Uneasy Rhetoric

A few weeks ago, there was a little bit of conversation on the Sacramentans for Responsible Development email group (watch heckasac for more info) about stop signs and the Midtown traffic calming measures. There were people on both sides of the issue (signs vs. calming), but if I were giving out points, I’d probably say that signs won, if only because the Midtown traffic calming measures were not well implemented.

The debate rages far beyond Sacramento, however. Today, a blogger on BlueOregon asks how she can go about getting a stop sign in her neighborhood in Portland. Portland, like many other cities, tends to avoid putting up new stop signs. The joke, and I’m sure you’ve heard it, is that every new sign is a “memorial” sign.

Back in the mid-90s, I took a class at Portland State, sponsored by the City of Portland, for neighborhood transportation activists. During that class, we learned that there was some truth to the joke. Someone almost had to get killed before the city would put up a stop sign. I never did learn the rationale. Signs are cheap. Maybe it had something to do with traffic flow patterns. Maybe a stop sign at a particular location would have disrupted one of Portland’s bicycle through-ways.* I don’t know.

Part of the reason may have been that the City felt stop signs were passé. Traffic calming was where it was at. Circles. Curb extensions. Chicanes. Diagonal parking. Sidewalks. Trees.

According to a commenter on the BlueOregon post, there is a cultural difference between signs and calming. Specifically, there’s the American way, and there’s the European way:

The first (more American) approach is: tell everyone what they should do with a sign. That’s why the City maintains over 250,000 signs. We have to read as we go along, and sort through the visual stimuli, while maintaining one eye on the road. Generally, we ignore a lot of it, and won’t be looking for things we aren’t told to look out for (kids, cars, etc.)

The other (more European) approach is: have the streetscape create context clues, and force the driver to think a bit and be aware of what’s happening around her. This requires drivers to drive more slowly, generally, and watch for everything from kids to bikes to other cars. My guess is that there are a lot fewer crashes there, because people are forced to be more aware and engaged.

To summarize: one way tells people what they can and cannot do; the other changes behavior. At least, that seems to be the goal of traffic calming guru David Engwicht. In fact, he’s involved in an effort called the “Neighborhood Pace Car,” where neighbors pledge to drive less, drive the speed limit, and basically be an annoyance to other drivers. Best of all, as the article I link to points out, the program “[doesn't] have to be built, [doesn't] cost any money, need[s] no municipal approval or resources, and put[s] the safety of streets directly into drivers’ hands.”

It also makes ordinary drivers traffic activists, and that isn’t a bad thing.

I tend to come down on the side of traffic calming over signs. In part this is because I believe that signs don’t do much to protect pedestrians because pedestrians assume cars will stop; it’s a false sense of security. Same goes for painted on crosswalks. False sense of security. And have you ever observed the behavior of a person moving from stop sign to stop sign? Speed up, stop fast. Speed up, stop fast. You’ve probably done it yourself. Maybe not every time you drive, but probably more than you’ll cop to. I do it more than I should.

I sometimes wonder if some of the objections to traffic calming devices coming from the neighbors were conceived while the neighbors were driving. The rationalizations involving bicycle and pedestrian safety came later. I don’t much like them when I drive either. (There’s also the suspicion of all things new and different. It’s fun to watch the people who believe that the newest thing is always the best argue with the people who don’t want to face the future.)

But I’ll admit that Sacramento embraced traffic calming with the best of intentions (keeping “drive through” traffic out of neighborhoods), but seems to have botched it.

I wonder if part of the problem with Sacramento’s adoption of calming was because they did it in addition to the same old thing: signs, and lots of them. This city is 4-way stop happy. To people who want more stop signs, I have to ask “where?” It seems like the number of uncontrolled intersections, at least in the inner neighborhoods, is growing increasingly small. Just a few days ago, I rode through an intersection with new stop signs. I stopped, which was lucky, because the car crossing in front of me didn’t.

In the end, I just want people to drive less and pay more attention while they drive. If it means putting a stop sign at every residential intersection, fine. But there has to be a better, more enlightened, way.

* This may not still be true, as I haven’t been there in almost three years, but unlike Sacramento, when Portland designates a “bicycle route,” the number of stop signs the cyclist will encounter tends to be limited. Instead, cross-streets have the stop signs, allowing bicycle traffic to move more quickly. I’m thinking specifically of 24th Street, a designated bike route. From memory, I think the only intersections where there are no signs stopping traffic on 24th between H (C?) and Broadway are at O, R (but there is a light rail crossing), and V.