#road design

[bisexual-biker]

Please consider for a moment, this image from my bike ride:

A speed limit of 55 mph. An unprotected bike lane. A sign indicating that a vehicle is about to pass at 60 mph.

How is this safe? "Infrastructure" this bad should be illegal. The only thing separating me from 2,000 pounds of metal going 60 mph, is a thin white line.

[thicque]

a case for One More Lane™

i have literally nothing better to do on the plane right now so here's this

there's an intersection at a highway off ramp near my house that is rife with accidents — accidents that happen because it's laid out in such an apocalyptically shit way

not doxxing myself with Google Maps/Street View labels so here's an incredibly rudimentary render of it

from left to right, we have: a left turn only lane, a straight ahead and left turn lane, a straight ahead lane, and a right turn lane.

and because of how much traffic this intersection gets, the two left turn lanes are necessary to get traffic into the hospital, apartments, gas station, and shopping center off the highway without creating a parking lot on the off-ramp

the problem comes up with the way the curb opposite these lanes doesn't keep someone from continuing straight through the left-only like this:

and two or three times a month, something like this happens where a car will be going straight thru the left-only while another car is making their legal left turn like this:

which results in the person making their legal left getting t-boned into the concrete pedestrian barrier like this

i know that people could just.... pay attention to the road, the signs directing traffic, the arrows on the road, and the traffic signals, but unfortunately they can't be trusted to do so.

my solution? add another left turn lane. they're already working on a multi-year renovation of the highway 5 miles in each direction of this intersection, just fucking add a lane to the intersection as well that will keep people from going straight ahead from a turn lane. like this:

if people keep crashing here because the infrastructure allows them to, then the insfrastructure needs to not allow that kind of accident.

with the extra turn lane added, drivers will no longer be able to go straight ahead through a turn-only, people turning left aren't at risk of getting t-boned anymore, and traffic heading straight through to the on-ramp and frontage road can continue the way they used to

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Here have some Crosswalk mural inspo!!

[better-practices]

You know how stroads have lots of side-streets and traffic lights? Well, there's more options out there than just filtered crossings to solve that

[atlurbanist]

This is the 3900 block of Campbellton Road (west of Greenbriar Mall), where a pedestrian was recently killed. Bus stops are on both sides, but there’s no crosswalk in either direction. This is in city limits but it's a state road. A project to make this stretch of road safer is listed on the Atlanta Department of Transportation website. It began in 2017. It's slated to be complete in 2027. 10 years for a safety fix on 2 miles of road. While people are dying. There's got to be a way to speed this stuff up. We have far too many miles worth of these deadly car-sewer roads in Atlanta for complacency and foot dragging.  How do we get these essential safety fixes sped up? Do we need to hire more staff for our DoT? I don't know what the answer is, but I want us to be asking the questions more often. Media outlets report these pedestrian deaths without questioning the road design and that stinks. I shouldn't have to keep posting these graphics year after year. I should be congratulating local media outlets for drilling our leaders on how conditions will be fixed, and then congratulating leaders for getting it done.

[threadatl]

Atlanta's first e-scooter death: lessons from the tragedy

This past Friday, 20-year-old Eric Amis Jr. died after being struck by a vehicle while riding a Lime e-scooter in the road outside West Lake MARTA Station. This is the first fatality involving a dockless e-scooter in the City of Atlanta.

According to WSB, the driver stayed on the scene of the tragedy. It’s not yet known if she’ll face charges.

We know very little about the details. The only testimony available is from the driver, who claims that Amis entered the road suddenly. Was car-speed a factor as well? There’s no mention of it in the report, but that’s obviously some serious damage to the car for collision between a person on a scooter and a SUV.

And how about the conditions of the road where the crash occurred? Are there any bicycle lanes where the scooter could have been riding? Are police enforcing the posted 25 MPH speed limit on this street?

These are all good questions to ask. But the WSB reporter doesn’t appear to have asked any of them.

Victim blaming in the news report

As we see all too often with reports on pedestrian deaths, news media is already putting some blame on a victim who is not around to speak for himself. Here’s a passage from the WSB report on the tragedy.

“Nina Shaw said she often sees riders not being very safe. “Down my street, people will just ride them recklessly, weaving in and out of traffic,” Shaw said. That recklessness has triggered a spike in the number of injuries to riders and pedestrians. Grady Hospital is now treating 80 to 100 scooter injuries a month. Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center is also seeing patients, some with serious injuries.”

Notice that “reckless” is introduced here by the reporter by way of a third party – not by the car driver or by the police report. The driver may have been going over the speed limit or distracted; we don’t know. But we do know that a collision between two people, where one is encased in tons of steel and capable of moving at a faster speed, is going to be a lot worse for the other one.

>> Continuing reading full post at ThreadATL.org

[atlantathecity]

Too many streets in Atlanta are unnecessarily designed for cars

I've been enjoying my walks to work! At first I feared that the distance (1.5 miles from our home to Georgia Tech), plus the summer heat, plus the significant hills would be too much for me. But there's a lot of shade. Also, I can just take a little break if the hills start to wear me down.

It's also a very quiet walk for much of the way. These Old Fourth Ward streets don't get much car traffic even at commute times. Which makes it particularly frustrating that they have *so* much width dedicated to cars.

These pics were taken during my Thursday morning walk on Angier (1st) and Piedmont (2nd). Cars trickle through and sometimes you'll see a cluster of cars go by, but for the most part this width of car infrastructure seems disused and unnecessary even at peak-use times. Same with Ralph McGill Boulevard and Central Park Place and a few others.

We have a lot of potential here for taking some street-width that's dedicated to cars and using it for bikes and scooters and pedestrians. And the same is true for wide roads I've seen all over the city -- yes, some are slated for Complete Streets overhauls but most are not.

Maybe I'd end up with some company on my walk to work if we corrected this mismatch between the level of service provided to cars, via street design, and the actual use of the streets. Surely we could get more people to become comfortable with walking long distances if the design of their routes was more inviting for pedestrians.

[better-practices]

"This video compares the street designs of New York City and Amsterdam. We'll briefly look into both cities' traffic planning history and then explore NYC’s 3rd Avenue and Amsterdam’s Overtoom. See how different design choices at the city and street level create drastically different urban environments."