Re:Is Every Speed Limit Too Low?
by zanny on Tuesday April 25, 2017 @06:34PM
(#14198782)
The main street in the town I live in (population 4500, not that big) has a posted speed limit of 25mph. Until last year, the road was in such bad repair that most traffic only averaged around 30. Then they repaved the road, and despite it still being 2 lane with parking on both sides, tons of merge traffic without any lights (from stopsigns) and being next to the town park with a ton of foot traffic, I'd estimate the average speed on that road is now 45-50mph. Precisely because its straight, freshly paved, and nobody wants to slow down the traffic when its smooth sailing with no lights.
To try to counteract this, those signs that tell you your speed were put up that blink when you are going over the limit. They were promptly ignored.
So really I'm just trying to reiterate that what the article says is absolutely true - people will drive what they feel comfortable going, not what the posted speed limit says. In practice, the risks are there, but nowadays everyone knows to avoid main street for pedestrian crossing because its approaching highway speeds now. But on very congested roads like our main street (this being a 250 year old town, where there is no traffic shaping planned, so all through traffic goes down the road that also has the most foot traffic) you aren't going to have an easy answer, because slowing down traffic can be just as dangerous when its bumper to bumper for the ~5 mile long road through town and drivers will go mad being forced back to 25mph combined with the immense traffic bottleneck it would reintroduce (the main reason they fast tracked paving the road in the first place - traffic would back up onto the nearby highway offramp because of how bad main street traffic is).
I think the reality is that busy streets are just never safe for pedestrians (or bikes, etc). That is why you invest in crosswalks meant to funnel people across them all at once, in centralized places, where traffic is already forced to stop. And if you really care, you get the cars out of downtown entirely.
To try to counteract this, those signs that tell you your speed were put up that blink when you are going over the limit. They were promptly ignored.
So really I'm just trying to reiterate that what the article says is absolutely true - people will drive what they feel comfortable going, not what the posted speed limit says. In practice, the risks are there, but nowadays everyone knows to avoid main street for pedestrian crossing because its approaching highway speeds now. But on very congested roads like our main street (this being a 250 year old town, where there is no traffic shaping planned, so all through traffic goes down the road that also has the most foot traffic) you aren't going to have an easy answer, because slowing down traffic can be just as dangerous when its bumper to bumper for the ~5 mile long road through town and drivers will go mad being forced back to 25mph combined with the immense traffic bottleneck it would reintroduce (the main reason they fast tracked paving the road in the first place - traffic would back up onto the nearby highway offramp because of how bad main street traffic is).
I think the reality is that busy streets are just never safe for pedestrians (or bikes, etc). That is why you invest in crosswalks meant to funnel people across them all at once, in centralized places, where traffic is already forced to stop. And if you really care, you get the cars out of downtown entirely.