Are Streets Too Complicated Now
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Date: 2026-04-12
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Comments and reviews: 20
zz449944
I think it's due to newly hired state highway engineers who need to justify their jobs and who then over-engineer roads and intersections.
There is a segment of state road that I drive daily that was re-engineered about 20 years ago from two lanes down to one when approaching an intersection, so white paint stripes (and signage) were added to the right lane to funnel all cars into the left lane. Then, after only a few hundred feet, the white paint becomes a right turn lane. More than 50 percent of traffic makes the right turn. For the past 20 years, I have NEVER moved to the left lane and have ALWAYS DRIVEN ON THE WHITE STRIPED PAINT. Looking at the wear patterns on the paint, it is obvious that MOST drivers do the same thing. It was an engineering Improvement that was NOT NEEDED, so most drivers Ignore it. The white stripes require biennial repainting. Forcing two lane changes in 1, 000 feet of road is just SILLY.
I will confess that there IS a safety reason for this in that at the same time this change was done, the right travel lane for thru traffic AFTER the intersection was (somewhat) Deleted, so there are no longer two lanes of travel thru the intersection. The funneling of thru traffic into the left lane IS necessary. So, the first question to ask is WHY was the travel lane after the intersection DELETED Because that (unnecessary) design change is the reason for forcing thru traffic to shift left. AND the roadway after the intersection was not actually changed or deleted -- the old travel lane still exists, but has been re-designated for travel for vehicles coming off of the cross street -- drivers have a dedicated right-turn-on-red lane to enter which I guess was done to improve general traffic flow.
In general, I HATE CURBS. Especially those installed as unnecessary Islands and especially those that have no purpose or benefit to water drainage. In so many locations, I have no idea if curbs are meant to keep water IN the Road or OUT of the road. Especially if, because of the curbs, the streets had to be fitted with storm water drains and all the additional engineering, building, and maintenance now required where the same road with NO CURBS could/would allow water to drain off the road naturally and freely with only a crowned roadbed to do the job. Generally, underground storm water drains should only be needed where the terrain is higher than the roadbed or on hills or slopes.
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I think it's due to newly hired state highway engineers who need to justify their jobs and who then over-engineer roads and intersections.
There is a segment of state road that I drive daily that was re-engineered about 20 years ago from two lanes down to one when approaching an intersection, so white paint stripes (and signage) were added to the right lane to funnel all cars into the left lane. Then, after only a few hundred feet, the white paint becomes a right turn lane. More than 50 percent of traffic makes the right turn. For the past 20 years, I have NEVER moved to the left lane and have ALWAYS DRIVEN ON THE WHITE STRIPED PAINT. Looking at the wear patterns on the paint, it is obvious that MOST drivers do the same thing. It was an engineering Improvement that was NOT NEEDED, so most drivers Ignore it. The white stripes require biennial repainting. Forcing two lane changes in 1, 000 feet of road is just SILLY.
I will confess that there IS a safety reason for this in that at the same time this change was done, the right travel lane for thru traffic AFTER the intersection was (somewhat) Deleted, so there are no longer two lanes of travel thru the intersection. The funneling of thru traffic into the left lane IS necessary. So, the first question to ask is WHY was the travel lane after the intersection DELETED Because that (unnecessary) design change is the reason for forcing thru traffic to shift left. AND the roadway after the intersection was not actually changed or deleted -- the old travel lane still exists, but has been re-designated for travel for vehicles coming off of the cross street -- drivers have a dedicated right-turn-on-red lane to enter which I guess was done to improve general traffic flow.
In general, I HATE CURBS. Especially those installed as unnecessary Islands and especially those that have no purpose or benefit to water drainage. In so many locations, I have no idea if curbs are meant to keep water IN the Road or OUT of the road. Especially if, because of the curbs, the streets had to be fitted with storm water drains and all the additional engineering, building, and maintenance now required where the same road with NO CURBS could/would allow water to drain off the road naturally and freely with only a crowned roadbed to do the job. Generally, underground storm water drains should only be needed where the terrain is higher than the roadbed or on hills or slopes.
