and 8 | Transformational Projects Action Planning at a large scale," 2024, "A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do," 2022), with stops for destination marketing, cities as brand management, and risk management as areas that elected officials should be very much concerned.

Traffic calming has been a revolutionary treatment in sustainable mobility focused transportation for the last 20+ years.  Most people probably think of it as speed bumps, but there are many different treatments.

But it's not widely understood, especially in places that are dominated by the car, like Salt Lake City.  Like many cities, Salt Lake is a leader in trying to balance the modes with a renewed focus on sustainable modes--walking, biking, and transit.  It's doing some great bike infrastructure, some of which we will be trying to get for the perimeter of Sugar House Park.

A traffic lane was removed and an in-ROW bicycle lane was installed on 900 East adjacent to Fairmont Park.

The Livable Streets Plan is an implementation focused plan aiming to bring that about ("In Salt Lake City, here’s what kind of ‘traffic-calming’ projects could be coming to your street," Salt Lake Tribune).  The city has been investing in such efforts for awhile, and the CIP process prioritizes monies for this action item.

My one criticism of the approach would be a lot of the residential streets in Salt Lake are "naturally traffic calmed" already based on their design, width, etc., and often people don't understand when treatments are implemented, often with little community involvement.  

(Many DC residential streets are similarly set up.  And I've argued that a bike boulevard program is really a traffic calming program irrespective of the bikes.)

That being said here and there are exceptionally wide neighborhood streets too, and traffic calming is a lot cheaper that reconstruction to make the street narrower.

So far, using the concepts of "Tactical Urbanism," many of the projects are either prototypes or done simply, but IMO there can be seriously negative aesthetic effects.

-- Tactical Urbanism Manual, volume 1
-- Tactical Urbanism Manual, volume 2
-- Tactical Urbanists Guide to Materials and Design

"Temporary" can be a long time.  Years.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mayor Erin Mendenhall and council member Dan Dugan swap out a 25 mph speed limit sign for a new 20 mph sign in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, July 27, 2022.

In 2022, the city reduced the street mph to 20mph for most neighborhood streets, which in a car oriented city, is at times controversial ("Salt Lake City Council lowers speed limit to 20 mph on 70% of city streets in unanimous vote," "Salt Lake City swaps first 20 mph speed limit sign in initiative for safer streets," Salt Lake Tribune).  (There is a local walking and transit advocacy group called Sweet Streets, that helped promote this change.)

I live on a street that's pretty wide--so cars speed quite a bit, even though it's only one block long, between two households with children, a weird intersection confluence, and about 20 children in close by houses, many of whom come to play next door (the house is more popular with kids than the one with the pool...).

The parents have been hyper about speeding cars, and the neighborhood and our District 6 Councilmember is more concerned about traffic safety these days because a nearby elementary school had a traffic fatality last year ("Yard sign, Person running for District Six Council in Salt Lake using traffic safety as a campaign issue," 2023).  

So about six weeks ago, that helped some of my neighbors get a temporary roundabout placed in the weird intersection.  Anecdotally, I think it's contributed to speed reduction, but I don't think they did of study of prevailing speeds beforehand.

It's not fancy.  It's temporary.

Sometimes kids play in it, but with supervision.  That scandalizes my MIL, but I'm not about to get into a debate with her about how the car companies and their allies changed the definition of street to be car centric instead of people centered.  See Fighting Traffic:The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.

Road Witch was a campaign in England 20+ years ago, focusing on rebalancing the use to streets toward residents, not automobiles.

But there has been opposition, both in Nextdoor, the neighborhood e-list, and through flyers distributed to nearby houses (I'm next door to the roundabout, and obviously with my sustainable mobility proclivities am supportive.)

I think that the real problem has been lack of neighborhood communication and education, heightened by the reality of car centricity, which automobile dependent residents aren't inclined to question--they just take it for granted.

The roundabout just popped up with no notice.  It's cheap looking.  There have been no explanatory materials placed in the roundabout or on people's doorknobs--both about why this has been installed and what temporary means in terms of the plastic poles.

At the Long Beach Beach Streets event, they prototyped sustainable road treatments, but with explanation.  A signboard like that needs to be made for SLC traffic calming treatments, including roundabouts.

