Tag Archives | safety

Three Ways to Improve Walkability Without Touching the Street

By on January 29, 2013 in Walking

Most US cities, Minneapolis and St Paul included, are in dire need of traffic calming and complete streets.  Critical streets are dangerously overbuilt: corners have been widened, lanes widened, streets widened. Over the last half century, Herculean governmental and financial efforts have been thrown at reshaping our cities for driving at the expense of those [...]

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Pedestrians prohibited north of the light rail station

By on January 25, 2013 in Infrastructure, Streets, Walking

Most metro area cities content themselves with ignoring pedestrians. A couple of cities have taken the unusual step of at least paying lip service to the idea that bipedal transportation should be safe, convenient, and comfortable. Bloomington, on the other hand, is trying to make a name for itself by actively discouraging pedestrians from using [...]

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The Limits to Educational Campaigns

By on October 23, 2012 in Transportation, Walking

  The list of recent pedestrian fatalities is long: take the accident in Ramsey where an elderly couple was killed by a car, or the death of Cleo Thiberge St Paul. Partly in response to the wave of recent accidents, MN-Dot has launched a new pedestrian safety campaign. You’ve probably seen some of the cute billboards [...]

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Moving incrementally towards robot cars

By on October 2, 2012 in Uncategorized

Safety on U.S. roadways has been steadily improving since the 1970′s. In 2010, 32,885 persons were killed in crashes involving motorized vehicles, the lowest number recorded since 1949. The largest number of traffic fatalities was recorded in 1972, when 54,589 persons were killed. We have made substantial improvement in reducing the overall number of fatalities. [...]

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Is “Forgiveness” Just for Auto Drivers?

By on September 11, 2012 in Bicycling

  There’s been a rash of pedestrian accidents lately. When these accidents get reported in the paper or batted around the water cooler, there are often underlying assumptions about blame.  The stories typically imply that victim was intoxicated, in the wrong place, young, old, or unhelmeted (for bicyclsits). Because we all drive almost all the [...]

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A Tale of Two Corners

By on May 11, 2012 in Infrastructure, Streets, Transportation

Two intersections that I pass on my daily commute offer vastly different pedestrian experiences.  Walking vaguely north-ish on 3rd St N in the North Loop you first encounter 6th Ave N, where despite the stop signs giving priority to cars on 6th over their automotive brethren on 3rd, I experience the most consistent yielding to [...]

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More Kids’ Bike Rodeos = More Adults on Bikes

By on April 17, 2012 in Carfree, Transportation

Want to see more adults on bikes? Encourage communities to hold more kids’ bike rodeos. And it’s not just about “raising little cyclists,” although indoctrinating educating them young as to handling skills and traffic navigation is a lovely contributor to the goal of putting more adults on bikes in 10-20 years. I’m talking about right [...]

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Time for a change on Park and Portland

By on April 9, 2012 in Transportation

This morning I witnessed a very near miss between a cyclist and a school bus on Park Avenue South (also known as County Road 33).  This “bad interaction” would be classified as a “left-hook” where the bus was slowing to turn left, and failed to yield to the cyclist in the bike lane (approaching from [...]

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Forgive and Forget

By on March 5, 2012 in Transportation

Last month an organization called TRIP, in conjunction with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) released a report on the hazards an aging population create in our auto-based transportation system. The report, titled Keeping Baby Boomers Mobile: Preserving the Mobility and Safety of Older Americans, identifies an important problem. Unfortunately, these [...]

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