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marccollins1445
Like everything else, it is a mixed bag. The visual clutter caused by overuse of plastic pop-up bollards and ridiculous amounts of mostly needless signage has ruined my pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood. As usual, municipal engineers and planners love to use one-size-fits-all methodologies, instead of recognizing that existing streets vary dramatically depending on the surrounding neighbourhood context and traffic patterns. Certain elements in the design guides will work better on major suburban streets with higher speeds, versus an already overly-congested main street, versus a quiet, small residential street, yet we get mostly the same treatment applied. I was visiting Curacao last year, which models many of their local planning and signage policies from the Dutch, and quite honestly could not believe how effectively the almost complete lack of signage and traffic signalling worked compared to the insanity of my city. Everyone pays attention all the time everywhere because you have no stop signs, no speed limit signs, no ridiculous visual clutter to distract you. This worked n the middle of the large (as in fully urban, not large by world standards) capital city as well as it did in small villages and rural areas. Bureaucrats think that they can slap cheap bike lanes in inappropriate locations and cover themselves with a flurry of bollards and signs. In many cases they are inherently unsafe for cyclists, bad for pedestrians with mobility issues, destroy the visual appeal of a walkable area and cause frustration for drivers--exactly what you don't want more of if you are the one on the bike. A total rethink is needed for many North American cycling infrastructure projects--you can't just copy and paste something from Europe and plunk it into a completely different (worse) car-orientated environment and expect it to work. But building good quality cycling infrastructure means separating cyclists from the heaviest and most dangerous traffic, which costs serious money and deprives the politicized woke-police from the pleasure of grinding street traffic to a crawl so they can favourably compare how long it takes to cycle somewhere compared to driving. so it won't happen.
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Like everything else, it is a mixed bag. The visual clutter caused by overuse of plastic pop-up bollards and ridiculous amounts of mostly needless signage has ruined my pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood. As usual, municipal engineers and planners love to use one-size-fits-all methodologies, instead of recognizing that existing streets vary dramatically depending on the surrounding neighbourhood context and traffic patterns. Certain elements in the design guides will work better on major suburban streets with higher speeds, versus an already overly-congested main street, versus a quiet, small residential street, yet we get mostly the same treatment applied. I was visiting Curacao last year, which models many of their local planning and signage policies from the Dutch, and quite honestly could not believe how effectively the almost complete lack of signage and traffic signalling worked compared to the insanity of my city. Everyone pays attention all the time everywhere because you have no stop signs, no speed limit signs, no ridiculous visual clutter to distract you. This worked n the middle of the large (as in fully urban, not large by world standards) capital city as well as it did in small villages and rural areas. Bureaucrats think that they can slap cheap bike lanes in inappropriate locations and cover themselves with a flurry of bollards and signs. In many cases they are inherently unsafe for cyclists, bad for pedestrians with mobility issues, destroy the visual appeal of a walkable area and cause frustration for drivers--exactly what you don't want more of if you are the one on the bike. A total rethink is needed for many North American cycling infrastructure projects--you can't just copy and paste something from Europe and plunk it into a completely different (worse) car-orientated environment and expect it to work. But building good quality cycling infrastructure means separating cyclists from the heaviest and most dangerous traffic, which costs serious money and deprives the politicized woke-police from the pleasure of grinding street traffic to a crawl so they can favourably compare how long it takes to cycle somewhere compared to driving. so it won't happen.
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Hi_Im_Akward
The HAWK crossings are confusing for a few reasons. The sign has way too much to read, and if it's your first encounter, your looking all over for hazards not just the sign. The alternating flashing red lights are also confusing because they already mean something. A train is coming. This is actually the first time I've heard someone say that it should be treated as a stop sign, I was under the impression it was supposed to be a yield (which doesn't demand a full stop. A yield is usually flashing yellow. A single flashing red light at any regular intersection typically means the lights are down and to treat it like a stop sign, and usually a stop sign is put up for good measure.
There is another aspect to this that can cause issues at them. HAWK crossings are typically placed on high density roads that are 30 MPH. I understand the reasoning for this, because those roads are notoriously dangerous to cross. But they are also prone to congestion, and the typical culture with driving is to get where you need to as fast as you can. That means road rage and pressure from behind to keep moving (honking, tail gating. It's a psychological aspect to the road. I honestly think HAWK crossings would be made safer if they implemented some of the same tactics like narrow roads, but also lower speed limits. And, if the crossing is going to look like a railroad crossing, then honestly I think the arms that come down would help a ton. Weirdly, people are less likely to do some crazy driving if it might damage their vehicle, but seem to not be affected by the idea that they might plow someone over with their vehicle (even though the consequences are way higher. A physical arm would tap into that psychology and help make it clearer when people can and cannot go.