There should have been a "block party" to introduce it (the same goes for other traffic calming treatments elsewhere in the city).

Community pop up event showing what a greenway could look like in their neighborhood.  Minneapolis Star-Tribune photo.

People hanging out in a parklet.  Parklets convert street parking spaces to alternative uses.

Salt Lake City Transportation Department pop up booth at Poplar Grove Park.  

They have the capacity for community communication.

WRT temporary, I imagine it could become something more like the roundabout at Hollywood Avenue and 1000 East, but again, no two way communication.  This is a photo not of that roundabout.  It's pretty, not cheap.

Ironically, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, community communication is part of the planning process:

Quick-action pilot projects could start as soon as this fall, but an overhaul may not begin until late 2024. “There’ll be outreach and engagement and development of the plan and the design neighborhood by neighborhood, followed by bidding it out and finding contractors that can build it for us — often, that process takes two years,” Jon Larsen, the city’s director of transportation, said . 

Across the board, implementation is dependent on future funding, which Larsen said was requested in this year’s capital improvement budget. Once the program has its team on board, they’ll begin prioritizing roadways to start on with guidance from the city council. “I know that sounds like a really long time to people; we’re hoping to find ways to speed up that process, and especially having more staff, I feel confident we will be able to,” Larsen said.

I think this and other traffic calming projects in the city show that the community communication element is an afterthought.

I do believe the people in my neighborhood would be more supportive if they knew the reasons why it was installed.  It has full walking infrastructure even though most people drive, although there are plenty of dog and child walkers.

And this need for community communication should be lesson for transportation departments more generally.  Explanatory signage is a must.

Vision Zero initiatives on the decline: Cache County Utah shows another way

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports, "Mayor Parker’s budget slashes funding for Vision Zero, a program designed to end traffic deaths," that the mayor has cut funding for Vision Zero programs, which are designed to reduce traffic fatalities.  Other cities have had mixed to negative results from similar initiatives.

Past writings:

-- "Revisiting Vision Zero in DC and NYC," 2021

-- "A more radical approach to Vision Zero," 2019
-- "A reminder about how the entitlement of automobility is embedded into law and democratizes death by accident," 2014
-- "A "Vision Zero" agenda for DC," 2014
-- "DC and Vision Zero Revisited," 2015
-- "Updating Vision Zero approaches," 2016
-- First global benchmark for road safety in cities published by International Transport Forum," 2018
-- "Traffic safety," 2022
-- "It's a mistake to remove "Enforcement" from the "E's framework" of bicycle and pedestrian planning," 2022
-- "D.C. cuts speed limit to 20 mph to curb pedestrian deaths: a step forward but not enough | New thoughts on a comprehensive Vision Zero agenda," 2020
-- "Pedestrian fatalities and street design," 2019

To my way of thinking, it's because a lot of the crashes are due to negligence or deliberate behavior, which isn't addressable by design.

-- "The Road Not Taken | a response to a letter to the editor in the Washington Post about DC, traffic deaths and traffic safety," 2024
-- "Social marketing and aberrant driving," 2020
--  "When the car lobby encourages law breaking," 2012
-- but only recently after some high profile deaths is DC addressing this ("Reckless drivers in spotlight as D.C. hits 16-year high on traffic deaths," Washington Post

And because we don't provide actionable information and the structures to address the problem.  

For example, in a blog entry in 2016, I suggested that such information be provided at the Council District scale and that ward-focused committees address traffic safety and sustainable mobility in concerted ways.

The Cache Valley Daily reports, "Local stakeholders to host transportation safety summit at Logan Library," that the MPO there is holding a traffic safety conference next week, to support its plan to reduce crashes and deaths.  

From the article:

Cache Valley residents are being invited to attend a transportation safety summit at the Logan Library on Thursday, May 16.

That gathering is being called by safety stakeholders, including representatives of the Cache Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Utah Department of Transportation, emergency responders, Crash Data and Safety experts as well as local interest groups.

CMPO’s 2024 Safety Summit will be held from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in the Community Room of the Logan Library on May 16.  

