Vision Zero (not applicable in Nawbany): "Why San Francisco Is Putting Pedestrians First on Its Main Thoroughfare."

 

Gahan, Rosenbarger set to go full frontal Pinocchio about their urbanism credentials when the Congress for the New Urbanism 27 meets in Louisville June 11-15.

Car-centrism is the last socially acceptable form of imperialism in America. Debate among yourselves ... and thanks, B.

Why San Francisco Is Putting Pedestrians First on Its Main Thoroughfare, by Supriya Sridhar (Politico Magazine)

San Francisco plans to shut out cars on one of its major streets.

Legend has it that the young civil engineer who laid down the route for San Francisco’s Market Street in the 1800s so enraged people with the street’s unusual width that a mob chased him out of town. More than a century later, Market Street is one of the city’s key arteries, a wide boulevard on which the city’s historic streetcars jostle with buses, taxicabs, private passenger cars, Uber and Lyft rides, delivery vehicles and thousands of people biking every day. During peak hours, there are 100 buses running in either direction.

But Market Street is also the center of something traffic officials somewhat ominously refer to as the “High-Injury Network,” a collection of about 13 percent of the city’s streets that accounts for three-quarters of the serious and fatal traffic injuries. From January through April, 11 people have died in the area.

“Market street is the spine of San Francisco,” Brian Wiedenmeier, the executive director San Francisco Bicycle Coalition said. “There’s a lot going on already. The last thing we need is more vehicles.”

Next year, the car traffic that has made Market Street so clogged for decades—and also hazardous—should be gone.

Better Market Street, a project organized by six San Francisco city agencies, will transform 2.2 miles of the famous corridor, between Steuart Street and Octavia Boulevard, into a pedestrian oasis. The renovations will feature sidewalk level bikeways, wider public transportation boarding islands and improved sidewalks.

Cities have been wrestling with what to do about traffic since the moment cars first careened onto the scene. And pedestrians often paid the price as planners devised street systems that made it easier for more and more cars to get around and shunted the people to the margins. Reversing this trend at a moment when younger, less car-dependent workers are flocking to cities has been a challenge. Other cities around the country have experimented with pedestrian-first planning. The Lincoln Road Mall in Miami Beach has existed since 1960, for example; and while it’s popular, it’s just eight blocks long. Boston pedestrianized short stretches of two downtown streets years ago, and Charlotte, N.C., is implementing a comprehensive downtown plan that will turn regular streets in pedestrian-only zones on the weekend. San Francisco’s Market Street makeover, though, is far more ambitious.

It was proposed nine years ago — “Unfortunately, San Francisco has a history of these kinds of big projects taking an incredibly long time to come to fruition,” said Wiedenmeier, who has been working on this for the past decade — and things picked up speed in 2014, when the city embraced an initiative called "Vision Zero," aimed at eliminating car-related fatalities by 2024. In 2015, the city established turn restrictions on Market Street, dissuading cars from using the thoroughfare.

Better Market Street is scheduled to break ground in the summer of 2020. The project still has some final administrative hurdles to overcome, making some supporters impatient. Earlier this month, nearly 100 protesters showed up on Market Street to support the initiative. Wearing bright-yellow T-shirts with bicycles , they demanded speeding up the project’s approval process.

“There is a desire from, I think, everyone to start construction as soon as possible,” Cristina Olea, project manager for Better Market Street, said. “We want a safer street. We want to reduce crashes. We also want people to feel comfortable walking or biking along Market Street.”

Jeff Speck is writing about Vision Zero. Meanwhile Jeff Gahan is promoting Zero Vision.

Jeff Speck is on Twitter, and here's what he's been saying about traffic safety, political movements ... and Vision Zero. Expect Jeff Gahan to award a contract to HWC Engineering (cha-ching) to explain to him what vision means, zero or otherwise. 

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Today I am tweeting from Rule 33. Adopt Vision Zero: Make a political movement around traffic safety. From #WalkableCityRules (1/4)

In every major American city, pedestrian deaths are a part of life. Often, the victim is a child. (2/4)

The news cycle is predictable: first comes the victim blaming, then the driver blaming—sober drivers are almost never punished—then perhaps a discussion about speed limits and enforcement. (3/4)

Through it all, the crash is called an “accident,” as if it was not preventable. Rarely is the design of the roadway itself considered. And never—never—is there any reconsideration of the professional engineering standards that created the hazard in the first place. (4/4)