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The HAWK crossings are confusing for a few reasons. The sign has way too much to read, and if it's your first encounter, your looking all over for hazards not just the sign. The alternating flashing red lights are also confusing because they already mean something. A train is coming. This is actually the first time I've heard someone say that it should be treated as a stop sign, I was under the impression it was supposed to be a yield (which doesn't demand a full stop. A yield is usually flashing yellow. A single flashing red light at any regular intersection typically means the lights are down and to treat it like a stop sign, and usually a stop sign is put up for good measure.
There is another aspect to this that can cause issues at them. HAWK crossings are typically placed on high density roads that are 30 MPH. I understand the reasoning for this, because those roads are notoriously dangerous to cross. But they are also prone to congestion, and the typical culture with driving is to get where you need to as fast as you can. That means road rage and pressure from behind to keep moving (honking, tail gating. It's a psychological aspect to the road. I honestly think HAWK crossings would be made safer if they implemented some of the same tactics like narrow roads, but also lower speed limits. And, if the crossing is going to look like a railroad crossing, then honestly I think the arms that come down would help a ton. Weirdly, people are less likely to do some crazy driving if it might damage their vehicle, but seem to not be affected by the idea that they might plow someone over with their vehicle (even though the consequences are way higher. A physical arm would tap into that psychology and help make it clearer when people can and cannot go.
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AndyCutright
Alameda, CA just completed a project on Central AVE, and it is a _mess_. It's made bicyclists less safe. If you could take a look at it, that would be fantastic. I am a _huge_ fan of pedestrian and bike infrastructure. I don't own a car, and I have been riding my bike all over the Bay Area for decades. Alameda has a lot of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and it's very well done. The Central project though is just horrible. Central is a very busy road, a primary route in and out of town for commuters. There are a lot of business parking lots with access to the street, and apartment parking lots. There has always been a lot of traffic entering and exiting the road. Now they've added bidirectional bicycle path on one side of this very busy road, and pushed parking out from the curb to the other side of this bike path. Now we've got a situation where bicyclists and cars alike have significantly limited visibility because of the parked cars, and there's a great deal of traffic crossing the bike path into and out apartment and business parking lots. No one can see each other, and neither cars nor bicycles are looking for traffic on the opposite side of the road as the cars turn left or right and pass through the bidirectional bike path. This leads to a lot of near misses. Because there are schools at the far West End of the new bike path we have a lot of children on the bike path. These kids are not equipped to handle this complex environment. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Please please please take a look at it.
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Alameda, CA just completed a project on Central AVE, and it is a _mess_. It's made bicyclists less safe. If you could take a look at it, that would be fantastic. I am a _huge_ fan of pedestrian and bike infrastructure. I don't own a car, and I have been riding my bike all over the Bay Area for decades. Alameda has a lot of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and it's very well done. The Central project though is just horrible. Central is a very busy road, a primary route in and out of town for commuters. There are a lot of business parking lots with access to the street, and apartment parking lots. There has always been a lot of traffic entering and exiting the road. Now they've added bidirectional bicycle path on one side of this very busy road, and pushed parking out from the curb to the other side of this bike path. Now we've got a situation where bicyclists and cars alike have significantly limited visibility because of the parked cars, and there's a great deal of traffic crossing the bike path into and out apartment and business parking lots. No one can see each other, and neither cars nor bicycles are looking for traffic on the opposite side of the road as the cars turn left or right and pass through the bidirectional bike path. This leads to a lot of near misses. Because there are schools at the far West End of the new bike path we have a lot of children on the bike path. These kids are not equipped to handle this complex environment. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Please please please take a look at it.
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deninehicks3604
I have read the signs at the HAWK crossings, but if I were to actually STOP on the flashing red, I would get rear-ended, so I proceed slowly along with the rest of the traffic. There definitely needs to be an education campaign about all this new stuff! This video is a good start.
I lived in Davis during my first year of college. The difference between Davis and San Luis Obispo (where this was filmed) is that Davis is FLAT! It's a great place to ride a bike, especially if you're a young student. But SLO is NOT flat and unless you're young (or a MAML) you are likely to need a car to get where you are going, particularly if you are transporting children or groceries. Planners forget that in Europe, most of the cities and towns were created long before cars were invented, so one can easily walk to a local shop or park. That is not the case in SLO, or, indeed, in most of the U. S. So while some might see it as ideal to get a huge percentage of the population out of their cars, it is not realistic.
