Traffic Calming
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To Get Safer Streets, Traffic Lights and Stop Signs Aren’t the Answer
When faced with the question of how to fix a dangerous street, the first instinct of many New Yorkers is to call for the most familiar symbols of regulating cars: the stop sign and the traffic light. Nothing, they think, could more effectively force dangerous drivers to stop speeding through their neighborhood than these familiar red symbols. Just this month a community group in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn asked the city to remove a bike lane and zebra stripes from Oriental Boulevard -- measures that have a real traffic-calming effect -- and add a new traffic signal where the road intersects with Falmouth Street. But stop signs and traffic signals are usually ineffective, even counterproductive, if the goal is to make streets safer.
April 26, 2011
Moving Beyond the Automobile: Road Diets
What's a road diet? Quite simply, traffic-calming expert Dan Burden told Streetfilms, "A road diet is anytime you take any lane out of a road."
April 13, 2011
Moving Beyond the Automobile: Traffic Calming
What's the most effective way to make city streets safer? As Chicago Alderman Mary Ann Smith told Streetfilms, "Signs don't do the job, even having police officers on the corner does not do the job." To prevent traffic injuries and deaths, you need to change how the street functions and make it feel slower for drivers. You need traffic calming.
April 6, 2011
Road Diets But No Bike Lanes for Two Queens Traffic Calming Projects
DOT presented plans for two Long Island City street redesigns to Queens Community Board 2's transportation committee last night. One, a standard road diet, would calm traffic on 44th Drive by replacing one moving lane in each direction with a painted median and left turn bays [PDF]. The other, a novel design for a single block of 48th Avenue, manages to make four of six lanes into on-street parking [PDF].
March 25, 2011
Road Diet for Macombs Road Wins Unanimous Bronx Community Board Vote
DOT's plans to improve pedestrian safety along the length of the Bronx's Macombs Road [PDF] received a unanimous vote of support from Bronx Community Board 4 last night, according to District Manager José Rodriguez. The plan puts Macombs on a road diet and reconfigures dangerous diagonal intersections that lead to drivers taking fast turns across the crosswalk.
March 23, 2011
Levin Traffic Task Force Gets to Work
A traffic task force spearheaded by Brooklyn Council Member Steve Levin and the Boerum Hill Association convened for the first time Wednesday night. Levin's district includes several neighborhoods battered by traffic heading to and from the free East River bridges, and local residents have been engaged for years in efforts to make streets safer, eventually yielding improvements like the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming Project.
February 3, 2011
DOT’s Interactive Map Points the Way to a More Livable Jackson Heights
Since 2009, the Department of Transportation has been engaged in a major study of Jackson Heights' streets and sidewalks. At the request of community groups and with federal funding from Rep. Joe Crowley, DOT has been developing a plan to make the neighborhood safer, less congested, and more transit-accessible. After two years of research and community engagement, DOT will be presenting its first recommendations next Saturday, February 12.
February 2, 2011
Norman Steisel, Traffic-Calming Denier
The Brooklyn Paper has the quote of the day, from Norman Steisel, opponent of the bikeway in front his house his neighborhood and denier of the data showing that the new Prospect Park West is safer:
January 25, 2011
Eyes on the Street: Queens Crossing Guards Improvise Street Safety Fixes
While Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is out to tear up pedestrian refuges on a dangerous stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway, over in Queens, local street safety experts are improvising their own traffic-calming measures. Streetfilms' Clarence Eckerson took these pictures of crossing guards using cones as makeshift safety improvements outside two Jackson Heights schools.
January 11, 2011