Paying the Price

The Cost of Crashes Traffic calming isn’t cheap. Even when choosing competitively priced solutions, slowing cars down can still get expensive. Is it really worth the price? While the cost of life is immeasurable, the economic cost is exorbitant. A study conducted by the NHTSA estimated the annual cost of car crashes at $242 billion. When quality of life was added in, the societal cost in one year rose to a whopping $836 billion. Speed Kills The American Journal of Public Health stated it simply: managing speed is simply the best prevention against accidents and the injuries and fatalities they cause. The NHTSA found that speeding contributes to a third of all fatal crashes. Barring constant round-the-clock police patrol, traffic calming is the only way to ensure that speeds are reduced and lives are saved. Does Traffic Calming Really Help? Children who live in neighborhoods with speed humpshave a 53-60% less chance of being injured or killed in a car accident. A case study on radar signs found that up to 70% of drivers slowed down when their speeds were displayed. Slower cars mean saved lives- studiesshow that a vehicle hitting a pedestrian at 40 mph is 80% likely to cause death while one travelling at 20mph is only 5% likely to. Return on Investment It can be hard to think of something as an investment when there are no dividends visible on a monthly statement. But traffic calming saves lives every day. One pilot program using Traffic Logix SafePace signsin Ecaudor found that 200 lives were saved in a one-year period after solutions were installed. The economic and societal cost of crashes is one that every town, city, and state contends with. Saving those lives is a sound investment.

5 Things You May Not Know About Pedestrian & Bicyclist Safety

Complete Streets Engineers, city officials, and regular ordinary people who walk or bike to their destinations, are helping to spread awareness of the need for complete streets. Unlike traditional US roadways that were designed with only the needs of cars and trucks, complete streets consider all users in their design, including those on foot or bikes. Whether that involves completely new design or retrofitting existing streets with new features, responsive roads are key to safety. Here are some facts you may not know about pedestrian and bicyclist safety. Improving Safety 1- Communities that encourage biking and walking are a high priority for the US Department of Transportation. These have been coined “livable communities,” and have the goal of providing safe transportation of all kinds to all its citizens. 2- FHWA has taken aggressive action to improve safety for bicyclists and pedestrians by providing free assistance to cities and states with the highest biker/walker fatality rates. Latest data on which areas are included can be seen on this map. Key Statistics 3. Most bike crashes take place in urban areas, between 6-9 pm, and not at intersections. Most bicyclists that are killed or injured are male and the average age has slowly inched upward over a 10 year period from 39 to 44. 4. Dedicated bike lanes really do make a difference. One study in New York found that injury rates fell significantly on roads where protected bike lanes were installed. In San Jose, CA, protected bike lane curbing is used to physically diverts vehicles from bike lanes.

Shared Roads

5. Walking and biking are growing in popularity and are healthy for the body and the environment. However, since vehicles move so much faster than legs or bikes, pedestrians and cyclists are always at a disadvantage when sharing the road. Effective complete streets not only are responsive to the needs of all users but require effort from all as well. Safer streets certainly need better design such as walking or bike lanes and vehicle slowing measures such as speed humps, road narrowing, and speed display signs. However, most importantly, they need the care and concern of drivers, riders, and walkers to share the road with everyone who uses it.

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.