BellaVilla wrote:
I actually like this idea.
In on of the articles Grand Avenues congestion is blamed for the uptick in speed and use of Compton. They blame Grand's congestion on the fact that is bikeable and walkable.
Seems to me if you want to slow down the traffic on Compton the street needs to be made more walkable and bikeable. And you can still keep the huge balls.
I drive Grand many days, often between five and six thirty pm. There's a little congestion south of Arsenal continuing intermittently as far as maybe Chippewa. But that seems less than what you see between roughly 40 and continuing to Lindell in both directions. Or even southbound between about Chouteau or so and 44. While you might think the southbound congestion around Arsenal is the result of lane restrictions I don't see how you could say that about what you find heading into 44 or in Midtown. Honestly, it's just traffic. Grand is busy. There's going to be a little congestion. And given that I can reliably drive from the south bloody end of the thing all the way to Midtown in thirty minutes during rush hour every day I fail to see where the problem is.
That said, traffic calming works. Yes, Grand is a more pleasant place to walk in the two lane stretch. People drive . . . marginally more politely there. (Marginally. Very marginally. But something is surely needed to fix the unsignalized crosswalks.)
Yes, Compton has balls. Do the balls work? Probably, at a guess. They should work at least as well as any other traffic calming. Good bumpouts, chicanes, lane restrictions, textured pavements at crosswalks, and so forth are great things. The balls are fine by me, if a little unattractive. I'd love to see a way to make them prettier. But . . . if they work, better that than the Schoemel planters just closing roads. (Or ball-blocked roads, for that matter. Or even artistically blocked roads.)
Open all the roads. Make them all slower, lane restricted, bumped, calmed, and textured. Let people drive on all of them. Slowly. Spread the traffic out and structurally slow it down. Should be better for everyone. And if you can't drive any faster than a cyclist anyway who needs bike lanes. There was a thread on here a while back that linked to an article that suggested that bike lanes are most useful when a road most resembles a highway and they actually become counter-productive on smaller neighborhood streets. Compton's a neighborhood street. Structurally limit it to a relatively continuous twenty and you should solve all problems. There will be room for broad sidewalks and with big bumpouts (and maybe balls) so it should be plenty pedestrian friendly. Problem solved. Keep the balls. But . . . attractive balls would be nice. Slay has some bland ass balls. (Or Ingracia in this case.) How about flowers? Just . . . not in concrete sewer pipe sections.
And if a moving truck driver can't figure out how to get through have someone escort them. There are ways to do this. There's training. It's on your CDL test. Heck, just follow a good route. Who goes into something like that without scouting it out in advance anyway?
As I think back to some of the folks I used to drive with . . . never mind. There will be problems. There always will. There's no fixing stupid. Like that dude over there. Oh, wait, is that a mirror? Nuts.
