Cities Turning to Bicycles

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:
Brent P wrote:

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:

And yet there are thousands of these things installed in thousands of
neighborhoods across the country, including one about three miles from
here. And the residents are satisfied that they significantly slow
speeds. And studies by traffic engineers clearly document significant
speed reductions.


Sorry frank, every speed hump in the nation isn't your perfect ITE speed
hump.

It doesn't need to be. As I see it, even a sharp speed bump in a
residential roadway will do what I want - lower speeds in residential
neighborhoods.

So will making the streets appear more narrow and other known solutions.
But you don't like those because they don't screw up the surface of the
road.

The details of a "perfect ITE" speed hump are intended to mollify the
folks with delicate cars, or delicate sensibilities. The "Princess and
the Pea" drivers, if you will.

So you trot out the 'perfect hump' that exists about as frequently as the
perfect bike lane and act as if it's what is in common usage when you
know better. There's your honesty problem again.

So it sounds like my job is to advocate _some_ type of speed hump or
bump. Your job is to make sure that those actually installed meet ITE
recommendations. If there are too many imperfect speed humps installed,
you should probably waste less time on Usenet!

No, my job is to oppose speed humps of all kinds in favor of better
solutions that aren't half ass retrofits.

Surely, you can't expect us to take your RR track anecdote as seriously
as the actual measured evidence, can you?

Oh, you want to measure 85th percentile speeds. When I said that's the
way things should be done you did your whole insult rutine. You didn't
need any data, you didn't need alter the road, you just needed a cop with
a radar gun. Thanks for proving I'm correct once again.

:-) You are absolutely delusional!

Not at all. Your arguing for speed humps alone is admitting I was correct
then.

Stating the 85th percentile speed is a valid way of telling how fast
people _are_ driving.

And what I told you before if you want lower speeds, you need to deal
with what people actually drive, not the sign. But you insisted all you
needed was a sign and a cop. You didn't need any road features to lower
the actual speeds.

Whether that's the speed they _should_ drive is a separate issue!
Admittedly, speeding advocates have promoted as dogma that these are
equivalent - but a reasonably intelligent person should see that things
like the presence of an elementary school, the desire of pedestrians to
safely cross roads, etc. should be taken into account.

Again you show ignorance of the 85th percentile METHOD.


I have the
confindence that your half-ass speed hump plan will fail as did your cop
with radar gun plan.

There are only two problems with what you claim in that sentence:
1) Speed humps are working well almost everywhere they're implemented.
2) Our "cop with radar" is also working well!

You have an odd definition of 'well'.

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:36:08 GMT,
, Alan Baker
wrote:

Use your brain: there is no *way* that motorcycle was doing 205.

Sure there is.
The fastest production motorcycle is the Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300R at
194 mph. It's possible to have clocked faster speeds with a modified
Hayabusa producing 300+ hp.
Somebody claimed they attained 198 mph on a Kawasaki ZX9R.
The fastest motorcycle speed ever is 322.15 mph. That wasn't on a
production bike though.
The highest speed an individual has crashed a motorcycle and survived
is estimated at 200 mph.
--
zk

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:

That's nice. But it doesn't answer the question.

On this issue, once this solution was proposed,

It was a general question Frank. Do you treat people who have different
solutions than you in real life the same way you do on usenet?

paragraphs spent avoiding a yes-no question deleted

different towns, built decades apart. Each uses a different solution of
the ones I suggest. I have no problems with speeders on either of my
streets. But you ignore this. You declare the solutions unworkable,
impossible, as if they can't be done anywhere.

I wonder how you'd view two different proposals with special property
tax assessments: a) Fix speeding through this neighborhood by plowing
up the center of the road and planting "boulevard" medians, cost to each
resident $500, moderate chance that they'll slow traffic; or b) Install
speed humps each 300 feet, cost to each resident $100, proven ability to
slow traffic.
I can tell you how the choice would go around here. In fact, I can tell
you that choice (a) would never be proposed, because no council member
could seriously promote it. In fact, recall that the streets in
question are only 18 feet wide. Option (a) is actually impossible
without widening the road.

Planting trees doesn't cost much. Neither does painting a centerline.
On street parking is free. An atertial problem may be fixed with
different traffic light timing/programming, again cheap. But as usual you
ignore options that are cheaper than humps.

vehicles and bicycles); and I'm OK with village speeds being kept under
control by self-enforcing traffic calming measures like speed humps. In
every case, I prefer proven and cost-effective solutions over those that
are unproven and expensive.

You've argued vociferously against two of those,

I've argued against idiotic traffic calming solutions like humps. I've
been for calming solutions like narrowing and the appearance of narrowing
for years and cited such in that thread of long ago. Proven effective.
Various cheaper than speed hump techniques have been suggested in this
regards. Those you dismiss out of hand.

and you've contradicted yourself on the third.

I haven't contradicted myself on anything frank. Your debate technique
has been of 99% misrepresentation and insult.

You've been consistent, though, in wanting faster traffic.

Faster traffic? How am I going to make traffic go faster than it already
is on the interstate? The speed limit doesn't determine traffic speeds.

If you truthfully drive as slowly as you claim, I
continue to wonder about that discrepency - and I wonder why you've had
so many typical speeder problems!

The only problem here frank is you are dishonest. There is no discrepency
between wanting 25mph residential traffic and /// rural interstates. They
are two very different types of road. One is supposed to be small and
slow, the other is supposed to be for high speed travel. There is no
discrepency between riding a bicycle on arterials and wanting
85th percentile method determined speed limits on the same. The reason is
because the properly set speed limit creates better flow, improving
conditions and allowing faster traffic to pass smoothly instead of
creating conflicts for the same road space.

