A divergent opinion on the diverging diamond

As a recovering roadgeek, I still get a little excited when a new highway interchange design is unveiled. This week, NPR took a look at the first “diverging diamond” in the U.S., at the interchange of MO-13 and I-44 in Springfield, Missouri. The interchange, lauded as an innovation in traffic safety, eliminates left turns across traffic for vehicles entering and leaving the highway, presumably making the interchange safer and helping traffic flow more smoothly by eliminating a cycle of the traffic light.

As for safety, Michael Trentacoste of the Federal Highway Administration says the diverging diamond interchanges are safer. “From a safety standpoint, we knew there would be less conflict points,” Trentacoste said. “You have traffic that wasn’t going to be crossing in front of oncoming traffic, because traffic is moved to the left.”

But it’s not safer for everyone. While traditional diamond interchanges have four points of conflicts for pedestrians and shoulder sidewalks, diverging diamonds have eight points of conflict. The sidewalk is no longer on the shoulder in the diverging diamond. Instead, pedestrians are forced to cross half of the arterial to reach a walkway placed in the median of the road. This, in the interest of safety, moves those pesky crosswalks out of the way of exiting drivers making a left-turn movement. On top of this, pedestrians are forced to cross unsignalized off-ramps from the highway, where drivers are not likely to have adjusted to urban speeds. Traditional diamonds, where all movements were signalized, gave a very clear indication to the driver when the pedestrian had the right-of-way. In the diverging diamond, pedestrians are left to fend for themselves on highway ramps.

Many cities have tried to find ways to reconnect neighborhoods that were split apart by urban interstate highways. NPR asks if this interchange is an idea whose “time has come.” If the time was the 1970s, when moving car traffic was the only focus and responsibility of state transportation agencies, then indeed, its time would have come (in fact, this interchange design was first used in the 1970s in France). But in an era when people are choosing not to drive and are seeking out safe means of mobility without a car, forcing pedestrians into an inhospitable environment in the middle of four lanes of fast-moving traffic is not innovative.

(photo via Google Maps)

A study in contrast: how city agencies respond to bike lane blockers

Toronto’s Police Department, after one of its officers was caught blocking a bike lane with his vehicle while spending 20 minutes in a nearby cafe:

“That’s not kosher at all. It’s right in our procedures that, outside of exigent circumstances, you do not park illegally, and that includes in bike lanes. [...] It’s very unfortunate that the officer decided to do this, but from the top on down, it’s something that will not be tolerated.”

- Sgt. Tim Burrows, Toronto Police Traffic Services Department

New York City’s Transit Agency, after one of its Access-A-Ride drivers hopped a curb to park in a bike lane while plenty of parking spaces were available across the street:

“Access-A-Ride drivers are instructed to observe all restrictions on parking and standing. However, due to traffic, drivers are often challenged to find safe locations to either pick up or drop off customers.”

- New York City Transit Spokesman

Holiday Market Causes Union Square Pedestrian Chaos

Below are some photos documenting the swarm of cars and vans blocking the entire sidewalk in Union Square this morning to offload items into the Union Square Holiday Market, which opens on Wednesday. With the entire sidewalk blocked, pedestrians are forced to step into the southbound lanes of Broadway and Park Avenue South, where cars scream through to catch the light at 14th Street.

I confronted a traffic cop who was at the northwest corner of 14th and Broadway and asked him why they’re allowing this to happen and not forcing cars to park curbside.

Naturally, his answer was, “that would block traffic.”

Pedestrians are second-class citizens in the eyes of the NYPD.

 

 

Friday Link Dump

Boston: I can’t help but think the “community members” who forced Massachusetts to pass on $147 million in Federal funding for a BRT line into some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Boston were a tiny vocal percentage of the actual community. This smells a lot like New York councilwoman Leticia James and her ardent support of on-street parking in a district where 70% of her constituents use mass transit.

