Posts Tagged "safety over speed"
Eliminating driver error doesn’t work. What does? Part II: Designing solutions
Design-based solutions, which accept and plan for human mistakes, can avoid the pitfalls of behavioral solutions. A recent report from New York City’s Department of Transportation sheds some light on which of those solutions work best—and for whom.
We’re living in an arterial world
The 99% Invisible podcast discussed the Netflix show Old Enough, where Japanese children run their first errands, explaining how street design lets the show’s participants be both safe and independent from a young age. We explore the flip side of this coin in the United States, where convenience for cars becomes a major inconvenience for anybody who can’t drive one.
New reconciliation package includes funds for safety, access
In response to the proposed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Transportation for America Director Beth Osborne released this statement.
A decade of prioritizing speed over safety has led to 62 percent more deaths
Smart Growth America’s new report Dangerous by Design 2022 uses more data than ever to understand how design impacts travel behavior. The findings confirm what we’ve always known: it’s impossible to prioritize both safety and keeping cars moving quickly.
WATCH: Safety and vehicle speed are fundamentally opposed
Sometimes we have to see it to believe it. How would street design really look if we prioritized the safety of all road users? Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition’s latest video illustrates that when streets are designed to move as many cars as possible as quickly as possible, other road users pay the price.
VIDEO: Beth Osborne explains our broken approach to setting speed limits with WSJ
T4America director Beth Osborne joined Wall Street Journal correspondent George Downs to explain why one controversial method for setting speed limits results in higher and higher speeds.
Longer trips, faster speeds, fewer options: What’s really valued in the “value of time”?
Despite its name, the federal “value of time” guidance doesn’t actually value travelers’ time at all. Instead, this arcane but influential measure focuses on one thing: vehicle speed. The result is more dangerous, less convenient travel for everyone.
USDOT road safety strategy finally acknowledges the importance of design on speeds and roadway deaths
On the release of the new Roadway Safety Strategy by the U.S. Department of Transportation, T4America director Beth Osborne issued this statement
Lemonade from lemons: Improvements worth celebrating within flawed infrastructure bill
Money from the finalized $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal is already flowing out to states and metro areas who are plugging it right into projects both already underway and on the horizon. After covering six things the administration should do immediately to maximize this mammoth infusion of unexpected cash, here’s a longer look at some of the law’s incremental or notable successes, with the aim of equipping the administration and advocates alike to steer this money toward the best possible outcomes.
Behind the scenes on the rise in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities and injuries
Driver expectations, higher speeds resulting from less congestion, major gaps in infrastructure, and a systemic criminalization of pedestrian and cyclist traffic on the road have contributed to the alarming, record increases in the deaths of people struck and killed while walking or biking, according to researchers.
Month of Action Week 2: Tackling our deadly streets
With Congress writing long-term transportation policy this month, we need to make sure that this bill doesn’t continue the broken status quo. This week, we need you to take action to support the Complete Streets Act.
Unsafe streets in marginalized communities lead to inequitable traffic enforcement
Equitable enforcement of traffic rules is a major national discussion. But under-discussed is the role dangerously-designed streets play in putting Black and brown people in a perilous position: break traffic law and risk interacting with police, or put themselves in harm’s way when navigating unsafe infrastructure. Here’s our recap on a recent House hearing on equitable enforcement of traffic rules.
State safety targets show need for Congress to further prioritize safety
For decades, state departments of transportation have treated pedestrian and cyclists fatalities like weather events: something that increases simply as people drive more, putting these deaths outside of the control of DOTs. But with COVID-19 proving this to be false, it’s past time for state DOTs to implement performance measures to reduce the number of people killed while walking or biking. Here’s our comparison of state safety targets.
Angry that speed is prioritized over safety? Here’s what to do about it
Last week was #SafetyOverSpeed week here at Transportation for America, where we took a deep dive on our second principle for transportation policy: design for safety over speed. We spent the week discussing how prioritizing speed makes it almost impossible for most Americans to reach destinations anyway other than driving. Now we need to do something about it. […]
Our seven favorite tweets from the #SafetyOverSpeed tweet chat
Last week we hosted a tweet chat to discuss the importance of prioritizing #SafetyOverSpeed, in tandem with our week of blogs discussing our second principle for transportation policy. Here are our seven favorite tweets from the chat.
Safety over speed: Safe streets are climate-friendly streets
Lowering speeds have more benefits besides saving lives: street designs that keep speeds low help reduce carbon emissions, too. In this blog post by our friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Ann Shikany and Carter Rubin discuss how safer roads increase rates of biking, walking, and transit ridership, and enable fewer and shorter car trips.
Safety over speed week: The U.S. builds death traps, not streets
We took a look at one busy road outside of Orlando where a dozen people have been struck and killed by drivers in recent years. The mix of high-speed traffic with people walking, biking, and taking transit is a dangerous combination; in the event of a crash, people die. The Complete Streets Act of 2019 would go a long way to give local government more resources to redesign these dangerous streets so everyone can travel along them safely.
Safety over speed week: The key to slowing traffic is street design, not speed limits
Today, as “safety over speed” week continues, we’re running a guest post from our friends at Strong Towns that uses some simple pictures to explain how street design is a far more powerful tool for slowing down traffic and prioritizing safety compared to the strategy of lowering speed limits.
Safety over speed week: Our transportation system values some lives more than others
U.S. transportation policy focuses first and foremost on ensuring that drivers can travel with as little delay as possible. But this laser focus on speed sidelines other more important considerations like the preservation of human life and the health impacts of vehicle pollution. Prioritizing safety in our transportation policy—at the federal, state, and local levels—would be a major step towards a more equitable transportation system.
Safety over speed week: Prioritizing safety is intrinsically connected with improving transit service
Nearly every bus transit rider starts and ends their trip with a walk, and decisions made to prioritize vehicle speed over safety often have significant impacts on transit. This excerpt from the new book “Better Buses, Better Cities” helps explain how better bus transit and prioritizing safety over speed are intrinsically related.
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