This seems like a good piece of technology: a dash-mounted GPS receiver that both provides and reacts to real-time traffic information. As you sit in traffic, the unit sends your speed and position to a central server and then sends you traffic-tailored directions to get you to your destination.
But, it's going to have a nasty consequence. Basically, it's a unit that tells you when you should use a cut-through to avoid traffic on an arterial and where the cut-through is. As if it the situation is not bad enough already.
This just reinforces the importance of lowering the design speed of known cut-throughs.
As you read the article (which you should), just remember that detour is just a neutral way of saying cut-through.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Cut-through homing device
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Accommodating turkeys
Brookline biker Tommy suggests equal access:
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/ / / / / angled parking
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auto travel lane
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bicycle lane
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fowl lane
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metered parking
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I I
I I businesses
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/ / / / / /
/ / / / / angled parking
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auto travel lane
- - - - - -
auto travel lane
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bicycle lane
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fowl lane
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metered parking
__i___i___i___i_
| | | | sidewalk
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I I
I I businesses
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Drawing the line
It seems inevitable that there will be some double-parking in bike lanes, particularly by FedEx, UPS, &c. But, if there's one thing I can't abide, it's wild fowl blocking the way.
Last night, for the second time, there was a wild turkey on Beacon Street in Brookline blocking my way and forcing me out of the bike lane and into the street.
Friend of NS&S Joe shot this picture of a wild turkey in the same neighborhood (Washington Square). It's not clear from Joe's shot whether the bird is about to walk into the bike lane or has already walked into the bike lane. But, I am absolutely certain that bike-lane blocking is on its agenda.
Healthy Streets
In the needs-no-comment category:
But money isn’t everything. Swedes believe that holistic social care—everything from happier professional lives to better street lights that encourage evening walks—results in healthier citizens and ultimately lower medical bills.
From Foriegn Policy's analysis of the five healthiest countries in the world. Via Tapped.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Fat and fast
I've long thought that a problem with the nation's fuel consumption is the proliferation of heavy, powerful cars and trucks. All else being equal, a lighter, less powerful vehicle requires less fuel.
The editor-in-chief of Car and Driver came to a similar conclusion from a different angle. He explains how engines get more efficient but cars do not by noting that cars are getting heavier and more powerful. If you make a more efficient engine, you can use the efficiency to consume less fuel or to create more power. In the U.S., because of cheap gas, the market has demanded more power, with a corresponding increase in vehicle weight.
How can you encourage people to buy lighter and less powerful cars? (Note, I used the word "lighter," not light. A certain amount of weight gain is attributable to safety.)
How about a tax on the combination of power, weight, and performance?
If you need a big truck and lots of power—for towing and hauling—you don't need to be able to accelerate quickly or go fast. In fact, if you're hauling stuff or people, you probably shouldn't be peeling out or going too fast.
If you want some zip—and I'm not completely anti-performance—you should be willing to accept some limitation on weight.
But, there's no reasonable case to be made for a truck like the Cadillac Escalade, which weighs nearly 3 tons, has 400 horsepower, and goes from zero to 60 mph in 6.3 seconds. Or for a 4700lb. Dodge Minivan that gets to 60 in 8.2 seconds. Or a 4200 lb. Toyota Highlander that gets to 60 in 7.0 seconds.
It would be trivial to put a chip on cars over a certain weight (3500 lbs?) that limits acceleration to 0-60 in 10.0 (or higher). It's would use the same technology that already applies the brakes and cuts down power to provide stability control and roll-over protection. Tax the bejeezus out of anyone who wants a heavy car or truck without the chip.
The chip wouldn't hurt the working stiff who needs a big, powerful truck. He shouldn't be deterred by slow acceleration as long as the truck can haul and tow.
The chip wouldn't hurt the large family that needs something biggish for kids and kid detritus. Do you need to do stoplight drag racing in a minivan?
The chip should only discourage people who buy cars and trucks that are bigger and and more powerful than they need. (Think of all the weight for off-roading equipped SUVs that never go off road.)
I made a similar argument here.
Unacceptable loss
Sixteen-year-olds dying in car crashes should not be an acceptable part of life.
It should not be okay to say that 42,000 to 43,000 motor vehicle-related deaths a year is simply the price you pay for automobile travel, that it's really not so bad on a fatality-per-million-miles basis.