I've tried to explain this to you anti-driving folks many times. But you
just want to make things painful for driving. Well I'll tell you what
makes driving painful. Dig a big ass trench across arterial roads.
At least 2 E-W arterials between work and home are torn up. One
completely closed, the other down to one lane westbound. It's been
causing massive backups on all of the open ones. Thankfully I can
just pick up my bicycle and carry it across the trench. Annoying, but
it keeps me out of the backup.

Brent P wrote:

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:



So it sounds like my job is to advocate _some_ type of speed hump or
bump. Your job is to make sure that those actually installed meet ITE
recommendations. If there are too many imperfect speed humps installed,
you should probably waste less time on Usenet!


No, my job is to oppose speed humps of all kinds in favor of better
solutions that aren't half ass retrofits.

OK, whatever project you want to take on. But I notice that you're
losing. There are more speed humps installed every day. Many cities
have literal backlogs of requests, which they're getting to as fast as
they can. Enjoy!



I have the
confindence that your half-ass speed hump plan will fail as did your cop
with radar gun plan.


There are only two problems with what you claim in that sentence:
1) Speed humps are working well almost everywhere they're implemented.
2) Our "cop with radar" is also working well!


You have an odd definition of 'well'.

Hey, they slow traffic down to the desired speeds. That's pretty practical!



--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

Brent P wrote:

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:


That's nice. But it doesn't answer the question.



On this issue, once this solution was proposed,


It was a general question Frank. Do you treat people who have different
solutions than you in real life the same way you do on usenet?

Briefly, no. In real life, I tend to avoid people who spew nonsense.
True, I've met a _few_ Vandeman/Peterson/Zaumen clones in real life, but
only a very few.

I'll admit to engaging in debates with one or two of them. It can be a
sort of guilty pleasure. But mostly I do what everyone else does - I
just leave them alone.

Planting trees doesn't cost much. Neither does painting a centerline.
On street parking is free. An atertial problem may be fixed with
different traffic light timing/programming, again cheap. But as usual you
ignore options that are cheaper than humps.

And as usual, you throw out a few vague theoretical ideas, despite the
fact that the real situation - already described - can't make use of them.

A broken record is even more irritating when the endless repetition is
flat-out wrong!




vehicles and bicycles); and I'm OK with village speeds being kept under
control by self-enforcing traffic calming measures like speed humps. In
every case, I prefer proven and cost-effective solutions over those that
are unproven and expensive.

You've argued vociferously against two of those,


I've argued against idiotic traffic calming solutions like humps. I've
been for calming solutions like narrowing and the appearance of narrowing
for years and cited such in that thread of long ago. Proven effective.

Data? ITE claime such data "isn't available." One poster discussed
lanes that were narrowed, to no good effect at all. What have you got
that indicates your proof?


I've tried to explain this to you anti-driving folks many times. But you
just want to make things painful for driving. Well I'll tell you what
makes driving painful. Dig a big ass trench across arterial roads.

:-) Is that your current suggestion?

BTW, wipe your chin. You're frothing again. ;-)


--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:
Brent P wrote:

losing. There are more speed humps installed every day. Many cities
have literal backlogs of requests, which they're getting to as fast as
they can. Enjoy!

I can't be everywhere. But they aren't showing up where I am.

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:
Brent P wrote:

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:


That's nice. But it doesn't answer the question.



On this issue, once this solution was proposed,


It was a general question Frank. Do you treat people who have different
solutions than you in real life the same way you do on usenet?

Briefly, no. In real life, I tend to avoid people who spew nonsense.
True, I've met a _few_ Vandeman/Peterson/Zaumen clones in real life, but
only a very few.

Ok frank. It's clear you are going to do nothing now but be insulting.
The vandeman comment is below the belt. You've gone too far now.

Frank Krygowski wrote:

The demonic 6" bumps you fear are not installed in any public roads I've
ever seen. Even the ones in the plaza with the bookstore near here (I
referred to them earlier, and we were there this evening) are no more
than 3" high.

If you can't provide good evidence, I'm assuming these sharp, 6",
in-road speed bumps are more of your imagination.

Agreed. Even parking berms are not 6" high. I think his numbers are
a reflection of his subjective perception rather than any sort of
measurement. If Nate can furnish photo evidence of a speed moderating
device anywhere that is more than 4" high, I would be extremely
surprised.

Of course, _any_ speed bump or hump seems mountainous when you run
over one at speed!

Chalo Colina

Chalo wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:

The demonic 6" bumps you fear are not installed in any public roads I've
ever seen. Even the ones in the plaza with the bookstore near here (I
referred to them earlier, and we were there this evening) are no more
than 3" high.

If you can't provide good evidence, I'm assuming these sharp, 6",
in-road speed bumps are more of your imagination.


Agreed. Even parking berms are not 6" high. I think his numbers are
a reflection of his subjective perception rather than any sort of
measurement. If Nate can furnish photo evidence of a speed moderating
device anywhere that is more than 4" high, I would be extremely
surprised.

You want me to go back to my old neighborhood and measure the damned
thing for you? If it will really make you happy, but it's about 50
miles out of my way and I won't be able to get back there for at least
two weeks.

You are correct in your assessment, though, these are about the height
of an unusually high curb.


Of course, _any_ speed bump or hump seems mountainous when you run
over one at speed!

at *any* speed, when they're that tall.

nate

--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

In article , Nate Nagel wrote:

You are correct in your assessment, though, these are about the height
of an unusually high curb.

After I parked I did examine the stealth hump. It was about 3/4" shy of
the top of the big square curb. These big square curbs are a danger to
opening the passenger side door to give a reference of how tall they are.
They are just barely (.25") under the door in most cases, sometimes
scrape, sometimes the door cannot be opened.

One guy was parked with one end of his car on one of the marked humps and
the other end not on the hump. It really looked odd.