The planning documents, Safe Streets for All Action Plan and Safety Data Analysis in particular, have a lot of great graphics communicating information in various ways about where crashes occur, demographics, etc., exactly the kind of information you need to be able to address in real terms, crash reduction.

The Road Not Taken | a response to a letter to the editor in the Washington Post about DC, traffic deaths and traffic safety

There's a letter to the editor in yesterday's Washington Post, "D.C. must step up on road deaths."  It's a good letter.

I started writing a response in the comments, but it was too long.  So a blog entry is better.  

Definitely this is another example of DC government's failure to focus and to be innovative.  It's amazing how much I've written about this topic, providing guidance for something that could have been great.

Ward focused traffic safety programming.  Years ago I wrote a piece ("Outline for a proposed Ward-focused (DC) Councilmember campaign platform and agenda," 2015) about what would be an ideal approach to a truly ward-focused Councilmember election and governance platform, including having a dashboard on ward-specific data on traffic safety.  

And that there should be ward-specific subcommittees of the pedestrian and bicycle advisory committees to put greater focus on ward specific improvements (this was something I wrote into the Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan I did for Baltimore County in 2010).

Safe routes to school programs.  Separately, the State of Washington Safe Routes to School program recommends that all cities create traffic safety committees to address such issues as they relate to schools, and SRTS improvements simultaneously benefit neighborhoods.  The state requires that SRTS maps be created for all elementary schools, and some cities go beyond and do it for all schools.  Seattle's Feet First advocacy group is a great resource for such programs.  The City of Tacoma separately has an SRTS plan that is first rate.

-- "Why isn't walking/biking to school programming an option in Suburban Omaha? | Inadequacies in school transportation planning," 2022
-- School Walk and Bike Routes: A Guide for Planning and Improving Walk and Bike to School Options for Students
-- Safe Routes to School program, Washington State
-- City of Tacoma SRTS program, including SRTS Action Plan
-- Starkville in Motion

A failed job interview with DDOT.  I interviewed for a job with DDOT (still don't understand why I didn't get it) to liase with ANCs on these kinds of issues.  I prepared a sample data-focused infographic that could be a kind of dashboard for ward-specific transportation as part of my interview.  

For years I wrote that the DDOT safety dashboard was crap ("DC DDOT transportation access portal doesn't really say anything," 2010).  It has since been significantly improved.

ANCs need transportation/traffic safety committees.  In preparing for that interview, I looked at the websites for all of the city's Advisory Neighborhood Commssions (ANCs are block and neighborhood specific councils that weigh in on matters before DC government) and just a handful had transportation/public space committees.  All should, with support from DDOT, the Office of Planning, and the police department traffic and data analysis units. 

And public health.  In Ontario for example, public health officials have been leaders in analyzing traffic deaths and addressing the issues (Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario: Pedestrian Death Review), and in Toronto ("Dozens of cycling deaths probed," Toronto Star).

It was a great interview, the lead walked me out and we talked, and then.... nothing.

FWIW, I also didn't get a job at Utah Department of Transportation on Vision Zero related issues, although I was a finalist.  They said I wasn't innovative enough!  Maybe they were right. Maybe I just come across badly. But I don't think so.  However, I did mess up the interview a bit, and I had a mistake in my cover letter...

Then again, traffic safety related deaths in Utah, including bicyclists and pedestrians, are falling but only slightly, and in cities especially pedestrian deaths aren't abating ("Deaths on Utah roads down from 2022 but road rage still a concern," ABC4).

-- "Yard sign, Person running for District Six Council in Salt Lake using traffic safety as a campaign issue," 2023

Transportation management districts.  Since 2005 or 2006 I have been recommending that the city create Traffic Management Districts as a way to coordinate transportation management and improvements at the commercial district scale (e.g. for Downtown, H Street NE, Capitol Hill, etc.).  

The city did create "pilot parking districts" but they weren't super well structured and are limited.  The plans created for them impressed me in terms of how ad hoc and unstructured they were.  And they never functioned the way I suggested (e.g., see the discussion on transportation wrt Eastern Market, "Eastern Market DC's 150th anniversary last weekend | And my never realized master plan for the market," 2023).

