One of the most interesting aspects of intelligent community design is the fact that the width and surroundings of a street can do infinitely more to determine traffic speeds and behavior than a feeble speed limit sign could ever hope to.
For example, a collector road near my home is posted at 35 miles per hour, but NO VEHICLE on that road goes below 40 miles per hour - - and those that go under 45 are routinely tailgated by impatient drivers. I'll make a non-supported guess and say the average speed on the road is 50 miles per hour. The police department of Franklin could collect thousands of dollars per day in speeding fines if they chose to (or could afford to) strictly and consistently enforce the speed limit here.
Why do people treat this road as if it's a highway? Because it was built without thought to the traffic calming effects of narrower streets that are bordered with trees (which are called "Fixed Hazardous Objects" by traffic engineers).
This is a fact: When even the most conscientious person gets behind the wheel of a vehicle, that person changes and becomes markedly more aggressive and seeks to get from point a to point b as quickly as possible. (Road rage incidents, for instance, are very often perpetrated by people who are non-confrontational outside of their car.) The street conditions communicate with the vehicle and determine what speed is desirable - - a vehicle-driver "collective brain" is created.
Also, because there is no sidewalk or pedestrian walkway, a white line on either side of the road is there to denote a bike/pedestrian lane. This misguided effort actually creates a wider appearance to the road, making the driver/car collective brain feel that it is appropriate to go much, much faster than 35 miles per hour.
As a person who frequently runs on the road above in order to access quieter subdivision roads, I can attest to the fact that the "pedestrian lane" is most often viewed by vehicles as a passing lane; when faced with brake lights and a turn signal ahead, they veer into the lane at full speed. The "letter of the law" says that bicyclists should travel the same direction as vehicular traffic; on Franklin's collector roads, adhering to that rule will get you killed. Not quite two years ago a man walking his dog in one of these "pedestrian lanes" was struck and killed by a car. I ran by the chalk mark and chemical stain (which cleared the blood from the asphalt) for weeks afterward, a reminder to stay vigilant until I could finally make a left turn into a subdivision.
Street design is long dead and has become the job of street engineers. Forget asthetics; the philosophy now is to flow traffic as quickly as possible without much regard to the surroundings or safety of bikes and pedestrians. Streets are sewers that must flow unimpeded, and in a community like Franklin that leans heavily on collector streets and has largely abandoned the idea of intermediate grid roads, that means more and more lethal stretches of road right next to family neighborhoods.
Some subdivision roads are no better. This winding street comes down a hill; I routinely see soccer moms piloting vans at 35-40 mph toward me as I run up the slope. The width of this road is excessive and encourages speed; the gentle curves are speed-provocative as well - - one finger on the wheel and a foot on the gas pedal are all that's required to negotiate streets like these, to paraphrase Duany, Plater-Zyberk and Speck in SUBURBAN NATION.
Excessive street widths are the result of codes and regulations that go back to the cold war era. In fact, one of the reasons for wide streets was to facilitate quick evacuation and movement of emergency vehicles after a "nuclear event"!
Another factor which remains in force is accommodation of fire trucks. More on that in an upcoming post.
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