Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Calming effects in real life, on the ground.

Somewhere, RemCha is having a seizure.

The new set of hash marks on Spring Street between Vincennes and State put down after paving and before striping shows two lanes instead of three, and the calming effect has been a thing to behold. Traffic is slower and more orderly.

Ideally, Spring Street should be a two-way street, as should the remainder of the downtown street grid.

If not, it should be a one-way street with two lanes.

The very worst it can be is a three lane, one-way street.

See if you can guess the likely outcome, given our location in New Albany, the land that rationality forgot.

Apologies for being cursory ... Insight might flicker out again at any moment.

4 comments:

John Gonder said...

Since the paving of Spring Street is essentially complete, it's too late to install concrete curb extensions, which would jut into the street to constrict traffic to two lanes, rather than the former pattern of three lanes.

This link shows a type of impediment which could be installed now, post paving.

These could be installed with a break in place to provide the necessary width of a bike lane. This would also give pedestrians a better shot at a safe crossing of the street as it would lessen the lanes of traffic they would need to navigate.

http://www.trafficlogix.com/curb-extensions.asp

B.W. Smith said...

I drive from Silver to I-64 every morning to work. I'm glad you mentioned the traffic calming because I've noticed it too. And, surprise surprise, traffic isn't choked, as predicted by others.

A bike lane would make things safer and easier to get downtown via bike. Currently, I have to snake through the street grid that time forgot.

dan chandler said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dan chandler said...

How about something like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/
wittcogmbh/2638792089/sizes/l/