On Design Fundamentalism and Speed: Debate on Vision Zero Principles

Over at our Strong Towns group there's a link to an interesting note at Strong Towns HQ.

Strong Towns on weakness of signs alone

Just a few days ago, legal scholar and safety advocate Greg Shill suggested, by contrast, that design fundamentalism was an error. A link to that piece was also posted to our Strong Towns group.

Greg Shill against "design fundamentalism" (bluesky)

And in response to Shill, safety and transportation journalist David Zipper suggests Shill might be strawmanning the argument a bit, saying "I think he misrepresents and undersells Vision Zero."

David Zipper: Shell misses on Vision Zero (bluesky)

And finally, here in Oregon there's a body of advocacy that appeals to the City of Portland's data on reductions in "top end" speeding after they simply changed a bunch of signs.

But the Portland data might not be as strong as it seems.

Decongestion Pricing Works! The Legislature should Attend to its Success

As ODOT continues to push for big expansion on I-5 in a Columbia River Crossing expansion and in the I-5 Rose Quarter project, the wild success of decongestion pricing in New York City should give the Legislature renewed interest in the Portland area congestion relief pricing scheme that has been put on hiatus.

Oregonian today, NY Times yesterday

The data, via Streetsblog

via Bluesky

On a smaller scale, this is the type of solution we should consider for our own Marion and Center Street Bridges.

Just tolling solves all our congestion problems!

You may remember the chart made from the SRC's own projections, which showed very modest pricing yielded tremendous relief of congestion.

This may be the No. 1 story at the Legislature here this session: How much attention do they give to the real-world, real-time experiment in New York City? The data is there, how many are paying attention?

Fairview Hills, Final Subdivision there, at Planning Commission Tuesday the 14th

At Council tonight the City looks to approve a settlement in a suit brought by the family of a child killed by a driver going 60mph on an overbuilt three lane street in deep south Salem.

In the Fairview Hills proposal at the Planning Commission on Tuesday the 14th, the City's standards call for a similarly overbuilt cross section on Battle Creek Road.

Why are we making the road so wide?

This cross section from the proposed Refinement Plan showed one car only, labeled "original," but there's room for five more! Striped for three auto travel lanes this will induce speeding, the same speeding that killed a child a few years ago on Mildred Lane.

Safety for whom?

The center turn lane might "improve safety for vehicle entering and existing the site from these streets [sic, sickety, sic]" but it will induce higher speeds along Battle Creek Road and degrade overall safety for all users.

Former Councilor Stapleton on speed

We profess to have a Vision Zero goal, but our current design standards are often incompatible with this.

There are other things about the project to question, but as the Fairview project in whole has developed, we missed the opportunity to make it really good.

• Previously see "Fairview Hills Revives as Single Detached Housing Subdivision" (there are in fact some attached row houses in the proposal, and this is better understood now as "mostly single detached housing" - see below).
  
• and all notes tagged Simpson Hills 
  

Here are some other notes. They are more about the City and Staff Report's accommodation and loose interpretation, and do not seem like clear instances of non-compliance with the approval criteria. They are about the spirit, not the letter.

Additionally, we have a housing crisis, and any and all housing is helpful. The threshold to say "no" should be higher at this moment in our history.

The Middle Intensity is not very Middle

After the excessive width and implied design speed for Battle Creek Road, the other most significant criticism is on its intensity. While the proposal meets the letter of the requirements on "mixed intensity," it does not meet the spirit of them for a kind of middle state between the village center and low intensity areas. The proposal is for barely more intensity than the max level permitted in the "low intensity" areas. The low intensity area permits 6 homes/acre, and Fairview Hills proposes 6.8 homes/acre. It's like "low intensity plus." It should be closer to 10 homes/acre!

City Council, January 13th - Mildred Lane

The first Council meeting of the year brings a light agenda. Swearing-in will be the main feature.

August 2020

The most relevant item here is a proposed settlement over a fatal crash (not any accident as the Staff Report says).

A lawsuit is currently pending regarding a car accident at Mildred Lane SE and Liberty Rd S. Through settlement negotiations, the City has agreed to resolve all claims associated with the lawsuit in consideration of a payment of $133,600.00....Under the terms of the settlement, the City does not admit fault, however, to avoid the cost of litigation, the proposed settlement, which constitutes a full and final settlement of all claims related to this incident, will resolve this claim.

