As Warren Naps, speeds like this kill an urban neighborhood.

72 mph on Spring Street at 6:20 p.m. on a Friday evening.

Granted, it was a stray hot rodder, and not the norm. It's the highest speed I've clocked yet. But note also that during a half hour of clocking traffic, there were a couple dozen speeds of 40 mph in what should by all rights be a 25 mph zone -- strike that, and change to this: On what should by all rights be a street engineered and designed for neighborhood safety, not speed of pass-throughs.

Shall we visit the Bored of Works on a weekly basis to demand renewed consciousness during an election year otherwise spent asleep? Jeff Gahan might remain cloistered, but the BOW cannot.

MORE REASONS TO SLOW DOWN, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

Our urban streets will not be safe until we slow cars. We won't make a significant dent in slowing cars if our toolbox is a combination of signage, more enforcement and driver education. Those are all nice, but the primary hurdle we need to overcome is our propensity to over-engineer, to apply highway thinking to local streets.

One of my favorite writers at Streets.MN is Bill Lindeke. Last week had a fantastic article on the subtle, but critical, difference between a 30 mph speed and a 20 mph speed. He perfectly explains why stroads (the street/road combination) are not just a suburban phenomenon but are actually pervasive throughout urban neighborhoods ...