Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

"Road Diets" mean CRASH REDUCTIONS -- But NO FUN for asphalt-happy municipalities anxious to widen every possible road

From the study: "A road diet involves narrowing or eliminating travel lanes on a roadway to make more room for pedestrians and bicyclists. (They) are often conversions of four-lane, undivided roads into three lanes—two through lanes plus a center turn lane."

The study was conducted in California, Washington and Iowa:

"The Iowa data indicate a 47 percent reduction in total crashes while the HSIS (California and Washington) data indicate a 19 percent decrease—a substantial difference."

It's clear from the results that road diets do reduce crashes - the only issue appears to be just how great a reduction.

 In other news: On the July 13th Franklin Common Council Agenda -- you guessed it -- a road widening party.

You see, every little north-south or east-west suburban road has a six-lane arterial inside of it waiting to burst forth ...

Read the rest at: Road Diet Crash Reduction Variations Studied By DOT | Planetizen

Good Advice from The New Republic

Posted from my iPad (clumsily), a quote from The New Republic's blog that certain Franklin aldermen should keep in mind before they scuttle pedestrian access on a road project tomorrow night:

"What is needed to catch up with the pent up demand for walkable urban places, especially in the suburbs, is complete transportation policy reform. Since transportation drives development, we need to build the second half of the American transportation system--rail and bus transit and bikes and walking-- while repairing our existing roadway system. Only this will allow for the emergence of the walkable urban places that the market, economy, and environment demands."

Christopher Leinberger, The New Republic