There are lots of interesting items at Council on Monday!
At the top of the list here is another strong move by Councilor Stapleton, who wants to initiate a "twenty is plenty" plan for neighborhood residential streets.
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| 20 mph signs - via City of Portland |
You may recall back in 2011, the City opposed legislation that would permit cities to post a 20mph limit on residential streets:
Passage of this bill would allow the City of Salem to set its own speed limits. However that would potentially create pressure on City staff and the City Council to set speeds based on citizen perception and not necessarily what the appropriate speed limit should be for a certain street. It could result in instances of "spot" speed zones or inconsistent application of speed limits within the City. In addition, it would create a potentially heavy workload for City traffic engineering staff and could involve a considerable amount of City Council time and energy in order to consider each speed limit ordinance. Staff recommends that the City oppose this bill, despite that it might give the City more authority, in order to sustain the objective and deliberate system in place currently.
A decade has made a difference, thankfully.
Indeed, there is "pressure on City staff and the City Council." Unlike the fear-mongering in that legislative position from 2011, there is overwhelming evidence that our speeds are too high. "Citizen perception" is more right than the gate-keeping of professional staff!
In December of last year, the City of Portland published a study, "Analysis indicates 20 mph speed limit reduced driving speeds." A key finding is that the new limits did not necessarily have a strong effect on the average speed. "Average driving speeds were essentially unchanged after PBOT reduced the
speed limit, measuring about 22 mph across the 58 locations where data
was collected." People are still speeding a teeny bit.
What changed most meaningfully was the frequency and magnitude of extreme speeding. "A statistical analysis of the data reveals sharp decreases in the probability of people driving faster than 25, 30, and 35 mph following the speed limit change." (See also at BikePortland, "Report: City’s new 20 mph signs have reduced top-end speeds.")
A 20mph limit could also mean that people are ticketed at 30+mph instead of at 35+mph.
All this is a meaningful improvement and should be broadly supported!
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| 1940s Stopping Distance Poster Iowa State Safety Council (credit unknown) |
See previously, with some history notes:
- "Hydraulic Autoism and Death at 30mph: Twenty is Plenty" (2015)
- "100 Years Ago: Twenty mph is Plenty; Whitlocks by George Post; Hops better than Paving" (2016)
At the same time, the biggest, most deadly problems are on non-neighborhood streets, especially on our bigger streets, collectors and arterials. In today's paper there is a tribute to the Keizer couple killed when a jaydriver crashed into their house, and news on sentencing in a high speed crash on South Commercial.
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| A few days ago |
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| Killed in Keizer house off Lockhaven |
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| Going 70mph on South Commercial |
A residential Twenty is Plenty campaign is a great start, but we need to carry speed reductions and road design through to our bigger streets.
(Other items, including the Climate Action Plan, will be in a separate note over the weekend.)
7 comments:
(Edit: corrected Lockwood to Lockhaven, and added link to previous discussion)
""Citizen perception" is more right than the gate-keeping of professional staff!" is a statement that, while possibly true, is sufficiently radical to motivate us to determine whether it is valid.
This is an important subject because, in many areas, Salem's main arterials have already exceeded capacity and shortcuts through residential areas are increasing.
Council members seem to support evidence based decision making. Peter Fernandez has decades of experience. I look forward to an intelligent and unbiased discussion by open minded participants.
I support 20 MPH areas but there are legitimate reasons to be careful about where they are established. There are certain traffic safety principles that are broadly accepted. One is that speed uniformity improves safety. Another is that there is a point where lowered limits approach points of diminishing returns.
The positions of our professional staff should not be taken lightly. If their expertise cannot be respected, then we have a real problem. Final decisions should not be based on emotions, no matter how well meaning advocates of either side may be.
I have severely criticized many past actions taken by Public Works, but I believe that the worst ones were responses to the will of leadership. As the direction of Council has shifted, I hope that new leadership will act more responsibly by prioritizing good policy above political considerations.
There are plenty of notions that have been "broadly accepted" that turn out to be false. They may have power, but they are not true. Crucially, the emissions from car travel and the deaths from car travel are counter-evidence that our current autoist paradigm, which you defend over and over, costs too much.
Remember, Seattle started with neighborhood streets and has subsequently moved to 25 mph on most of its arterials https://mynorthwest.com/2659904/sdot-lowering-speed-limit-seattle-25/
The only helpful statement, if there were to be a discussion based on the merits of the 20 is plenty plan, was made Monday evening by the Mayor. He was wise enough and decent enough to make sure that listeners recognized that it was merely an empirical observation based on a single event. I do not question his concern or honesty. He stated that, since the 17th Street lowering he has seen speeding that he has not noticed before.
You, and the Mayor, might want to try to link the speeding to the new speed limits, but other explanations are possible and more likely.
The Mayor might be responding to relative speed. If the average speed has gone done, a few people maintaining old habits of speeding might seem like they are going even faster. The Mayor might be responding to relative speed rather than absolute speed.
Also, a lot has been written about Pandemic speeding and jaydriving. Just today in the paper: "Oregon State Police are reporting an uptick in what they called 'crazy' driving on interstates lately and so plan to have troopers saturating major roadways through Monday, including Interstate 5 in Salem."
Remember, people are murdering others with their vehicles at a higher rate than before. This is literally life or death. The State needs to relinquish control over their many arterial roads back to the city. What an absurdly preventable way to die. There are side benefits like noise reduction to slower speeds too. Maybe it would help people reduce their in-town vehicle trips as well. IMHO we need more frequent speed signs as was part of Seattle’s campaign. The lack of guard rails and speed limit signs was striking when I moved here >5 years ago from Connecticut.
https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS/SafetyProblem?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20220215&instance_id=53220&nl=the-morning®i_id=169249778&segment_id=82772&te=1&user_id=0ad4d28bf54178c4a206df98d3f4ec9f
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