For years, flying by commercial airline has long been the safest mode of travel in the U.S. Still, over the last ten years, the rate of fatalities in domestic commercial air travel has dropped 65%. In 2007, there has only been a single fatality.
We should seek similar gains with automobile-related injuries and death. I'm not sure zero deaths is a realistic goal. It's unlikely that the commercial air travel is going to remain fatality free year-after-year. And, it's undoubtedly easier to control the factors that lead to airplane crashes than those that lead to automobile crashes (though airplane crashes are nearly always more catastrophic).
But, the young woman who died in Weymouth was not wearing a seat belt in a car driving too fast. That's not an accident. That's a preventable tragedy.
Friday, October 5, 2007
It's a street
What's with the "Route 9 Boylston" in the post below?
The debate over Chestnut Hill Square is, at least in part, a debate over the vision for the Chestnut Hill shopping district and even the larger Boylston Street corridor. The current Chestnut Hill Square design is a vision that turns its back on Boylston Street, consigns it to its Route 9-ness.
Some of us have a different vision, a vision that acknowledges that Boylston Street is a significant artery, but that it can also be host to an attractive and meaningful commercial and pedestrian experience. As part of an effort to articulate—and champion—that alternative vision, this blog will no longer refer to Boylston Street as Route 9.
Boylston is a street. People live on it. People shop on it. And development that turns its back on it is not welcome.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Getting Florence/Heath unbackwards
What if, regarding Heath and Florence Streets, Chestnut Hill Square is not the problem, but a potential solution?
A staggering 95% of current (2004) weekday peak hour Florence/Heath eastbound traffic is cut-through traffic. In New England Development's Final Environmental Impact Report, the traffic study for the weekday evening peak hour traffic show that 474 cars enter Florence from Route 9 Boylston. (Appendix D, figure 5.) All but 25 continue on to Heath and Hammond Pond Parkway. Westbound, about half the 171 cars that enter Heath at Hammond Pond continue on to Route 9 Boylston.
New England Development's projected eastbound figures for 2010 post-build are 513/14, or over 97%. (Appendix D, figure 21.) Westbound about 80% of the 151 cars that start at Heath and Hammond Pond Parkway will be cut through.
No wonder Brookline wants to close Heath Street. If you could get rid of 513 cars an hour while only inconveniencing a handful, wouldn't you do it? (The key is that everyone agrees those 513 cars really ought to be on Route 9 Boylston and Hammond Pond Parkway.)
What's really mind-blowing, though, is a comparison of the projected cut-through traffic along Heath/Florence and total projected traffic in and out of Chestnut Hill Square. According to the FEIR, during peak weekday hours, the site will generate 1349 trips, in and out.
Imagine reconfiguring Florence Street such that it was no longer an attractive cut-through and it provided an entrance into Chestnut Hill Square. Florence and Heath would have to absorb more than a third of the Chestnut Hill Square traffic to equal the existing cut-through traffic. Trade the cut-through traffic for a Chestnut Hill Square entrance and you'd also end up with a Chestnut Hill Square that is much better integrated into the neighborhood.
In part, this is what Brookline is proposing by blocking Heath Street. There will be no more cut-through traffic. And, most likely, Chestnut Hill Square will have to create access through the site for traffic from Florence. The solution is incomplete because it does not provide access to Chestnut Hill Square from east along Florence. And, it cuts off access to the Newton side of the neighborhood from Brookline and vice versa.
A more complete solution is possible. The Chestnut Hill Square frontage along Florence Street is long and the Chestnut Hill Square site is a completely open canvas. There are few limitations.
Imagine rerouting Florence Street north into Chestnut Hill Square. (It would probably require moving some or all of the residences onto the south side of the new Florence and figuring out a way to get into the existing homes along Florence. Details.) Make the route through Chestnut Hill Square circuitous or otherwise an unfit cut-through.
Maybe a roundabout at a Florence Street entrance to Chestnut Hill Square would discourage cut-through traffic.
There has to be a better option than living with cut-through traffic or creating a dead end.
Previously: Florence Street kink
Chuck writes
Chuck bikes, finds that area roads aren't very accommodating.
Chuck drives, finds that Newton North is short on bike racks.
Go, Chuck, go.
Florence Street kink
If the Florence/Heath Street cut-through is a natural because it describes an almost straight line between Florence and
What follows is a very crude idea of how New England Development could re-route Florence onto its property to add a kink to the street. Forget about whether the chicane I've drawn is the chicane a trained traffic engineer would draw. It's meant only to illustrate the concept.
