Homemade Traffic Calming in Mexico’s Yucatan

1:13 PM EST on January 17, 2007

From Wired Magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly's web site

Throughout Mexico "topes" or speed bumps, are ubiquitous. These can be metal pods arrayed across the road, or asphalt humps, or even significant concrete wedges. You really do have to slow down, andalmost stop to crawl over them. There is usually a sign warning theyare ahead, because if you hit one going fast you can total your car. Inother words, the topes are effective. Small towns will have one comingand going, because they are more effective than speed limit signs,which everyone would ignore. But even highways have them, nearintersections or bus stops.
Along the southern coast of the Yucatan, beyond the last electricityand asphalt, at the end of the road, the Mexicans still want thebenefit of a tope, but what to do on an unpaved mud/sand road? Wellalong the coast, where old ship ropes can be found, the solution is tolay a big fat rope across the road. It works, at least for a while, butit is easily replaced. This one is strung across the road in the small pirate town of Xcalak, Yucatan.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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