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I have read the signs at the HAWK crossings, but if I were to actually STOP on the flashing red, I would get rear-ended, so I proceed slowly along with the rest of the traffic. There definitely needs to be an education campaign about all this new stuff! This video is a good start.
I lived in Davis during my first year of college. The difference between Davis and San Luis Obispo (where this was filmed) is that Davis is FLAT! It's a great place to ride a bike, especially if you're a young student. But SLO is NOT flat and unless you're young (or a MAML) you are likely to need a car to get where you are going, particularly if you are transporting children or groceries. Planners forget that in Europe, most of the cities and towns were created long before cars were invented, so one can easily walk to a local shop or park. That is not the case in SLO, or, indeed, in most of the U. S. So while some might see it as ideal to get a huge percentage of the population out of their cars, it is not realistic.
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vaushallah
Assuming the conclusion of John Forrestor is that we, as bicyclists, must seize the roads back from drivers by an overwhelming show of force, then I'd say he's correct insofar as the attitude through which we should approach the issue, but dead wrong on actually changing people's minds to start cycling instead of driving. He's a drag on the movement, sadly.
I also think it's important to point out that painted bike lines are still a sign of victory from the perspective of advocates of multimodality. They reify the laws that protect the ability of people on bikes to use the roads and indicate a potential area for upgrading to more protective infrastructure in the future.
If you asked young me whether riding your bike on the street were legal, and if I knew any better as a young kid, I'd reply with something like 'the roads feel unsafe, so it must be illegal'. In my opinion, it is important that we remind ourselves that cars only appropriate the road in this day and age.
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Assuming the conclusion of John Forrestor is that we, as bicyclists, must seize the roads back from drivers by an overwhelming show of force, then I'd say he's correct insofar as the attitude through which we should approach the issue, but dead wrong on actually changing people's minds to start cycling instead of driving. He's a drag on the movement, sadly.
I also think it's important to point out that painted bike lines are still a sign of victory from the perspective of advocates of multimodality. They reify the laws that protect the ability of people on bikes to use the roads and indicate a potential area for upgrading to more protective infrastructure in the future.
If you asked young me whether riding your bike on the street were legal, and if I knew any better as a young kid, I'd reply with something like 'the roads feel unsafe, so it must be illegal'. In my opinion, it is important that we remind ourselves that cars only appropriate the road in this day and age.
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ozloop69
Another aspect of road markings is that you’ve neglected the problem of America’s massive vehicles the visual obstacles that they are themselves great for the individual driver of the vehicle but everybody else on the street or using the street in a very near proximity suddenly have this great obstruction from their visual rage. In other words they won’t see a cyclist sitting right next to that vehicle because of the angles and the visual size a person could be obscured very easily on a bike so could be a pedestrian or any other road producer including another vehicle the mass size of personal transport that are classed as non-passenger vehicles I believe or SUVs so they don’t have to consider the visual obstructions that they actually are. That might be another aspect because if you can’t see the road markings all the signs it makes it harder to comply and I’m not talking about the one at the lights. I’m talking about the one behind.
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Another aspect of road markings is that you’ve neglected the problem of America’s massive vehicles the visual obstacles that they are themselves great for the individual driver of the vehicle but everybody else on the street or using the street in a very near proximity suddenly have this great obstruction from their visual rage. In other words they won’t see a cyclist sitting right next to that vehicle because of the angles and the visual size a person could be obscured very easily on a bike so could be a pedestrian or any other road producer including another vehicle the mass size of personal transport that are classed as non-passenger vehicles I believe or SUVs so they don’t have to consider the visual obstructions that they actually are. That might be another aspect because if you can’t see the road markings all the signs it makes it harder to comply and I’m not talking about the one at the lights. I’m talking about the one behind.
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SylviusTheMad
My concern with making roads ambiguous is that it makes drivers less predictable. As a pedestrian, I want to know what cars are going to do, and on these confusing roads I genuinely don't understand even what the drivers are supposed to do. If I don't understanding the rules, how can I predict whether they will be followed
I'm autistic, so I need rules to be explicit all of the time. When I drive, my goal is not to avoid accidents, because I can't control that. My goal is to follow the rules, so that any accidents that do occur aren't my fault (because I can control that. But now I don't always know what they rules even are, so how can I follow them When the rules are ambigious, they don't logically exist. I can't follow a rule that doesn't exist, so now there are no rules That can't be what the designers want.