The chicane could provide at least two advantages:
- Slow speeds, perhaps enough to make Florence/Heath a less attractive cut-through.
- Create a safe place for a pedestrian crossing.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Street repair
Cold-planing on Langley Road started this morning.
They are cold-planing and patching on Beacon Street around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.
Walk to School Day
Today was International National Newton Bowen Walk to School Day. (I'm sure some other schools participated, too.)
What a wonderful morning. Traffic was not just noticeably less, it was dramatically less.
Son of NS&S, unprompted upon waking: "We should all wear 'No Cars' signs."
Lauren the crossing guard: "Wow."
Two young ladies behind me: "Do you think your class will have the most walkers?"
The drive in front of Bowen, which is usually backed up, had no cars on it for stretches at a time.
Police Officer Devine stood quietly in a corner with literally nothing to do.
But what really moved me was the human scale of the morning. The front of the school was packed with people, not overwhelmed by cars. It was a community, not a line of traffic.
I'm at a loss of words to describe how much better it was.
It's not all improvements
Alderman Rick Lipof was at tonight's public hearing in Brookline. Near the close of the meeting, he encouraged the good folks of Brookline to work together with Newton to address the traffic problems in the area. Then he trotted out the New England Development line that this project will include $8 to 13 million dollars in mitigation money, some of which could be Brookline's if the town plays ball.
We've covered this ground already. New England Development, in its Final Environmental Impact Report, included a table of proposed "improvements" that total over $10 million (p. VIII-51). But, over half is allocated to projects for which New England Development, not the city or its neighborhoods, is the primary, if not exclusive, beneficiary: $5.8 million to widen Route 9 and $660,000 to create a signalized median break. As I wrote in the earlier post, these two measures won't "'help ease the expected traffic increase.' They will help create the expected traffic increase."
I'm not sure if Alderman Lipof is aware of the nature of the allocations or of the fact that the proposed changes hardly constitute unalloyed benefit to the City. Before he next lauds New England Development for its generosity, he ought to take a look.
By the way, I don't mean to suggest that New England Development is being irresponsible or stingy. Some of the $10 million is principally for mitigation. I think the City should require more money from New England Development, with the allocation skewed more towards alternative transportation. But, it ain't nothing.
Still, let's be more careful discussing the money New England Development says its willing to spend, shall we?
Previously: NED's Overstated mitigation commitment
Three generations of cutters-through
Tonight, Brookline held a public hearing on a proposal to close Heath Street somewhere between Heathwood and Arlington. Closing Heath Street would make Heath and Florence Streets dead ends, until and unless New England Development created a street that connected Florence to Route 9 through Chestnut Hill Square.
The problem is cut-through traffic, not traffic that would travel to Chestnut Hill Square along Florence or Heath. Chestnut Hill Square is designed so that there is access from Florence only to the apartment building on the south side of the site (a mistake for a host of reasons). Chestnut Hill Square's contribution to the -- already existing -- problem is the traffic that it will add to and back up Route 9. The more backed up Route 9 is, the more attractive the Florence/Heath cut-through is. Also, Chestnut Hill Square will introduce two new lights for traffic to contend with: in front of the development and at Hammond Pond Parkway (which one assumes will have allow right turn on red).
A fundamental cause of the cut-through problem -- existing and future -- is the design of Florence and Heath. They describe an almost perfect diagonal from the Route 9 at Florence to Heath at Hammond Pond Parkway. It's no wonder that one of the Brookline selectman described how he was a third-generation cutter-through.
Here are three alternatives to closing Heath Street:
- Put a kink in Florence Street right in front of the apartment building. The current design has a bit of open land between the apartment building driveway and Florence Street. Use that space to reshape Florence from a smooth curve to a sharper turn or two. This is something that can be introduced and tried now.
- Extend Louise Road into the development and provide access to the entire site from Florence. Ironically, protecting the neighborhood from the traffic in and out of the site may contribute to more traffic trying to bypass the site. A light at a Louise Street entrance into the site might discourage more cut-through traffic than it generates.
- Focus on making Florence and Heath Streets pedestrian friendly. Sidewalks, wide shoulders, narrow travel lanes, raised crosswalks would all mitigate the effect of the traffic, may slow it, and may even . Go really crazy and lower the design speed to 20 mph with horizontal and vertical deflection.
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