Single issue voter

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Hello,

Can someone tell me who caters least to families, children, and "no turn between 7-9 a.m." signs in the upcoming election?

Thanks!

Comments

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I'd like to change it because I can see how much more efficient it could be if people just sacrificed a little bit of their view or a little pedestrian space. On top of that, cars idling less would satisfy the greens and yuppies who were pissed about their Parisian sidewalks losing a square.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Historically, improving traffic efficiency in cities as densely populated as Cambridge and Somerville has never resulted in anything but an even larger number of cars waiting in the same amount of gridlock. The *only* meaningful remedy to the traffic problem is walking and public transit.

Two things I know to be true about Cambridge, however:
1. Everyone I know with a car hates driving through it because it takes a long time, traffic moves very slowly, and the lights take forever to change.
2. Pedestrians love it and tend to feel very safe walking around there. Much more so than Boston, Medford, Somerville, Everett, etc.

Making a city more "walkable" *always* increases property values. Thus I think you'll find very few local public officials *or* residents trying to favor the former over the latter. Especially in "green" and "yuppie" friendly areas like Cambridge and Somerville.

Also, no one really likes to live in areas that are more driving friendly than pedestrian friendly because they tend to be dominated by concrete and noise. Instead they want their own street to be walking-friendly and the rest of their city to be driving friendly. It's a classic case of "Not in My Back Yard," really.

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

I generally agree with this comment. I still want rush hour-specific traffic signs removed.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Plenty of traffic problems can be and have been fixed around here. For example, at Cambridge Street and Columbia Street in Cambridge, the retiming of the light has basically eliminated the huge backups that used to occur there, *without* making things worse for pedestrians.

This makes things a lot better for people who ride the 69 bus. Cars can use alternate routes when there's traffic -- buses can't.

There are plenty of situations where it isn't a trade-off between making things better for cars and pedestrians. For example, the light at the center of Davis is inconvenient for everyone. For several of the crosswalks, there's often a red light for cars yet still no walk light for pedestrians, who have to sit around waiting for no reason until the entire intersection gets walk lights.

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

Davis is actually done pretty well, considering. But the light in the middle is the problem spot for sure. College ave traffic gets screwed.

[ron_newman]

I'd like to see the city turn the signal off entirely for a month, and study the resulting traffic pattern to see if it is an improvement over what the signal produces. (Not blinking yellow, not blinking red - just power it down for a month.)

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

That would be neat.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

This whole "pedestrians must wait for every single direction to stop" problem seems to mainly be the result of traffic engineers trying to avoid having people in crosswalks being struck by drivers making left turns on a green light. Apparently this is one of the most common ways for a pedestrian to be injured in an intersection. I think the solution of having all lights be red when the walk signal is on is kind of excessive, but I'm not sure I have a better solution really.

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

If traffic is so bad people are being hit by folks taking left turns, presumably the offender would be relatively easy to catch and prosecute.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I think usually traffic planners try to avoid letting it get to that point.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

All-way walk phases are not as popular any more with traffic engineers.

For some of the crosswalks in the main Davis intersection (namely the ones where the road is one way towards the intersection), the pedestrians get a Don't Walk even while no vehicles can legally be crossing the crosswalk. So even if the planners want to provide an all-way walk phase, those crosswalks should still have Walk lights during the other phases when no cars would be turning across.