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.

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.