{"id":222974653,"date":"2012-01-25T17:24:13","date_gmt":"2012-01-25T17:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=222974653"},"modified":"2012-01-25T17:24:13","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T17:24:13","slug":"safe-streets-livable-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=222974653","title":{"rendered":"Safe Streets, Livable Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"

[B’ Spokes: When I read this I could not help but think of conversations from the state around wanting to put rumble strips everywhere. We are designing streets that encourage overrun by motor vehicles and then try to do something else that has little to no effect on the subject or worse discourages biking and walking.
\nI will also note that while accommodating fast travel by motor vehicle has it’s place, but that place is NOT on every single street.] <\/em><\/p>\n

\n

by Eric Dumbaugh<\/p>\n

…
\n In this study, I
\nexamine the subject of livable streetscape
\ntreatments and \ufb01nd compelling evidence
\nthat suggests they may actually enhance
\nthe safety of urban roadways. Concerns
\nabout their safety effects do not appear
\nto be founded on empirical observations
\nof crash performance, but instead on a
\ndesign philosophy that discounts the
\nimportant relationship between driver
\nbehavior and safety. This study traces the
\norigin and evolution of this philosophy,
\nand proposes an alternative that may better account for the dynamic relationships
\nbetween road design, driver behavior, and
\ntransportation safety.
\n
…
\nBeyond simply acting as thoroughfares for motor vehicles, urban streets
\noften double as public spaces. Urban streets are places where people walk,
\nshop, meet, and generally engage in the diverse array of social and recreational activities that, for many, are what makes urban living enjoyable. And
\nbeyond even these quality-of-life bene\ufb01ts, pedestrian-friendly urban streets have
\nbeen increasingly linked to a host of highly desirable social outcomes, including
\neconomic growth and innovation, improvements in air quality, and increased physical \ufb01tness and health,
\nto name only a few. For these reasons, many groups and individuals encourage
\nthe design of \u201clivable\u201d streets, or streets that seek to better integrate the needs of
\npedestrians and local developmental objectives into a roadway\u2019s design.
\n
…
\nInterestingly, clear zones are not the only design feature for which such safety anomalies appear. Hauer
\nreexamined the literature on lane widths and found that
\nthere was little evidence to support the assertion that
\nwidening lanes beyond 11 feet enhances safety. Instead, the
\nliterature has almost uniformly reported that the safety
\nbene\ufb01t of widening lanes stops once lanes reach a width of
\nroughly 11 feet, with crash frequencies increasing as lanes
\napproach and exceed the more common 12-foot standard.
\n
…
\nThus, a key question emerges: why does contemporary
\ndesign guidance recommend practices that the best available evidence suggests may have an ambiguous or even neggative impact on safety, and paradoxically, to do so under
\nthe auspices that they constitute a safety enhancement?
\n
…
\nOne of the key problems identi\ufb01ed by the AASHO
\ncommittee was the large number of fatalities associated
\nwith single-vehicle, run-off-roadway crashes. To address
\nthis issue, they heard testimony from Stonex, a General
\nMotors employee responsible for designing the \u201cProving
\nGround,\u201d an experimental \u201ccrashproof\u201d highway that had
\n100-foot clearances on either side of the travelway. Based on the test performance of
\nthe Proving Ground, Stonex was of the opinion that \u201cWhat
\nwe must do is to operate the 90% or more of our surface
\nstreets just as we do our freeways . . . [converting] the surface
\nhighway and street network to freeway and Proving Ground
\nroad and roadside conditions\u201d
\n
…
\nAs shown in Table 3, the livable section is safer in all
\nrespects. By any meaningful safety benchmark\u2014total midblock crashes, injuries, or fatalities\u2014there can be little
\ndoubt that the livable section is the safer roadway.
\n
…
\nPedestrian and bicyclist injuries were likewise higher
\non the comparison section (see Table 4), which may be
\npartly attributable to the fact that the livable section provides parked cars and \ufb01xed objects to buffer pedestrians
\nfrom oncoming traf\ufb01c. But do the bene\ufb01ts in pedestrian
\nsafety outweigh the hazards these features may pose to
\nerrant motorists?
\n
…
\nWhile these results seem to contradict conventional
\ndesign practice, they con\ufb01rm a trend that many researchers
\nand practicing engineers have observed for some time, but
\nwhich has received little substantive elaboration: speci\ufb01cally,
\nthat clear zones and other forgiving design practices often
\nhave an ambiguous relationship to safety in urban environments, and may be associated with declines in safety performance. The best possible explanation for the enhanced
\nsafety performance of the livable sections considered in this
\nstudy is that drivers are \u201creading\u201d the potential hazards of
\nthe road environment and adjusting their behavior in
\nresponse.
\n
…
\nThe reason why this subject has not received greater
\nattention in design literature and guidance appears to be
\nthat it contradicts the prevailing paradigm of what constitutes safe roadway design. Nevertheless, a behavior-based
\nunderstanding of safety performance is supported by
\nresearch and literature in the \ufb01eld of psychology, which has
\nfocused on the subject of traf\ufb01c safety as a means for understanding how individuals adapt their behavior to perceived
\nrisks and hazards.
\n
…
\nThe presence of features such
\nas wider lanes and clear zones would appear to reduce the
\ndriver\u2019s perception of risk, giving them an increased but
\nfalse sense of security, and thereby encouraging them to
\nengage in behaviors that increase their likelihood of being
\ninvolved in a crash event. If so, this explains why the livable
\nstreetscape treatments examined in this study resulted in
\nnot only fewer \ufb01xed-object crashes, but fewer multiple
\nvehicle and pedestrian crashes as well. … From the perspective of risk homeostasis theory,
\nthe use of high design values is not \u201cforgiving,\u201d but is
\ninstead \u201cpermissive.”
\n
…
\nThe passive approach promotes designs intended to
\nsupport high-speed operating behavior, and then attempts
\nto mitigate a roadway\u2019s hazards through the use of signs
\nand pavement markings. The problem that emerges, however, is that signs and roadways are often communicating
\ncontradictory information. The result is that the majority
\nof drivers in urban areas disregard posted speed limits, and
\nseem to learn to disregard road signs altogether, even when
\nthey display information that is essential to their safety. … This latter \ufb01nding
\nsuggests that even conscientious drivers may be unable to
\ncomply with posted speed limits when roadways are designed
\nfor higher-speed operation.
\n
…
\nI have argued that many of the safety concerns that
\nemerge on urban streets result from design practices that
\nfail to link a roadway\u2019s design to its environmental context,
\nthereby providing motorists in urban environments with a
\nfalse sense of security and increasing their potential exposure to crashes and injuries. I have further provided a theoretical framework that better accounts for the safety anomalies one observes when examining the literature and data
\non the crash performance of urban roadways. Yet theory is
\nonly the \ufb01rst step. There is a clear and demonstrated need
\nto better develop our professional understanding of the
\nrelationship between driver behavior and transportation
\nsafety, as well as to enhance our overall approach to the
\ndesign of urban roadways. This study thus concludes with
\nthe hope that by better understanding the relationship
\nbetween design, driver behavior, and safety, we can design
\nroadways that are not only safe, but also livable.
\n
\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.naturewithin.info\/Roadside\/TransSafety_JAPA.pdf<\/a>oldId.20120119172413874<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[B’ Spokes: When I read this I could not help but think of conversations from the state around wanting to put rumble strips everywhere. We are designing streets that encourage overrun by motor vehicles and then try to do something else that has little to no effect on the subject or worse discourages biking and … <\/p>\n

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