No Charges for Cabbie Who Severely Injured Woman on Sidewalk Near NYU

Maybe it’s just me but that picture doesn’t look like a cage at all. So long as a large shopping cart or baby carriage can fit between the bollards it’s not restricting pedestrians at all. I’d feel much more protected walking there than on most NYC sidewalks. Bollards serve a secondary useful function—they prevent the NYPD and others from parking on sidewalks. I’d even like to see retractable bollards in front of crosswalks to enforce stopping at red lights.

I understand the thought that bollards may reinforce the idea streets are for cars. However, so long as we continue to allow motor vehicles on urban streets we’ll continue to need protection from them. Drivers WILL make errors, either deliberate or accidental, regardless of the infrastructure. The infrastructure should ensure those errors don’t kill people on sidewalks.

I meant the second picture was like a cage, the first was not.

Maybe reduce speed limit to 20MPH whenever Humans are around Like the rest of the civilized World would be a better solution thN raising curbs

use Infrastructure to enforce speed limit

The NYPD are supposed to be arresting killers. Instead they’re aiding and abetting them. It’s the worst sort of police corruption. There’s really only one stage left before vigilante justice becomes the only justice in New York.

That step is, of course, running a political campaign to replace the five DAs, and to replace the mayor and city council with candidates who will replace the felonious police comissioner.

There is a crime wave in New York. A DA needs to be elected with a mandate to arrest the criminals. Most of the criminals are NYPD.

One Manhattan DA could have half the corrupt scumbags in the NYPD in jail in a month, and the rest would be scared straight and would start actually arresting killers.

Alexander, usually agree with you but on this one, your are way off as the post from Joe explains.

Frank,

I travel to MittelEuropa 3-5 Times a year and Have relatively widespread and deep experience with the Bollard Situation Out here. Bollards are used a lot, but only when the roadwidth Is tiny and the sidewalk also Is tiny. A tylocal example Might be a busy City Center shopping street that has 34’from building facade to building facade. the planners need to fit 2 streetcar lanes, plus 1 motor lane, plus sidewalks on both sides of the street. 18′ for Streetcars, 9.5′ for cars, and that leaves room for two 42 INCH wide sidewalks.

Yup Europeans will install bollards here because the sidewalks are narrower than a hallway in a 1960s ranch house.

This is a fundamentally different application of bollards than what I observe in the US and shown in Ahnwr’s 2 photos. I see streets with massively wide lanes, and big parking lanes getting bollards installed.

For example, the fences on fifth avenue near Rock center are a typical application. This is evil

I agree on those 5th Avenue fences. Someone should tie Guiliani to them for a day while passers-by pummel him with rotten fruit. However, those fences were expressly designed to keep pedestrians out to foster the idea 5th is for cars only. That kind of thinking doesn’t belong in urban areas. Bollards on the other hand are designed to keep cars off pedestrian space while still allowing free pedestrian movement on and across the street. No matter what we do, from time to time drivers will screw up. I don’t want those screw ups to cost the life of someone on the sidewalk. Bollards could have prevented 100% of the deaths on sidewalks and in stores. They also have an added bonus. If someone drives carelessly and totals their car on bollards, the insurance company may not cover it. They’ll be out a car. If they can’t afford a replacement, that’s one less reckless driver on the streets.

I’ll take a gander at this: they’re annoying to cycle over.

Ok, that makes a lot of sense. But getting there presently is impossible. I will take a change which at a minimum protects pedestrians from car drivers in ANY space. how it presently is, there is zero space in any city where this exists.

Yes, if they are seen as a final step and that the situation they create is the final say, then I agree that that is unacceptable. However, if used as a tool to ease our streets in the right direction, I feel they can be of good.

I’ve seen these outside of NYC too, yes. IMO, they’re a bad idea in NYC; NYC drivers will swerve around so as to pass 2 wheels through the bike channel and not have to slow down so much. 🙁

Yup, and the ‘don’t go there’ is more necessary in Europe because double parking is not tolerated in any way, shape or form. Therefore, any sidewalk, corner, etc. is the ‘only option’ for lazy drivers.

It’s remarkable walking through Munich and seeing a phenomenally nuanced series of streetscape textures and subtle changes in elevation Signaling speeds, delinating space and calmining traffic.

The placement of Bollards to restrict cars is widespread and also nuanced. some clever grad Student could get a PhD in Bollard placement in Munich from 1915 to 2015.

My 70 something Auntie was griping about getting photo busted ( aka ‘blitzed’) for speeding 34km in a 30 km zone. The fine was only 15€ but she’s never going to speed again.

Note 30 km/h ( 18 mph) is the default speed limit basically everywhere except major aterials & of course the A-bahn where my Soccer Mom cousin nochantly drives 110 MPH in her minivan.

my Observation Is 30 kmh Is default pretty Much everywhere even in villages. I also observe that urban arterials are mostly 50kmh.

Infrastructure Design governs speed more than anything as you mention.

what’s great about the view you selected is how Suburban the neighborhood feels and yet it active transportation has equal priority with motor vehicles. The density here is likely similar to bayside Queens or Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn

Yup, that and the use of space. I still don’t get the adoration of un-utilized asphalt in the U.S. Even in the densest parts of New York or Chicago, the streets are just enormous.