Back to School For You Too

Back to School For You Too Unless you’re actively involved in school zone street safety or you’re a parent of school-age kids, there’s a good chance back to school hasn’t really crossed your mind. True, Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer but the weather is still hot, the calendar still reads summer, and not much changes in September for most adults. The truth is though, back to school applies to everyone. All New Yorkers A clever campaign by the NYPD reminds New Yorkers that back to school is for everyone. Even if you’re not a parent of young kids, chances are you drive through school zones and need to be alert to changing speed limits, increased foot traffic, and less observant (and smaller!) pedestrians. Avoiding distracting behaviors and being focused and alert behind the wheel becomes even more important as children head back to school. Vision Zero and Back to School Many cities across the country have issued written statements and safety sheets to help encourage drivers to improve safety with the increase in walking, biking, busing, and carpooling students on the roads. Awareness, coupled with traffic calming measures to slow cars down, can go a long way to improving safety on local streets. With car accidents a leading cause of death for young children in the US, it’s important for drivers to recognize that their choices behind the wheel can actually save a life. Not Too Late Even for cities where back to school didn’t go as safely as planned, it’s not too late to make a difference. Educational campaigns are a great tool to remind local drivers to be alert but physical, ongoing solutions arean important part of safe school zones. Whether speed humps or cushions to compel drivers to slow down or flashing beacons and speed display signs to remind them of lower speed limits, traffic calming solutions can help ensure that students are safe in school all year long.

Nature and Traffic Calming

New Season, New Roads Every season has its own energy and each brings its own beauty to the landscape around us. In turn, each presents unique challenges  for safe driving, riding, and walking on local streets. From summer beach-traffic clogged roadways to autumn leaf covered lanes, and from snowy winter streets to wet spring pavement, every season’s roads are unique. The FHWA reports over 1 million crashes caused each year by weather related road conditions. Being aware of what to be careful for and what nature, and other drivers, have in store, can help you protect your roads, no matter the season. Seasonal Challenges Everyone knows winter driving  can be tough. Snow, ice, and slushy pavement cause 44% of weather-related crashes. Even savvy winter drivers with well equipped cars have to share the roads with many others who aren’t. Autumn brings changing weather, wet road surfaces, heavy winds, shorter daylight hours, and more student pedestrians and cyclists headed to and from school while spring often means wet or even slushy pavement. Rain causes 46% of weather related crashes while wet pavement causes a whopping 73% of such accidents. No season offers foolproof driving. Mother Nature Just when Mother Nature’s surprises seem to have subsided and beautiful sunny summer days lie ahead, new challenges are in store for drivers. More drivers are on the roads during the summer than any other months, increasing the probability of any one person being involved in an accident. In fact, July and August are among the highest of the year for fatal crashes. Perhaps part of the cause of this is that nature offers little traffic calming in the summer. In the fall, spring, and winter, the rain, slippery roads, and snow remind drivers of their limitations. In summer, when anything seems possible, caution can fall to the wayside. Keeping People Safe and Aware No matter the weather conditions and the traffic calming that nature has in mind, it’s the responsibility of cities to engineer roads that encourage safe driving. Whether that involves narrower roads, bicycle lanes, speed humps, or traffic circles, roads that are designed for slow driving are more likely to be safe for all those who use them. Solutions such as speed display signs can be powerful tools to remind drivers to slow down and be alert to weather issues, or other temporary concerns, that may affect the safety of their drive. Mother nature can be fickle. Road safety shouldn’t be.

Traffic Logix - The Webinar Series

Traffic Logix concluded the webinar series on tools for your traffic calming toolbox with a recap of vertical traffic calming solutions and a thorough discussion of driver feedback signs, bike lanes, shared spaces, and the many other traffic calming techniques used on today’s roadways.

Presented by former ITE president Tim Harpst, the webinar not only delineated the traffic calming solutions that you can use to protect your streets, but included an interactive question and answer session with some of your most pressing questions about traffic calming.

A recorded version of the webinar can be listened to here!

Healthier Roads in the New Year

New Year’s Resolutions and Your Roadways Health is the cornerstone of wholesome living. Perhaps that’s why the number one New Year’s resolution for 2015 was to lose weight. The goal of a well formulated diet is to achieve optimal health. For cities around the world, road diets take the same approach. They aim to keep roads trim with a wholesome approach- one that keeps all road users in mind including motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists. What is a Road Diet? A road diet is a healthy overhaul for today’s overweight roads. Road diets reduce the number of travel lanes or the width of roads and often introduce new or expanded spaces for pedestrians and bicyclists to use. Some techniques used in road diets include adding or widening walkways, narrowing roadways with curbing, adding cycle lanes on one or both sides of the street, using landscaping or green areas to limit driving space, or adding a center turn lane. Putting roads on a diet often encourages improved commerce as access to businesses becomes easier and safer for all road users. Why the need for diets? With the wide use of motor vehicles for transportation, many roadways across the country were designed with only the needs of motorists in mind. In recent decades, as bicycling and walking have become more popular and healthier modes of local travel, people have been discovering that roads are often not friendly to these users. In addition, on roads where speeding and accidents  are concerns, implementing road diets lowers driver speeds and reduces crash rates. In fact, researchers have found that road diets reduce crash frequency by 19-43%. Beyond Diets Road diets, while beneficial on some roadways, are not the solution for all streets. Some streets can’t be narrowed, while for others a road diet is simply not enough to solve the problem. Just as simply dieting is not always enough for a better lifestyle, roadways too can benefit from a more holistic approach. Complete streets are another initiative that can help cities to create streets that are healthier and more livable. Complete streets often integrate traffic calming measures such as speed humps, staggered parking, lower speed limits, radar signs, pedestrian crosswalks, bike lanes, and the like.

Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas

December Celebrations Whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hannukah, or just Life, December is a busy, happy, joy-filled season. For traffic engineers and police professionals across the world, it’s a critical responsibility to ensure it stays that way. The perils of the road all year long are exacerbated during these hectic weeks. Tensions are high as everyone rushes to get everything done on time and no one wants joy to turn into tragedy.  Holiday Hazards People are rushing to do gift shopping, celebrate with friends, and plan upcoming festivities. While the increasing popularity of online shopping may have decreased traffic to stores, it’s also increased the number of delivery trucks on local roads. In addition, many children have time off of school, increasing the number of pedestrians on streets. As distracted driving has become a rampant issue in recent years, it’s an additional factor to consider on holiday-clogged roads. What Can You Do? Promoting safe driving on holiday roads should ideally start long before the holidays. Having a traffic calming program in place with driver feedback sign, speed humps, and bike lanes where you need them can ensure that your roads are well equipped for the holiday rush. Even with well engineered streets though, the perils of holiday driving can still be a concern. Educational campaigns can be a great way to offset existing traffic calming by reminding drivers of the importance of driving sober, focused, and within speed limits. What's being done? When it comes to educating drivers and pedestrians about street safety during the holidays, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Many resources exist to help you along the way. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a free app called SaferRide that helps impaired drivers get a taxi or call a friend with one click. In Seattle, a holiday pedestrian safety campaign has a wide array of ads and posters to encourage both drivers and pedestrians to exercise extra caution during the holidays while an air force base in Florida has an annual holiday traffic safety campaign Traffic Safety Marketing, a division of NHTSA, also has powerful marketing materials available to help you protect road users during the holidays.