How much do your streets design YOU into them?
Nearly all of us have had the experience of feeling unsafe walking down the street as cars zip by, or noticed some higher-than-desired speeds in our neighborhoods. Commenting about a lack of pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure, and high car speeds is a perennial statement at community meetings. The irony here is that these situations happen because we actually ask for it. When we demand minimal automotive congestion and decreased travel times while maximizing safety, we set up fast streets.
This makes sense if we take a moment to consider it. To decrease automotive travel times with safety in mind, we need to reduce the number of variables a driver needs to keep track of, so that they can make adjustments at higher speeds. Unpredictable squishy things (humans) and unmovable hard things (trees and other cars) need to go. As a result, we make our streets inhospitable and design people out. This is sensible for highways, but does not make sense once we enter our cities, towns, and villages.
If we want our streets to be safer, more pleasant, and add value to our neighborhoods and downtowns, then they need to be slower. To successfully do this we need to design them to be slower. Fortunately, the low-hanging fruit isn’t rocket science. It includes:
- Narrower lanes. Highway lanes are around 12 feet wide. If our communities’ streets are designed the same, then it shouldn’t surprise us when we see cars going for the local drag racing record in our neighborhoods.
- Smaller curb radii at intersections. This forces people to slow down when they turn, enabling them to see more of their surroundings.
- On-street parking. When someone driving needs to pay more attention to avoid a crash, they slow down.
- Street trees. Not only do these bring more green and make the neighborhood pleasant, they increase the things to pay attention to while adding an additional layer of protection for people walking.
- More people space. Streets that feel hostile to people prioritize the automobile and give scant space for much else, often putting equipment in the way on sidewalks. When we cram everything that isn’t cars into small “throw-away” space, we tell people to avoid the area.
Other places have gone further by introducing design elements that force a motorist to think about the next steps, slow down, and then take that step. It hasn’t brought on carpocalypse and unmitigated chaos. It creates an atmosphere where people feel more comfortable.
It is important to remember that when we demand minimal congestion and fast travel, we are asking for ourselves, our kids, our grandkids, and our neighbors to be designed out.
The good news is that we write the rules! We can require place-sensitive streets and ensure that people are designed into our neighborhoods.