Urban design/walkable community plans at the neighborhood scale. Out of the Silver Spring Purple Line writings:

Creating a Silver Spring "Sustainable Mobility District from 2017:
-- "Part 1: Setting the stage
-- "Part 2: Program items 1- 9
-- "Part 3: Program items 10-18

I got interested in the concept of urban design plans for neighborhoods, sparked by Dupont Circle and the opening of the Wharf in SW DC.

-- "Planning urban design improvements at the neighborhood scale: Dupont Circle, DC," 2019
-- "More about making 17th Street between P and R a pedestrian space on weekends," 2019

Later I realized it's not about the mode--creating a pedestrian plan, but creating broader walkable community plans.

-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021

... and freeway/tunnel decking. Like the neighborhood initiative in Bloomingdale ("Bloomingdale Village Square Initiative will be holding its third Community Forum on the proposed North Capitol Deck-over Park," 2020), similar discussions in Dupont Circle, the SE-SW Freeway, etc.  

It's a travesty that the planning units in DC think this should be done by the neighborhoods, not the city.

Pedestrian safety audits.  Similar to Safe Routes to School.  FHWA publishes materials on Pedestrian Road Safety Audits.  There is the PEDSAFE: Pedestrian Safety Guide and Countermeasure Selection System to see if there are urban design improvements that can be made after analyzing a crash (also for biking).  

-- All About Walk Audits, America Walks

WalkDenver has done interesting work in this arena too, such as the Walk Audits on Colfax Avenue, including a report on West Colfax.

Vision Zero.  Focused on DC, I've written tons over the years about Vision Zero initiatives to reduce traffic deaths and traffic safety.  

-- "A more radical approach to Vision Zero," 2019
-- "A reminder about how the entitlement of automobility is embedded into law and democratizes death by accident," 2014
-- "A "Vision Zero" agenda for DC," 2014
-- "DC and Vision Zero Revisited," 2015
-- "Updating Vision Zero approaches," 2016
-- First global benchmark for road safety in cities published by International Transport Forum," 2018
-- "Traffic safety," 2022
-- "It's a mistake to remove "Enforcement" from the "E's framework" of bicycle and pedestrian planning," 2022
-- "D.C. cuts speed limit to 20 mph to curb pedestrian deaths: a step forward but not enough | New thoughts on a comprehensive Vision Zero agenda," 2020

In "Revisiting Vision Zero in DC and NYC" (2021) I made these points:

1.  How to measure and benchmark traffic deaths?
2.  The issues are unchanging.
3.  Government has a bias for inaction.
4.  Planning for mode versus planning for place and livability.
5.  Not treating the road system as a network.
6.  Traffic deaths can be broadly categorized into three segments.
7.  How do you get reckless drivers off the street? 
8.  Traffic enforcement.
9.  Oversight Committees at the City/County and District/Ward scales.
10.  Systematic review of crashes/accidents in a public fashion.
11.  Mapping pedestrian, bicycle, transit and car accidents

Lots of links within each section.

Street design and pavements.  The fact is, except for overly wide avenues, the L'Enfant Plan design for the city and its network of streets and sidewalks prioritizes sustainable modes--walking, biking, and transit.  

But roads and cars are overengineered to allow cars to drive at high speeds regardless of land use context.  

That's why I've argued for years to have differentiated pavements for commercial districts, and areas by parks, libraries, schools, and transit stations, to better match desired operating speeds of vehicles with land use context.

-- "A more radical approach to "Vision Zero" is needed: reconstructing streets out of different materials to reduce speeds," 2019
-- "Pedestrian fatalities and street design," 2019

Note that one element of the L'Enfant Plan, radial avenues, was a big innovation for pedestrians and bicyclists as it makes it faster to get from place to place by moving diagonally, instead of in squares and rectangles.

Reckless driving.  In DC, most traffic related injuries and deaths in DC are related to reckless driving, not street design.  This is something that advocates don't really get, as after each high profile crash and death(s), they say it's because of street design.  Sometimes there are issues, admittedly, but mostly it's recklessness.

I've mentioned this for years ("Social marketing and aberrant driving," 2020, "When the car lobby encourages law breaking," 2012), but only recently after some high profile deaths is the city addressing this ("Reckless drivers in spotlight as D.C. hits 16-year high on traffic deaths," Washington Post).