The Mandate Of Complete Streets

(Today's post at MWaT: Are Our Driving Skills A Collective Effort? reminded me to finish this post that I started earlier this summer)

When I think of Complete Streets I think of streets that are safe for everyone. And by making streets safer we lower what economists term externalities or "social costs".

A street designed as complete will be safer for everyone resulting in a net economic gain to society.

In other words, what is a life worth? Not just to that person's family and friends but to the economy as a whole? What are the economic benefits if lawsuits are kept out of the courts, insurance isn't used, employees don't miss work, first responders are available for other emergencies, and on and on?

Traverse City has had numerous conflicts this year between street users.

Example from 9and10: Two Bike, Car Crashes In One Week, Police Cautioning Everyone Be Safe

These pedestrian-bike-vehicle conflicts are happening across the country just as they did in 2008 when there was a spike in gasoline prices forcing people out of their cars.

The most well known accident this summer is the case of Raquel Nelson whose 4 yr old son was struck and killed while attempting to cross a multi-lane road (See NPR: Child's Death Casts Light On Pedestrian Traffic Woes)

A similar tragedy occurred in Traverse City in 2007. See the Record-Eagle:Boy from Greece, 6, killed in accident on U.S. 31

The boy's family stopped in the turn lane halfway across the road to wait for traffic to clear...

As a parent it is hard to imagine anything more horrific than having my child being run over by a semi-trailer while I helplessly watch and knowing design choices played a part in the tragedy.

Doesn't seem appropriate to call these accidents as if they were unpreventable.

Plenty of studies indicate the dangers poor street design poses. See Wired: Report: Streets Pose Mortal Threat to Pedestrians

More than 47,000 people were killed walking the streets of the United States between 2000 and 2009

And while dedicated bike lanes can improve safety for bicyclists pedestrians are always the most susceptible street users as a recent bike-pedestrian accident in San Francisco demonstrates (via NPR).

In the case of Raquel Nelson she was facing three years in jail for jaywalking, the person who was in the car that killed her son? Two years of jail time.

And here we have the problem. It seems that in a state where we are free to walk the beaches of the Great Lakes we are not welcome to walk across the street.

What Grist calls the criminalization of walking.

This is a design decision. Driving requires concentration though we act like it does not. It is why I won't even talk to my passengers when I drive. Yet I still feel the same urges to speed or to use my vehicle to "teach a lesson". We all drive on the road given to us. Apply the neuroscience of behavioral economics to roads and design streets for people.

That is my three word description of Complete Streets: design for people.

This is my hope for Complete Streets in Michigan. A stronger economy by design. And not just in the reduction of negative externalities, but as Fast Company reports complete streets build jobs: Want Jobs? Build Bike Lanes

Cycling projects create a total of 11.4 local jobs for each $1 million spent. Pedestrian-only projects create a little less employment, with an average of 10 jobs for the same amount of money. Multi-use trails create 9.6 jobs per $1 million--but road-only projects generate just 7.8 jobs per $1 million.

Your Speed

Is based on a feedback loop.

And you can be made to decrease your speed by 10% without even realizing it.

This is why a 'Your Speed' radar display is going up on W Front St.

Wonder how this works?

See Wired: Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops

If you like this kind of thing then pick up a copy of the book Nudge.

Complete Streets Are For Everyone

NPR had a story this week on how Complete Streets make streets safer for pedestrians who are crossing them. Especially for those people who cannot sprint across an intersection.

As America Ages, A Push To Make Streets Safer

Including Seniors and the less mobile.

This is a concept that doesn't get much coverage - social costs.

When pedestrians are unnecessarily injured there is a cost to society that is accrued - lost wages, lost productivity - plus the opportunity cost of having medical personnel respond to an accident that could have been prevented by better design.

Rather some people shout the simpler slogan of "unfunded mandate". Yes, unfunded mandates are a burden but in this case it ignores the fact that it is a concept to guide a design process for when roads are built or repaired so the money is already there. I like to save the unfunded mandate accusation for when it really is a problem.

Do people in earthquake zones call building codes an unfunded mandate? No. Because like the Complete Streets design concept, taking time to do things right the first time saves people from having to pay a lot at some later time.

Why Traffic Engineers Don't Get The Braess Paradox

Or traffic calming ideas.
It isn't in "the book".

See Grist:
Confessions of a recovering engineer

An engineer designing a street or road prioritizes the world in this way, no matter how they are instructed:

1. Traffic speed
2. Traffic volume
3. Safety
4. Cost

Epistemic Closure In Traverse City (And Applying Astrophysics To Roundabouts)

There's a reason it is called Division St.

The Traverse City Commission had a meeting where no one spoke against roundabouts on Division St. A local AM radio station took calls from listeners for an hour and no one spoke in favor of roundabouts.

Obviously there are two different communities in Traverse City. One is open to trying new things. The other lives in fear of change - locked in their own world of epistemic closure with the same AM talk radio station on all day and predictable TV at night.

These two communities represent a fundamental split in the people of Traverse City. There are folks who think of this place as the small town where nothing changes and everyone hunts and fishes. The others think of TC as a micropolitan that attracts the educated and creative class with its natural beauty and concentrated amenities.

My opinion on Division St and Grandview Parkway is I want easier pedestrian access across these busy streets and slower traffic. And if a series of roundabouts is the best solution then that is what I would like to see.

But I am not convinced that a series of roundabouts would succeed.

Rather I want to apply astrophysics to the transportation problem in Traverse City.

The gas giants of the outer solar system or like the townships surrounding Traverse and the hospitable inner planets of Mars, Earth, and Venus are like the neighborhoods.

Much like the gas giants protect the more hospitable planets of the inner solar system from bombardment by cosmic debris from dark space I want to see roundabouts at the city limits protecting the inner neighborhoods. For example, a roundabout at 14th St. and Division would use the gravity of the circling traffic to sling vehicles in various directions into and out of Traverse City. And just as spacecraft use gravitational deceleration before landing, the mass of the roundabout would slow down traffic coming into the city's neighborhoods.

And just as a gas giant cannot survive in an inner-solar system neither can a roundabout survive in a neighborhood.

(ref: geologists and astronomers believe the gravitational pull of Saturn and Jupiter deflect possible planet killing comets, asteroids, etc that enter the solar system and this is what gave the early Earth time to evolve life)

Roundabout proponents claim that they make pedestrian access easier because you only have to look in one direction as you cross. So I tried an experiment. I walked towards the Bay on Oak St and attempted to cross at the crosswalk where Grandview Parkway is divided by a median. I only had to look one way before crossing each half of the street, and though it was better than crossing an undivided road, it was still not as easy as using a pedestrian underpass.

Or a stop light for that matter. The punctuated equilibrium of traffic that a light provides is why I go to Seventh St when I want to walk across Division. But no one is arguing for more traffic lights even though you clearly improve pedestrian access if you stop traffic for a few minutes.

So put roundabouts outside of the neighborhoods and make Division St into a Woodmere Ave-like boulevard north towards the Bay with one or more pedestrian tunnels connecting Central Neighborhood to The Commons. My hope would be that by constructing fewer roundabouts the savings could be used to pay for a green and welcoming Division St boulevard.

With all of this hoopla over roundabouts imagine what would happen if the suggestion was to remove all the traffic signs?

Links:
IPR: Roundabouts Praised At Public Meeting

MyNorth: Should Traverse City Have Traffic Roundabouts?

PlanForTC: roundabouts on Division?

MWaT: Car advocates, beginning to rally

TCBN: Ron Jolly

R-E: Skeptics, enthusiasts debate roundabouts