This Space for Rent

A type of street repair that will drive the libertarians crazy

spokane_repairs

The City of Portland has been threatening to turn Spokane Street into a bicycle boulevard for some time now, and they’ve finally started to carry through with the threat, by putting in lots of speed bumps and these little concrete islands to force auto traffic down to one lane while bicycles can sail right through on the channels between the islands and the curbs.

The nice thing about these bicycle boulevard obstacles is that they might actually put some teeth into the (ignored by an amazing number of automobiles) “RIGHT TURN ONLY (except bicycles)” signs at 13th & Spokane.

Comments


You might find out that the speed-humps and chicanes don’t do what everyone thinks they’ll do. Sure, they’ll slow some drivers down and discourage a few others from using that street, but they’ll also infuriate others who will then drive at the same average speed - swerving rally-fashion through the chicanes, revving hard to accelerate to faster than before between the speed-humps, then braking harshly just in time to slow down before making a loud BANG as they go over each speed-hump.

I lived in a street where the council put five speed-humps in to slow and discourage through traffic. It didn’t, it just made it far more noisy and irritating for the residents.

REVVVV, SCREEECH, THUMP, REVVV, SCREECH, THUMP, REVVVV, SCREECH, THUMP…

Adrian Wed Nov 18 18:15:21 2009

Actually I do live on a street that’s been speed bumped and chicaned to slow traffic down. And it works; before the speed bumps went it, 17th ave was a major speedway and there would be at least one bad crash on our corner every month. Since the speed bumps went in (9 years ago) there has been one, where some idiot tried to race over one, went airborne, and ended up sliding down the road upside down.

It’s not as good as a wholescale narrowing of the street (or putting a trolley line down the middle of the road, which is my preferred alternative) but it’s been gratifyingly effective. It helps that the city of Portland isn’t quite as rabidly pro-auto as the rest of the west coast The United States North America, but I believe that traffic engineers are in general agreement that if you want to slow down traffic you need to make the roads less inviting.

David Parsons Wed Nov 18 21:14:01 2009

Comments are closed