Comment by mindslight
5 days ago
The point of looking deeper at the actual dynamics is to brainstorm ways intersections could be made safer, without overshooting and then getting a campaign to undo it all in 20 years. For example:
Less visual obstructions so that oncoming traffic can be seen sooner? maybe, but probably not going to change learned behavior
Advance the crosswalk even more, with two separate lights? perhaps on a per-intersection basis
Hard square corner kerb instead of a round bevel? Might help in general.
> Less visual obstructions so that oncoming traffic can be seen sooner?
This is called daylighting and California passed a law for it https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/walk/daylighting
> Advance the crosswalk even more, with two separate lights?
Pedestrians already have a "leading signal" in intersections with lots of people, which makes the wall signal change before the green for cars. Right on red defeats their purpose, which is to ensure pedestrians are on the middle of the street by the time a car wants to turn, putting them where they are easiest to be seen.
> Hard square corner kerb instead of a round bevel?
Yes. I would go further and have bulb outs https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/walk/pedestrian-improve... and at grade crossings (the zebra crossing is at the same height as the sidewalk). All of these have been proven to work.
> overshooting
I don't think there is any risk of "overshooting" in making cities nicer and safer for pedestrians and all other road users in the US. If anything it will be an uphill battle to accomplish any change.
I don't know why it feels like you're jumping on me here. Is it just CivE attracting people who overly focus on nouns?
What you're calling an "at grade crossing" is indeed a good one I missed. I would call them something like crosswalk on a speed bump, which might be "car centric" or whatever, but at least isn't overloading a term that generally refers to using different levels for actual traffic separation. Everything we're talking about here is actually an at grade crossing.
> I don't think there is any risk of "overshooting" in making cities nicer and safer for pedestrians and all other road users in the US. If anything it will be an uphill battle to accomplish any change.
You really don't see the possibility of backlash to "no turn on red" everywhere creating a campaign of drivers getting frustrated while waiting for timed red lights to change at completely quiet intersections?
And also FWIW, "no turn on red" doesn't actually prevent drivers from driving into the pedestrian crossing area - it just removes the benefit. It would still take a generation or two to change learned behavior.
> drivers getting frustrated while waiting for timed red lights to change at completely quiet intersections
There's a red light I run - frequently - in the mornings going to work. I stop. If the cross traffic has a green light, I stay stopped. When the light provides a protected green arrow for left turns for traffic going the opposite way, I'll run it if no cars are visible coming toward me. It would be better as a simple four-way stop, but our city traffic engineer is a self-important idiot who refuses to take even a suggestion from people who drive the area daily. I discovered this during a prolonged power outage that took down a route that I pretty much had to use to leave my neighborhood at the time. Outside of rush hour, the intersection functioned much better as a four-way stop than as a signalled intersection. But that was inappropriate for two arterials (one of them really is, but the other is only one at commuting times, and at off-hours neither is especially busy).
> I don't know why it feels like you're jumping on me here.
I think what you're sensing was terseness of response because I was writing on a phone.
> What you're calling an "at grade crossing" is indeed a good one I missed. I would call them something like crosswalk on a speed bump, which might be "car centric" or whatever, but at least isn't overloading a term that generally refers to using different levels for actual traffic separation. Everything we're talking about here is actually an at grade crossing.
They are usually called "continuous sidewalks", but the terminology is locale dependent (not every place calls them sidewalks).
> You really don't see the possibility of backlash to "no turn on red" everywhere creating a campaign of drivers getting frustrated while waiting for timed red lights to change at completely quiet intersections?
Anything that is perceived as a source of frustration will cause backlash. That's not a reason not to do things that have been proven to work better. Dedicated bus lanes and congestion charges always get backlash, for example, but after implemented traffic always ends up flowing more smoothly, which does make driving less stressful. "No turn on red" is the default in most of the planet. Forbidding it in cities (particularly downtown and during the day) shouldn't be a problem.
> it just removes the benefit. It would still take a generation or two to change learned behavior.
I think that people adapt much faster than generationally. And it is important to change incentives. Incentives affect us way more than we realize. Something as trivial as changing the coloring or texture of the intersections causes us to change our behavior in ways we wouldn't necessarily notice unless we paid a lot of attention.