"Vision Zero" Aims To Eliminate Traffic Fatalities In San Diego

An anonymous reader writes: San Diego city officials Monday expressed support for a plan called "Vision Zero" to make San Diego's roadways safer for pedestrians and bicyclists over the next 10 years. Vision Zero aims to eliminate traffic deaths in the city by 2025 by improving crosswalks, raising medians, creating buffers between vehicle and bicycle lanes, and improving sidewalks. NBC 7 in San Diego reports: "Allison Street next to La Mesa City Hall provides a blueprint of sorts. Diagonal parking lines reduce the size of the street. Jim Stone, Executive Director of Circulate San Diego, says studies show smaller streets help slow traffic. Then there's the crosswalk with lights on the ground and signs that alert drivers when someone crosses. The curb extension also provides better visibility. 'They can see cars coming but more importantly the cars can see them coming,' Stone said about the curb extensions. 'So it's a great way to improve pedestrian safety.'"

Comments

What would Monderman say?

[digsbo]

This guy suggests they're going about it the wrong way. It's counterintuitive, but he found that making things more ambiguous causes people to use more caution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:What would Monderman say?

[Ichijo]

this doesn't make it easy to navigate traffic in a busy city where you are trying to pay attention to 1000 things on the road at once.

When you have trouble paying attention to your surroundings, you should slow down to a reasonable and prudent speed for conditions. That's the law.

Seattle too

[Sowelu]

Yeah, we've got the same thing around Seattle, including radio ads where they ask people "how many yearly traffic fatalities do you think are acceptable" and of course people say zero. How silly. If someone is senile and doesn't look before taking a left turn...if a kid rides their bike directly into the road ignoring crosswalks...if someone is staring at their phone and walks in front of a moving bus...those are sad but they are pretty acceptable to me.

Re:Seattle too

[Jumunquo]

Oh man, do we ever. Did you read the article written by our transportation director?
http://www.seattletimes.com/op...
The summary is that he wants to redo all the sidewalks around schools (most of which are already abundantly signed, reflective, and lighted/flashing), implement massive lane reductions, and a 5-mph speed reduction across the board (lowering it to 25mph on arterials), all of which are very expensive projects. I'm sorry, but anyone who is old enough to walk alone has an infinite number of stupid ways they can kill themselves and an infinite number of places. If you're going to speed money anywhere, fix the key dangerous spots (if any still exist) and then spend the rest on mental health. Or police/fire/ambulance are good services too (most of the time), and they safe innocent lives. They are going to ask us in the Fall to vote a nearly billion dollar road-fixing proposition that only spends around $200M on fixing roads, $100M million on fixing bridges, and $600M on other stuff, like "safety projects." I wonder if the voters know that passing that means they will get fixed roads, but not for their cars to travel on!

Re:Seattle too

[Ol Olsoc]

It's safety Culture. And Safety Culture never sleeps, and is never satisfied. Coupled with our increasingly reactionary nature, it's the perfect storm of hysteria.

And some times very stupid. Regarding those 25 mph limits, sometimes they backfire. A small town near mine was trying to get control over the main route that went through it. Speed limit was 35 mph. But they had to think of the children. So they lowered it to 25. The result was more accidents, as vehicles spent longer going through town than before, and backups were common. And a child darting in front of a car can be hurt just as easily as going 35. They ended up raising the speed limit back to it's original value.

Not so fast, ...

[Obfuscant]

The curb extension also provides better visibility. 'They can see cars coming but more importantly the cars can see them coming,' Stone said about the curb extensions. 'So it's a great way to improve pedestrian safety.'

They call these "bulbed intersections" where I live.

Here's the problem. By law (also where I live) vehicles are not required to stop for pedestrians unless they are in the crosswalk. Not standing on the corner looking helpless, not waving at cars going by to get their attention. Actually in the crosswalk.

A bulbed intersection forces pedestrians to be much close to active traffic before that traffic has to stop for them. Instead of putting a foot into the street that is still ten feet away from the moving traffic (the width of the parking lane), they will be putting that foot into, or very close to, the lane that has moving traffic. That cannot be a safer situation.

It will certainly create confusion for the hapless pedestrian who thinks that because the drivers can see him better they will be more likely to stop for him when he stands on the sidewalk. "Why aren't they stopping", he will ask, from his protected perch on the sidewalk where nobody is required to stop for him.

Where are the round-abouts

[markus]

I am always surprised that American cities don't learn from the rest of the world and install round-abouts instead of intersections. Many European countries have been aggressively converting their intersections to traffic circles; and they found that accident rates go down, throughput goes up, there are zero operating costs (i.e. no need for traffic lights), and often the round-about needs the same or even less space than traditional intersections.

It takes a little bit of time for everybody to get used to the new design -- and that means both city planners, drivers, and pedestrians. But in the end the benefits are very obvious.

Re:Where are the round-abouts

[Obfuscant]

I am always surprised that American cities don't learn from the rest of the world and install round-abouts instead of intersections.

Because roundabouts consume a lot more land and are not that much safer for pedestrians. The drivers are busy looking for traffic going around the circle and not compelled by personal protection to look both ways like they are at intersections. I care what vehicles are coming from the left. The ones coming from the right have to stop for me.

Many European countries have been aggressively converting their intersections to traffic circles;

Where I live, traffic circles and roundabouts are two different things with two very different sets of rules.

and often the round-about needs the same or even less space than traditional intersections.

You must be talking about something other than the roundabouts that I know of in Europe. How can a circular roadway be smaller than a simple intersection? You can't put a median in the middle of an intersection and force the traffic to go around it without it being bigger than a simple cross.

But in the end the benefits are very obvious.

The benefits of a simple, cheap crossing intersection are also obvious. We're dropping half a million dollars in our area to replace a simple intersection because a few people don't like waiting at the stop signs on the intersection side streets. I see no obvious benefit to that waste.

Re:Where are the round-abouts

[Noah Haders]

yeah, rounabouts destroy cities, too. converts a vibrant intersection with cars, peds, bikes, shops, parking, businesses to a sterile area that feels like a perpetual onramp. it's like a mass fish kill event for the city life.

if you've ever been to paris, you've likely seen the arc de triumphe - the fanciest traffic circle in the world.

Not in New England

[crow]

I serve on the Planning Board in my small New England town. We've looked at some of these same measures, but many of them are eliminated because they make it more difficult for snow plowing. Anything involving raised crosswalks or bump-outs gets push-back from the DPW. Paint gets mostly sanded off every winter.

Separated bike lanes ("cycletracks" is the buzzword here) are great. The problem is our roads are too narrow and old, so even if we have the money to put them in, there simply isn't enough space without using eminent domain to take land for widening. That doesn't go over very well.

It's great that they can do these things in San Diego. It's unfortunate that we can't do all the same things here. Every location needs to find solutions to improve safety that work in that location.

No Vision

[Sir Realist]

"provides better visibility"

Then what idiot ad company exec came up with "Vision Zero" as the name?