Posted on 01/19/2019 5:23:31 AM PST by reaganaut1
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Los Angeles, like cities nationwide, is transforming its streets. In July 2017 the city installed a “road diet” on a 0.8-mile stretch of Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista, reducing four lanes to two and adding bike lanes separated from traffic by parking buffers. The project is part of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Vision Zero initiative, which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city by 2025. Launched in 2015, Vision Zero is the most radical transformation of how people move through Los Angeles since the dawn of the freeway era 75 years ago.
By almost any metric it’s been a disaster. Pedestrian deaths have nearly doubled, from 74 in 2015 to 135 in 2017, the last year for which data are available. After years of improvement, Los Angeles again has the world’s worst traffic, according to the transportation research firm Inrix. Miles of vehicles idling in gridlock have reduced air quality to 1980s levels.
The international Vision Zero movement began in the 1990s in Sweden, where it apparently worked well. The Swedish government claims a 50% reduction in traffic deaths since 2000. Hoping to achieve similar gains, U.S. mayors from New York City to North Pole, Alaska, have adopted Vision Zero. Projects range from multibillion-dollar light-rail lines to retiming traffic lights for slower traffic. Road diets are key.
In neighborhoods across New York City, residents, community boards and local businesses have done battle with city officials over “traffic calming” measures imposed by city hall. Lane reductions, bike lanes, new meridians and other innovations designed to reduce vehicle speeds make it difficult for bulky ambulances and fire trucks to respond quickly to emergencies. And while pedestrian deaths have plummeted in the Big Apple under Vision Zero, deaths of bicyclists, motorcyclists and people in vehicles have ticked up.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Oh man eye tests. When I went to get my first license in Alamogordo New Mexico there was an old man going through recheck. Failed the eye test like 5 times while I was going through processing. Then the clerk said he should go home, come back first thing in the morning when he was fresh and awake and would probably pass. Guess how he went home, after it being PROVEN he couldn’t see well enough to drive. Then I took my test, around the block once, no left turns, no parallel parking, no nothing.
They are doing this in Colorado Springs, making down town such a hassle it’s not worth going there. When I have to drive through it, the bike lanes are empty space where an additional lane used to be. No one is using the bike lanes and traffic is backed up, waiting single file to get through the lights. Utter stupidity.
LA has been jammed with epic traffic for decades. And what to the extreme leftist in CA do? They start taking away lanes.
No joke.
It’s all part of the plan to push whats left of the middle class out of CA, eliminate the car and eliminate freedom to travel to go when you want, to where you want.
Dallas put in some HOV lanes under some sort of Federal pressure and bait program. I think they are far underused, especially when traffic accidents close lanes, and traffic would move much better if those dedicated empty lanes were released to the general traffic.
“Vision Zero”. Pretty much sums it up.
For others than themselves, that is.
I stand somewhat corrected.
They are, of course, exempt.
In my location, it’s obvious that many new residents are 1st generation drivers, who probably had no experience of even riding in a car back in their home country.
Of course.
“No need for drivers’ ed anymore.”
When I went to get my drivers license in 1969 there was drivers ed in the school, but I wasn’t in school anymore, I was working on the farm.
I walked into the local DMV and told the clerk I was there to get my drivers license.
He knew my family pretty well.
He looked at me and asked how long I had been driving the farm truck. When I told him three years he nodded and said “anyone who can drive that Studebaker with a load of cattle has all the training he needs”.
He gave me my DL, chauffeurs license and the motorcycle license just in case I bought a bike. :)
It could be.
Here in Indy our rulers have just dropped the speed limit in the downtown area from 30 to 25 and extended the Hours that folks have to pay into the parking meters there.
I’d love to see the stats for non-fatal accidents with property damage and/or injury. That info is never readily available for some reason.
#43 and spent billions widening the 405 freeway in the Sepulvada pass only to make them car pool lanes. They also did not fix the road by Sunset blvd a few miles away on the 405 that makes your car feel like it is going over a washboard.
I stand corrected; but whatever the date, traffic deaths have spiked in many states after the introduction of the smart phone.
THey will still come down with the full weight of the law on YOU, Irishman, so don’t get any ideas.
Wait until you try to navigate a 5 entry circle that is two lane thru only 80% of it!!
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.98815,-85.91889,567m/data=!3m1!1e3
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