Toronto: It would be nice to see the NYPD start a dialogue with the cycling community in New York the way it’s happening up north. Instead, New York gets photo documentation of cars parked in bike lanes and radio silence from those who are supposed to enforce the law.

Northeast US: Intercity bus travel is getting a lot of attention lately with recent entrants BoltBus and Megabus. Time discusses the “hip” new options to travel in the Northeast, and the Boston Globe points out their strength in a down economy. I’ll be riding Megabus to Philadelphia tomorrow – at 30% less than the cost of NJ Transit/SEPTA, and 80% less than the cost of an Amtrak train.

National: I’m not going to link to any of the dozens of conservative news sites that showed up in my news aggregator this week claiming that the push to nationalize safety standards for rapid transit was another attempt at Obama socialism. But considering how many people seriously tried to make that claim, I wonder who they think runs and funds rapid transit systems now.

How a rush-hour crash demonstrates the need for congestion pricing

On Tuesday morning, a head-on accident on Manhattan’s West Side Highway at 125th Street shut down a major commuter artery for nearly two hours. And it demonstrated just how badly the entire Tri-State Region needs congestion pricing.

Typically, the benefits of congestion pricing were communicated to New York City residents specifically. Little was mentioned of the overall benefit to the region, as the key benefits were reduced air pollution, additional funding for transit, and less congested streets in Lower Manhattan. But this accident shows that when massive amounts of single-occupant car traffic insists on commuting to Manhattan’s Central Business District, there are ripple effects throughout the entire regional highway system.

The accident, according to the New York Times, “led to traffic delays as far back as New Jersey and northward into Westchester County.” Needless to say, this backup spilled onto major east-west arteries that serve to transport people through the region, and between areas that are not easily accessible through public transit. This accident inconvenienced thousands of commuters who use the George Washington Bridge, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, the New York Thruway, and had ripple effects on hundreds of miles of local roads throughout the region. Many of these drivers have commuting patterns that currently make driving a necessity – getting from Westchester County to New Jersey can require several time-consuming transfers. In addition, the accident had an impact on regional commerce, slowing the movement of goods not just within the immediate Tri-State area, but up and down the East Coast. Most of these vehicles never enter Lower Manhattan, and almost all of them never ventured onto the West Side Highway.

The West Side Highway, however, serves as a funnel for steering vehicular traffic into Lower Manhattan. Over 125,000 vehicles pass along this particular stretch of the West Side Highway each day, and nearly 93,000 of them travel below 59th Street. If congestion pricing was instituted in a cordon zone below 59th Street, Komanoff’s Balanced Transportation Analyzer suggests that downtown-bound entries to the zone would drop by 16%. That’s nearly 15,000 vehicles off the West Side Highway, improving traffic flow on that road and having a ripple effect on the entire region. With fewer vehicles heading to the FDR or the West Side Highway, there would be less traffic at the key choke points where these highways link to principal regional arteries: the George Washington, the Major Deegan and Thruway, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and the RFK-Triborough Bridge. A great deal of the traffic on these roads is not heading to the Central Business District, yet all of the drivers who use these roads suffered from the West Side Highway backup, which was spawned by motorists who chose to drive into an area with bountiful mass transit options.

Throughout the congestion pricing debate in 2007, residents of New York’s outer boroughs complained that congestion pricing would be an unfair tax on them – even if they only occasionally drove into Manhattan. What was never communicated was the significant time savings they could reap while heading to other destinations as more people heading into Manhattan get out of their cars and use mass transit. While it would be in everyone’s best interest to get these people out of their cars as well, the livable streets movement could have swung more drivers in their favor if they told outer-borough residents what they stood to gain from congestion pricing. Perhaps next time around, proponents will remind drivers that they don’t all lose if the congestion pricing fight is won.

One last photo of NYPD parking abuse in Union Square

Not to beat a dead horse, but here are a pair of behemoth NYPD vehicles outside the same spot in Union Square tonight where I’ve caught squad cars parked on sidewalks two other times in the past week. Behind me was another squad car parked on the sidewalk just outside the subway stairs.