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My concern with making roads ambiguous is that it makes drivers less predictable. As a pedestrian, I want to know what cars are going to do, and on these confusing roads I genuinely don't understand even what the drivers are supposed to do. If I don't understanding the rules, how can I predict whether they will be followed
I'm autistic, so I need rules to be explicit all of the time. When I drive, my goal is not to avoid accidents, because I can't control that. My goal is to follow the rules, so that any accidents that do occur aren't my fault (because I can control that. But now I don't always know what they rules even are, so how can I follow them When the rules are ambigious, they don't logically exist. I can't follow a rule that doesn't exist, so now there are no rules That can't be what the designers want.
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lamplightsg-c9v
I used to make signs for a living. I can assure you that many if not most people can be staring directly at a sign and not see it. I'm also a bus driver and I get to watch drivers for 8 hours every single day. In my experience it seems like the number one issue (well, #2 after distracted driving) is that most people don't take driving seriously. And when I see someone who actually is taking it seriously, often times they're the type of overly-cautious driver who is seemingly terrified to be driving at all but also really bad at it (and should probably be on my bus instead. Of course it would help if people had real alternatives, but I also firmly believe driver testing needs to be significantly more strict and re-testing every few years should be a thing. But alas, money.
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I used to make signs for a living. I can assure you that many if not most people can be staring directly at a sign and not see it. I'm also a bus driver and I get to watch drivers for 8 hours every single day. In my experience it seems like the number one issue (well, #2 after distracted driving) is that most people don't take driving seriously. And when I see someone who actually is taking it seriously, often times they're the type of overly-cautious driver who is seemingly terrified to be driving at all but also really bad at it (and should probably be on my bus instead. Of course it would help if people had real alternatives, but I also firmly believe driver testing needs to be significantly more strict and re-testing every few years should be a thing. But alas, money.
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ericrabinowitz2920
More complex road markings are definitely more dangerous. Even paying full attention it's sometimes difficult to know where one is meant to go. And the lane markings weave side to side for no apparent reason, so many drivers just drive over them. Unused dedicated bike lanes are a waste of expensive roadway. Dedicated bus lanes with few busses become cheats for drivers impatient with road diets (more like starvation. Traffic engineers have forgotten the purpose of roads is to move people and goods. Slowing motor vehicles down by dumping them in one lane slows commerce, dumps tons of CO2 from idling into the atmosphere for the sake (in my town) of 3% of travelers, and frays everyone's nerves. Even bikers around here complain - the ingrates!
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More complex road markings are definitely more dangerous. Even paying full attention it's sometimes difficult to know where one is meant to go. And the lane markings weave side to side for no apparent reason, so many drivers just drive over them. Unused dedicated bike lanes are a waste of expensive roadway. Dedicated bus lanes with few busses become cheats for drivers impatient with road diets (more like starvation. Traffic engineers have forgotten the purpose of roads is to move people and goods. Slowing motor vehicles down by dumping them in one lane slows commerce, dumps tons of CO2 from idling into the atmosphere for the sake (in my town) of 3% of travelers, and frays everyone's nerves. Even bikers around here complain - the ingrates!
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CraigButz
The HAWK light visual language is infuriatingly ambiguous. Alternating red lights are used to mean stop till it turns off at railroad crossings. It is visually more insistent than a solid red. These lights should be reprogrammed to flash together to align with the existing meaning of flashing red stop and proceed like a stop sign. Traffic calming is good, but doing it in ways that taxes drivers’ (and cyclists’ and pedestrians’) brains to understand what they’re even looking at means they might not even see the people these complications are meant to protect. Further overloading the visual system does not make environments safer. The intent is good, but the implementation is misguided, regardless of what a manual says.
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The HAWK light visual language is infuriatingly ambiguous. Alternating red lights are used to mean stop till it turns off at railroad crossings. It is visually more insistent than a solid red. These lights should be reprogrammed to flash together to align with the existing meaning of flashing red stop and proceed like a stop sign. Traffic calming is good, but doing it in ways that taxes drivers’ (and cyclists’ and pedestrians’) brains to understand what they’re even looking at means they might not even see the people these complications are meant to protect. Further overloading the visual system does not make environments safer. The intent is good, but the implementation is misguided, regardless of what a manual says.
