Roger,
Thanks for this post. I must say I'm quite taken with the
potholes-as-a-calming-measure idea. People should think
inside boxes less often.
I, too, struggle unsuccessfully to warm to the idea of
speed bumps. While I understand the discomfort many
feel with the sense of living on a thoroughfare, it
would seem to me that, at some point, this discomfort
needs to be moderated by a recognition that one *does*
live on a thoroughfare. Our neighborhood streets are, as
far as I know, *intended* to serve as through streets,
carrying some amount of traffic from point A to point B,
regardless of the immediate utility of that traffic to
those living on these streets. These are not suburban
cul-de-sacs, these are parts of a municipal traffic grid.
These are not *our* streets, they are the *public's*
streets, and anything done to them must take the public's
interest into account. To say nothing of how inconvienent
these measures would be for residents, as you so
clearly point out.
This being said, there is the issue of lawlessness in
our midst, and what to do about it. This is not a problem
unique to our neighborhood, not by a long shot. There
was a fascinating article in last Thursday's Washington
Post about the appalling lack of regard for traffic laws
that is held by far too many of us. The full text of
this article can be found at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46373-2000Jul14.html
but I will excerpt some here:
Why is it that people who would not dream of
shoplifting a roll of Life Savers will violate
car-pool restrictions or speed limits, roll
through a stop sign or run a red light?
"To most people, stealing is a moral issue. It's
ingrained in people. People would feel guilty
about shoplifting," said Allan F. Williams,
a researcher with the Insurance Institute for
Highway Safety. "I don't see the same thing on
the highway. If I run a red light when there's
no one to contend with, that's not considered
much of anything."
Indeed, his institute recently studied the
intersection of Route 50 and Fillmore Street in
Arlington County for several months and found
that drivers go through a red light an average
of once every 12 minutes--and every five minutes
during the peak 8 a.m. hour.
Many people don't conceive of traffic
law as real law, according to police and
criminologists. Unlike criminal law, there's no
intent to harm anyone, and running a red light
or speeding simply raises the seemingly remote
risk of an accident. Traffic violations appear
to be victimless crimes, if crimes at all.
Yet the stakes can be high. "When you compare
shoplifting and running a traffic signal,"
Compston said, "it is just that kind of ignoring
a traffic law that will cost another individual
his life."
So the question becomes, short of just giving up, what
can be done? Personally, I mourn the appalling lack of
enforcement, but the daily stationing on our streets
of Police with Ticket Books seems an option that is
unavailable. Certainly, if we were to get them, every
street would have to get them, and we *do* need people
left to be doctors and factory workers and such. Signs
don't seem to help -- as the Post story makes clear,
people simply do not take them seriously. It would appear
that there are only two things left to do: One is to to,
somehow, make people feel (a) quite comfortable traveling
down these streets at the speed limit or below and (b)
scared out of their wits as soon as they exceed the speed
limit -- essentially the psychological equivalent of an
invisible fence for a dog; everything is peachy-keen until
you encroach on the line, in which event pain ensues. Much
of what the city has proposed is based on the assumption
that this can effectively be done. The other thing that
one can do, and this is my personal favorite, is encourage
people to take some other path; this is, of course, the
theory behind a bypass.
Put more simply, the choices would appear to be between
increasing the cost of speeding down these streets on the
one hand (there does not appear to be much of a cost at
all at the moment, so I would imagine that there is quite a
bit of headroom here), and introducing a new option which
offers a far greater benefit on the other.
Realistically, both things probably need to be done,
since it is unlikely that any alternative route would
be precisely as functional as the original, and thus
no matter how much better the other route looks, one
will always need to contend with lawbreakers in the
low-benefit path.
I guess that what I am getting back to here (sorry for
being so consistently obtuse in this message) is the
issue of there being some good, highly visible connection
among E Diamond, W Diamond and MD355, that (a) does not
involve a grade-level crossing, and (b) does not entail
traveling on neighborhood streets. As I've mentioned
before, an underpass under the CSX tracks connecting E and
W Diamond, between MD355 and the old firehouse, with good
connectivity from MD355 at Cedar (with a traffic signal,
left turn arrows and all), would, in my opinion, make an
enormous difference in the amount and type of traffic that
is carried by Brookes, Walker, Maryland, Montgomery,
Meem, and the residential portion of Chestnut.
In this view, a single construction project in a single
location that is already slated for major construction
work could have a substantially positive impact on almost
the entire residential portion of Olde Towne Gaithersburg,
and do so in a way that people can feel positive about,
that makes their lives easier. Were such to be done,
a follow-up study on the traffic situation on our streets
may well indicate that much of what is being discussed
by the city for our streets -- projects that would cause
widespread disruption and change at significant cost and
which are likely to engender a large stock of bad will --
has been rendered unnecessary.
But I am certainly no expert, and I am certain that there
are compelling reasons to not take this approach that
simply are not apparent to me. Surely the city must have
some, for they have been, to my knowledge, totally cold to
the idea, and these reasons must be, from some perspective,
entirely obvious, because, as far as I know, the city has
not even seen fit to articulate them or to conduct a study
to fully evaulate this question. I beg to be corrected on
these things.
In the short term, however, the situation on Maryland in
particular seems like something that needs to be dealt
with. The traffic study figures show that nearly a quarter
of the Westbound traffic -- around 300 cars per day -- on
Maryland is moving at over 35MPH. That would appear to
be a situation that might justify some actual enforcement.
--Bob
On Tue, Jul 18, 2000 at 10:07:17PM -0400, Roger Aamodt wrote:
> I am concerned that in our rush to slow "or calm" traffic, we are not
> considering the adverse consequences to residents. Speed bumps slow
> traffic. They also slow response to emergencies, create a daily obstacle
> course for residents and make it difficult to park on parts of the street.
> Some of the other ideas that have been floated would narrow streets and make
> it more difficult for moving vans and delivery trucks to access the
> neighborhood. There is a real risk that we would be discommodated by trucks
> blocking the road for protracted periods while unloading. It is not at all
> clear to me that the benefits will be greater than the negatives. I would
> appreciate hearing from anyone who can articulate the rationale for creating
> artificial barriers. To me it makes just as much sense to stop paving the
> roads and allowing their deterioration to slow traffic - and it is a lot
> cheaper.
>
> Roger L. Aamodt
> 17 Montgomery Avenue
> Gaithersburg, MD 20877
> 301 963-2447
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 19 2000 - 16:04:17 EDT