For a City that professes now to hold a Vision Zero goal, on the City's side this seems like a paltry settlement. The legal-liability-insurance context is disconnected from the self-critique and policy iterations necessary to attain Vision Zero. Like many streets, Mildred Lane is overbuilt and induces speeding, but the City can't admit that and has to stonewall. That is messed up.

via the former Twitter

On Mildred Lane and its crashes see:

• "Catastrophe on Mildred Lane Shows Problem with Road Design" (2021)
  
• "City Response on Mildred Lane focuses on Signal, not enough on Speed" (2022)
  
• "Remedy on Mildred Lane Misses Real Cause of Problem" (2023)
  

And two other items:

• For the duration of the seismic retrofit and remodel of City Hall, the City proposes to lease space from SAIF at 440 Church Street SE.
• Councilor Varney proposes a new committee: "I move that the City of Salem form a City Budget Efficiencies Committee with a membership structure as requested by the Salem Chamber of Commerce in their December 11 letter to Council, and that the Salem Chamber of Commerce be invoiced for all costs associated with maintaining and supporting this committee." [italics added] But to slash City government, the Chamber might be prepared to pay. This could be an interesting conversation, and might even backfire.
  

Housing Production Strategy

Not on Council agenda at all, but very much a large issue that will come to Council this year, is the Housing Production Strategy.

Whole neighborhoods destroyed, LA Times today

In addition to local demand for housing from those who already live here, climate disasters are going to prompt increasing numbers of climate refugees and migrants from other areas of the United States, and they will add to the demand for housing and to upward pressure on the cost of housing.

Table of potential actions, page 1 of 6 (Nov. 2024)

The City has a new web presentation scheduled for January 22nd on the Housing Production Strategy in process, and has published some new documents:

• Notes on "City Councilor and Planning Commissioner Meetings" (Nov. 2024)
• "Focus Group Summary" (Nov. 2024)
• "Redevelopment Analysis" for five areas of close-in Salem (Dec. 2024)

As the meeting approaches there might be more to say, but the documents are worth reading.

EV Charging and Revised Scoring Rubric at the MPO next Week

The LA conflagrations, whipped by a Santa Ana and intensified by our changing climate, dominate the front pages today. Even the east coast papers lead with it.

Front pages: NY Times (top)
Washington Post (bottom)

Our local paper leads with news that we are sending firefighters to assist.

Front page here

The catastrophe is a climate story in addition to a land use story and everything else.

The MPO has two meetings next week in a somewhat irregular schedule and there are incrementally good things to see on climate action.

Even with Evidence for Intent, Reporting on Dallas Crash Erases Driver; Note on Macy's

Even when there is clear evidence for malignant intent, our messed up autoism leads writers to employ the exonerative voice.

Erasing the driver in the exonerative voice

Mere days after the cars attacks in New Orleans and in Las Vegas, in the paper today is news of a driver facing charges of reckless endangering and reckless driving, robbery and criminal mischief, DUI, when he deliberately crashed into a Dallas convenience store. There is reason to think investigators will find evidence that it was a hate crime also.

But the headline is "truck crashes," and the caption is "a truck that drove."

Most crashes aren't accidents. This case is particularly unambiguous. Even under the most optimistic of assumptions, there is no possible way to view this as an "accident." It was intentional, an attack with the car as weapon. The first sentence of the story itself does say "he crashed a truck," but the true grammatical subject and moral agent here, the driver, should also be in headlines and captions, especially since people will only read the headline as the story circulates on social media. The exonerative voice is especially misleading and wrong here, but entirely symptomatic of our autoism. 

See previously on erasing driver.

Front page today

On the front page is news that Macy's is going to close.

The owners are talking about more "activities, events, and entertainment for people living and visiting downtown."

This could be a very great missed opportunity for more housing!

Since it has an attached parking garage, and sits in between the Center/Marion couplet, it is ideal for fully car-oriented downtown housing, perhaps the only site downtown where that is true. The City and owners should lean into this!

See "What about the Macys Block?" (2016) for more on this. As the closure details are formalized and as plans for redevelopment mature, there will certainly be more to say.

Road Carnage Summary Still Looks Away from our Full Autoism

The front page summary and partial analysis of our road carnage in 2024 might be a directional improvement on the usual coverage.

Front page, with ad for deadly machine also

Comments from Police emphasize speed and the responsibility of drivers more perhaps than usual. But they also fall back into the exonerative voice, erasing the driver, one time mentioning "personal driving behavior," another time erasing the driver in "single vehicles driving poorly." They never mention road design.

Upkes said some of the summer crashes involved speeding and erratic driving, which he attributed to "summertime feelings," while a milder winter has meant fewer crashes caused by inclement weather.

Wide roads induce "summertime feelings"! Streets could be designed to make erratic driving more difficult and less likely.

Police on speed, but also with the exonerative voice

It is former Councilor Virginia Stapleton who has the strongest, most accurate statement. "The No. 1 thing we know is that speed kills." Her statement isn't just about speeding, but also includes lawful speeds, even though the piece doesn't draw that out. Her statement includes the tension between our current paradigm for "congestion relief" and a new paradigm for traffic safety.

Former Councilor Stapleton on speed

At lawful, posted speeds of 40 or 50 miles per hour, crashes are still fatal. We should always remember a person at lawful speed of 40 miles per hour killed Selma Pierce on an evening walk near her home in West Salem. No citations were issued.