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dustin-roemer
coming from Not Just Bikes video in John Forester, he was more of a hinderance than a help to bike infrastructure. He thought any bike infrastucture was essentially making cyclists second class citizens so was opposed to anything close to a bike lane. If you werent comfortable driving on a highway with fast moving cars, that was your problem. Then city engineers would cite his book for why they shouldnt build bike infrastrcuture. We dont need a bike lane, because this randpm guy's book on cycling says bikes should just use the roads
Forester seeemed to be a pretty awful guy with batshit insane ideas and ultimately set the U. S back decades when it came to building good bike infrastructure.
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coming from Not Just Bikes video in John Forester, he was more of a hinderance than a help to bike infrastructure. He thought any bike infrastucture was essentially making cyclists second class citizens so was opposed to anything close to a bike lane. If you werent comfortable driving on a highway with fast moving cars, that was your problem. Then city engineers would cite his book for why they shouldnt build bike infrastrcuture. We dont need a bike lane, because this randpm guy's book on cycling says bikes should just use the roads
Forester seeemed to be a pretty awful guy with batshit insane ideas and ultimately set the U. S back decades when it came to building good bike infrastructure.
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JoeOvercoat
7: 30 FFS NO! The solution to a distracted driver is not to clutter the road with more signage. That’s not going change their behavior. They’re not going to think. Oh look there’s a big sign, I should start paying attention now. The false premise that good road design lulls drivers into using their smartphones is false. They already want to use their phones while driving. That’s the root problem
I suggest you think that through and you think this whole video through with the added thought that none of this is free.
Just for context, I’ve ridden a bicycle all my life, in the country and the city, until I got vertigo and can’t do it anymore
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7: 30 FFS NO! The solution to a distracted driver is not to clutter the road with more signage. That’s not going change their behavior. They’re not going to think. Oh look there’s a big sign, I should start paying attention now. The false premise that good road design lulls drivers into using their smartphones is false. They already want to use their phones while driving. That’s the root problem
I suggest you think that through and you think this whole video through with the added thought that none of this is free.
Just for context, I’ve ridden a bicycle all my life, in the country and the city, until I got vertigo and can’t do it anymore
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Okaru77
Honestly, while these changes make it a bit safer for bikes, I still feel like the best solution is completely separating bikes and cars. A car is just too dangerous for a bike rider, and as we know from motorcycle users, drivers just dont pay attention to anything that isnt a car. Put bike infrastructure completely on sidewalks. If a bike hits a ped, they both get hurt. If a car hits a bike, the riders is going to have severe injuries if not death.
As an extra, I'd love to see areas become completely excluded from motorized vehicles and have infrastructure completely designed for bikes and walking.
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Honestly, while these changes make it a bit safer for bikes, I still feel like the best solution is completely separating bikes and cars. A car is just too dangerous for a bike rider, and as we know from motorcycle users, drivers just dont pay attention to anything that isnt a car. Put bike infrastructure completely on sidewalks. If a bike hits a ped, they both get hurt. If a car hits a bike, the riders is going to have severe injuries if not death.
As an extra, I'd love to see areas become completely excluded from motorized vehicles and have infrastructure completely designed for bikes and walking.
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Zalis116
I kind of figured that this video would be saying, Yes, they are becoming more complicated, but that's a good thing because it makes car drivers more uncomfortable and slows them down. What I don't understand is why some try to sell Netherlands-style systems as better for drivers, when everything about them is meant to reduce vehicle speeds and make driving more annoying and miserable. If urbanists and advocates want to tame cars to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists, that's a perfectly valid goal. Just don't dump rocks on my head and tell me it's hailing.
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I kind of figured that this video would be saying, Yes, they are becoming more complicated, but that's a good thing because it makes car drivers more uncomfortable and slows them down. What I don't understand is why some try to sell Netherlands-style systems as better for drivers, when everything about them is meant to reduce vehicle speeds and make driving more annoying and miserable. If urbanists and advocates want to tame cars to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists, that's a perfectly valid goal. Just don't dump rocks on my head and tell me it's hailing.
