I live just south of a dangerous S-curve, with a posted advisory speed limit of 25mph, on a "minor arterial" where the legal speed limit is 40. There was yet another deadly crash where a drunk driver ran off the road and killed workers in someone's front yard in September 2022. The City made plans to install transverse thermoplastic rumble strips to warn drivers about the upcoming S-curve, thinking that that would solve it. I called Traffic Engineering and asked about instead installing raised crosswalks on either end of the S-curve to force compliance with the 25mph advisory speed limit (and allow neighbors to actually cross the street), and I was told that the City couldn't do that because slowing down cars to the actual advised speed by speed table would cause so much congestion that "you wouldn't be able to get out of your driveway." The City's commitment to keeping this road functioning at an acceptable LOS for an arterial and requiring commuting motorists to navigate this dangerous S-curve at well-above the advised speed for the 2 horizontal curves, while also providing residential access and seeming to care about loss-of-life, is a kind of trying to "have your cake and eat it too." What it really says to me is that the loss of life is bad, but impeding commuting motorists is worse.
I'm in Richmond as well, and I have some Richmond specific questions. I would love to make Carytown a pedestrian only street, but there seem to be a lot of residents who are very predicably concerned about street parking and not being able to find a place to park due to visitors parking in residential streets. Maybe this is too big or to general a question, but how could we quell those fears? The only thing I can thing of is building another parking garage 😒 which isn't what I want, but the suburbanites driving into the city definitely aren't using GRTC to get there. And also, do you have any info on what plans may be for the Colesium? Any plans for the City Stadium? I would love to see the Colesium come down and replaced with 30 story apartments. I would love to see the city stadium improved upon by replacing those decrepit bleachers with something else. That's a lot! Thanks for reading this far.
Yes. Urban areas should be all about pedestrians. Everything we build in an urban area should benefit the people who walk -- walkable neighborhoods, connections to other parts of the city via walking, bike paths, public transportation, even those shitty little scooters. But cars, yes, we need to build infrastructure for cars -- infrastructure that slows them and limits the damage they cause.
I live just south of a dangerous S-curve, with a posted advisory speed limit of 25mph, on a "minor arterial" where the legal speed limit is 40. There was yet another deadly crash where a drunk driver ran off the road and killed workers in someone's front yard in September 2022. The City made plans to install transverse thermoplastic rumble strips to warn drivers about the upcoming S-curve, thinking that that would solve it. I called Traffic Engineering and asked about instead installing raised crosswalks on either end of the S-curve to force compliance with the 25mph advisory speed limit (and allow neighbors to actually cross the street), and I was told that the City couldn't do that because slowing down cars to the actual advised speed by speed table would cause so much congestion that "you wouldn't be able to get out of your driveway." The City's commitment to keeping this road functioning at an acceptable LOS for an arterial and requiring commuting motorists to navigate this dangerous S-curve at well-above the advised speed for the 2 horizontal curves, while also providing residential access and seeming to care about loss-of-life, is a kind of trying to "have your cake and eat it too." What it really says to me is that the loss of life is bad, but impeding commuting motorists is worse.
If at all possible, the ones that change the pavement material also are a big help. The sound factor helps alert drivers.
I'm in Richmond as well, and I have some Richmond specific questions. I would love to make Carytown a pedestrian only street, but there seem to be a lot of residents who are very predicably concerned about street parking and not being able to find a place to park due to visitors parking in residential streets. Maybe this is too big or to general a question, but how could we quell those fears? The only thing I can thing of is building another parking garage 😒 which isn't what I want, but the suburbanites driving into the city definitely aren't using GRTC to get there. And also, do you have any info on what plans may be for the Colesium? Any plans for the City Stadium? I would love to see the Colesium come down and replaced with 30 story apartments. I would love to see the city stadium improved upon by replacing those decrepit bleachers with something else. That's a lot! Thanks for reading this far.
Yes. Urban areas should be all about pedestrians. Everything we build in an urban area should benefit the people who walk -- walkable neighborhoods, connections to other parts of the city via walking, bike paths, public transportation, even those shitty little scooters. But cars, yes, we need to build infrastructure for cars -- infrastructure that slows them and limits the damage they cause.