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The Swedes, those geniuses of driving safety, know better. For some time, the Swedish traffic safety profession has acknowledged that street design is at the heart of street safety, and modified its engineering standards with an eye to lowering speeds in urban areas. (1/3)

The results are astounding. Their traffic fatality rate as a nation is about one quarter of the US’s, but the biggest difference is in the cities. In 2013, Stockholm, with a similar population to Phoenix, lost six people to car crashes. Phoenix lost 167. (2/3)

Remarkably, Stockholm made it through 2016 without a single pedestrian or cyclist dying. Welcome to Vision Zero, the Swedish path to eliminating traffic deaths. (3/3)

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Welcome to Vision Zero, the Swedish path to eliminating traffic deaths. Now a decade old, Vision Zero has become an international movement, and joining it in earnest means making a commitment to its goals. (1/5)

As of this writing, there are more than 30 “Vision Zero Cities” in the US, including Austin, Boston, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and Washington DC. (2/5)

Each of these cities has approached the commitment in its own way, but joining the Vision Zero network can be a key first step to identifying the elimination of traffic fatalities as an important goal and reorienting policy and investment around that goal. (3/5)

In New York City, for example, the Vision Zero program has organized the insertion (at last count) of 18.5 miles of protected bike lanes, 776 Leading Pedestrian Interval traffic signals, and 107 left-turn calming treatments ... (4/5)

... and also overseen a dramatic crackdown on speeding and failure-to-yield violations. The result? After holding fairly steady for three years, pedestrian fatalities dropped by a whopping 32 percent between 2016 to 2017, from 148 to 101. (5/5)

In NA, too? "Traffic Safety Advocates Taking Action Into Their Own Hands."

Last week we glanced in the direction of National Main Street, of which our local Develop New Albany is a part. NMS currently is "refreshing" its foundational "Four Points" to suit a changing world.

Main Streets will be encouraged to engage a wide range of local stakeholders in developing a vision of success for their downtown or neighborhood commercial districts. Main Streets will then be urged to develop cross-cutting Community Transformation Strategies that are connected to meaningful, longterm change. Progress will be measured in a variety of ways, including through economic metrics and qualitative assessment.

Speaking of transformation, here's an example of a group seeking it, in the real world, on the ground. Meanwhile, conditions for cyclists and pedestrians continue to worsen in New Albany, with neither DNA nor the city itself having much at all to say about it.

As ever, we're trying to cook omelettes without breaking eggs. It might be time for "similar guerrilla actions," eh?

Traffic Safety Advocates Taking Action Into Their Own Hands, by James Brasuell (Planetizen)

The San Francisco Transformation Agency is tired of watching cyclists and pedestrians die while the city promises more Vision Zero improvements.

A group of safety activists came together to implement a DIY safety improvement project at Sixth and Mission in San Francisco "after the deaths of two bicyclists, Heather Miller and Kate Slattery, who were killed the evening of June 22 after being struck by hit-and-run motorists," according to Bryan Goebel.

The action involved placing cones along the street to create a bump-out at a notoriously busy intersection, where pedestrian infrastructure is deteriorating and often ignored by drivers.

The so-called San Francisco Transformation Agency, or SFMTrA, takes inspiration from "similar guerrilla actions in Seattle, Portland and New York," writes Goebel, in moving beyond the Vision Zero efforts of the city. "They point out that despite the city’s Vision Zero effort, which has a goal of ending all traffic deaths by 2024, 26 people have died in traffic collisions so far in 2016," adds Goebel.

Drive like your family lives here ... because your choices matter.

(text from the YouTube video)

The “Your Choices Matter” campaign highlights the real and tragic results of traffic incidents. The imagery used in the campaign is vivid and attention-grabbing and ultimately helps the viewer understand the human cost of reckless behavior.

“While NYC DOT redesigned more streets than ever and NYPD increased traffic enforcement, bringing safer streets to the five boroughs is also the responsibility of drivers,” said DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. “Drivers’ choices behind the wheel matter and these television advertisements will remind millions of people that their actions can have fatal consequences for New Yorkers and their families.”

While Vision Zero promotes safe practices for all street users, these ads specifically identify driver behaviors. Drivers' choices are key factors in 70 percent of pedestrian fatalities citywide.

In addition to television ads, the Spring 2015 launch of “Your Choices Matter” includes robust radio, newspaper, and online advertising as well as an extensive out-of-home media plan located along priority corridors and intersections throughout the five boroughs.

To learn more about the campaign, visit www.YourChoicesMatter.nyc.

For more information about Vision Zero, visit www.nyc.gov/visionzero.