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aurelspecker6740
You can design streets that have much less complicated signage and are much saver. But I doubt car extremists would like that.
Because that would mean: Pedestrian area, with no signage except the entry point, 20kph (approx. 15mph) and EVERYTHING has the right of way before cars. It is incredibly save and it also feels incredibly save, including the driver. Because even if it is chaotic, it is all so slow, you can easily react to everything.
If we want to really have simple and safe streets again, we have to go back to how it used to be before the cars.
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You can design streets that have much less complicated signage and are much saver. But I doubt car extremists would like that.
Because that would mean: Pedestrian area, with no signage except the entry point, 20kph (approx. 15mph) and EVERYTHING has the right of way before cars. It is incredibly save and it also feels incredibly save, including the driver. Because even if it is chaotic, it is all so slow, you can easily react to everything.
If we want to really have simple and safe streets again, we have to go back to how it used to be before the cars.
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aerob1033
One thing you didn't spend a lot of time on except by implication is that American streets tend to be wide by international standards. Really, really wide. You don't need such complicated treatments to keep people safe on really narrow streets where everything screams at drivers to slow down. In some cases you may not even need a bike lane at all. But when you have four, five, six, or in rare cases as many as a dozen driving lanes on what's supposed to be a city street, intersections become very dangerous and cyclists and pedestrians need much more protection.
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One thing you didn't spend a lot of time on except by implication is that American streets tend to be wide by international standards. Really, really wide. You don't need such complicated treatments to keep people safe on really narrow streets where everything screams at drivers to slow down. In some cases you may not even need a bike lane at all. But when you have four, five, six, or in rare cases as many as a dozen driving lanes on what's supposed to be a city street, intersections become very dangerous and cyclists and pedestrians need much more protection.
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michaelkennedy9458
I don't like any form of transportation that is not what I'm currently doing. If I'm driving, I hate bicycles. If I'm cycling, I hate cars and pedestrians. When I'm walking on the local greenway, I hate cyclists. They have a habit of sneaking up behind me and yelling, On your left! as they pass by. I'm walking on the right edge of the pavement. I can't get any farther right without getting off the pavement altogether. Why don't they just pass by Or maybe cough when they're 50 feet pack so I'll know they're there.
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I don't like any form of transportation that is not what I'm currently doing. If I'm driving, I hate bicycles. If I'm cycling, I hate cars and pedestrians. When I'm walking on the local greenway, I hate cyclists. They have a habit of sneaking up behind me and yelling, On your left! as they pass by. I'm walking on the right edge of the pavement. I can't get any farther right without getting off the pavement altogether. Why don't they just pass by Or maybe cough when they're 50 feet pack so I'll know they're there.
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HatWearingDog
To this day, i still don’t understand what the HAWK signal accomplishes that couldn’t have been accomplished with a blinking red/blinking yellow traditional stoplight.
Of all the things that can’t get built due to fears of the elderly failing to understand them, the HAWK signal is a baffling case. I as an urbanism-obsessed 24 year old still question whether or not I can go when the HAWK signal starts blinking red. Really an atrocious piece of pedestrian friendly infrastructure.
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To this day, i still don’t understand what the HAWK signal accomplishes that couldn’t have been accomplished with a blinking red/blinking yellow traditional stoplight.
Of all the things that can’t get built due to fears of the elderly failing to understand them, the HAWK signal is a baffling case. I as an urbanism-obsessed 24 year old still question whether or not I can go when the HAWK signal starts blinking red. Really an atrocious piece of pedestrian friendly infrastructure.
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whophd
1: 45 I don’t agree. Good (new) design might slow me down but it generally shepherds me nicely. We make fun of Americans and roundabouts but some of the American lane marking on roundabouts is doing pretty well in the idiot proofing department! No seriously it’s quite good.
All that crazy road width wasn’t supposed to be a problem. And it is actually an asset when the idea of avenues replaces the stock standard 1960s Highway ideal, usually misused for stroads.
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1: 45 I don’t agree. Good (new) design might slow me down but it generally shepherds me nicely. We make fun of Americans and roundabouts but some of the American lane marking on roundabouts is doing pretty well in the idiot proofing department! No seriously it’s quite good.
All that crazy road width wasn’t supposed to be a problem. And it is actually an asset when the idea of avenues replaces the stock standard 1960s Highway ideal, usually misused for stroads.
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