I’ve long criticized so-called ‘traffic calming devices’ as a transportation planning fad supposedly designed to make us so frustrated with driving that we all abandon our automobiles for mass transit.
It’s always good to see I’m not just a lone whack job. Under the ironic headline Road widening project compromises safety, Greensboro resident John Wrenn writes in today’s N&R:
Every day as I drive to work down Lake Jeanette Road, I witness an infrastructure project run amuck.
The powers-that-be have decided to turn a decent, but-in-need-of-widening road into a scenic boulevard with sidewalks, roundabouts and medians galore.
Driving by the site of the future Lake Jeanette library branch, postponed for lack of funding by the way, through the endless construction is bad enough.
I’m concerned that when engineers are done, the traffic that remains will be squeezed and the flow interrupted to the point that safety will be compromised.
There is barely room for a car to pass the medians, much less a school bus. Heaven forbid that a bicyclist might try to share the narrow road or a fire truck from the Lake Jeanette station might try to make it out during rush hour.
Turns out JLF has noted that public safety will be compromised in its study of traffic calming devices.
