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traffic

The Insanity of Traffic Calming

December 30, 2009 21:33:42.080

One of my pet peeves in the neighborhood I live in is traffic calming - which, as practiced in this part of Maryland, seems to equate to "drop random shapes we made with playdo into the street and see what happens". Consider these, on one of the two routes out of our neighborhood:

Traffic Calming

Traffic Calming

With that first one, see how the car parked in the street (and that happens a lot there) effectively blocks access in one direction? With the second, see how one end of the device has been chipped off? That was a snow plow 4 years ago. Every day, school buses have the devil's own time navigating these, and I have no idea what a Fire Truck would do.

In the hall of bad ideas, these are really bad. I have a hot tip for the rocket scientists who come up with this stupidity: Just Narrow the Whole Road! It'll slow down traffic, and cause fewer ancillary problems.

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posted by James Robertson

Comments

Re: The Insanity of Traffic Calming

[anonymous] December 30, 2009 22:31:52.562

Yes these work really well my local govt stuck one in on a busy cross road to appease a sole home owner. Does make you slow down as you judge that deep ditch on the right and the warning signs (blinking!) on the left.

Waiting for the drunk to mow it down late one night.... & no it doesn't slow the speeding kids. Likely more a game now, how close can we shave the blinking warning sign...

Re: The Insanity of Traffic Calming

[anonymous] December 31, 2009 11:53:02.675

We would love to narrow the road but then the police, fire, and ambulance departments complain about having to slow down too. Wide residential streets are a waste of land and resources.

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