To confirm some readers’ suspicions, they are indeed vehicles belonging to the NYPD’s Transit District 4, whose headquarters are just in the Union Square Subway Station. But just because they’re protecting transit riders inside the subway system doesn’t excuse them for putting them in danger outside the station.

Justice, then injustice in Rhode Island

Last week, Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri signed a texting-while-driving ban into law, which was put into effect immediately. He didn’t need another reason to sign common-sense legislation, but just six days before, he got one from an incident in South Kingstown, RI:

A woman who was struck by a vehicle last week while she was walking on South Road was released from Rhode Island Hospital on Saturday.

[...]

Police have named a suspect, Dianne M. Wales, 38, of 53 Wingate Road, Wakefield. She was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with failure to stop at the scene of an accident, personal injury resulting, a felony, after telling police she was looking at her Blackberry and did not see the pedestrian.

If anything, failure to stop at the scene of an accident should only scrape the surface of the charges. And this isn’t really an “accident;” it sounds like an open-and-shut case of wreckless driving to me.

But Friday afternoon, Capt. Jeffrey Allen said police had pulled the charge pending input from the state Attorney General’s Office.

And unfortunately, the Rhode Island Attorney General has a history of letting those guilty of traffic crimes walk free. Late last month, the state finally threw a man in prison for driving with a suspended license – after his 17th offense. At the same time, the Attorney General’s office said that it only takes three such offenses to rise to the level of a felony.

If this case is in limbo and the state hasn’t decided whether or not to press charges against this woman in South Kingstown, let’s remind Attorney General Patrick Lynch of the disgusting details of this crime:

Wales allegedly told police she had just been in an accident and wasn’t sure what she hit, because she had been looking at e-mail on her Blackberry when she heard a “thud.”

According to the police report, Wales told police did not see what she might have hit, so she drove about 250 feet and pulled over to inspect the damage. At that time, she allegedly did not see anything and assumed she had struck a tree or a rock or an animal that had darted out of the woods.

As if striking a tree or an animal with a car because the driver was looking down at a Blackberry is any less wreckless? A human life was nearly taken because a selfish woman saw no problem with putting others at risk so she could read an e-mail. 

Regardless of the fact that the texting law went into effect six days later and regardless of the fact that the victim survived, this woman broke the law and must be punished. Letting her walk free sends a message that pedestrians can be carelessly mowed down in Rhode Island with no consequences.

Free parking in New York’s Union Square

The NYPD would like you to know that there’s a new loading and unloading zone in Union Square. Just use the sidewalk! Don’t worry – you won’t be ticketed, even though you’re breaking the law and inconveniencing thousands of pedestrians. After all, if the cops do it, it must be legal!

When mixed-use goes wrong

Above is part of the site plan for a mixed-use development called Brookside Center in suburban Coventry, Rhode Island. right (north) side of the site will hold 44 residential units in duplex condominiums. To the lower left will be a grouping of 60 townhouses centered around open space. To the upper left will be 50,000 square feet of retail and office space centered around a town green, including an already existing restaurant and bank, as well as access to the main frontage, which leads to a nearby supermarket (less than 1/3 mile away) and several restaurants.

This seems like a no-brainer for a walkable development. But what seems to be missing for those 19 residential units in the northern end of the development?

A sidewalk.

And in case you thought it was just an error in the site plan, here’s a rendering:

Without a sidewalk, the developer’s message is clear: drive everywhere, even if it’s 500 feet up the street. It’s amazing how something so simple can say so much about their predispositions.

Photo of the Week: The wrong place for shared space

Is this some sort of experiment in shared space in New York City? No, it’s a co-opting of pedestrian space in New York’s Union Square by parked vehicles yesterday morning.  Sure, the cyclist is breaking the law, too… but the police certainly set a precedent.

It’s not the first time that the NYPD has decided to inconvenience those without cars for the convenience of parking their own cars. And unfortunately, I doubt it will be the last.