This pisses me off
From the N&O:
So, now we know that it takes 8 fatalities to get pedestrian improvements implemented.
But this really pisses me off:
Yeah, $52,500 per life is a "substantial amount of money," if you're talking about making intersection improvements. But we're really talking about saving lives, aren't we? And how much do those cost? No wonder we can't get the state to put up a "State Law: Must Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk" sign on any state maintained roads in Durham, if the frikkin' NCDOT bike and ped main guy can let himself get quoted in the N&O saying something that stupid.
UPDATE: added commentary in italics above.
UPDATE2: To clarify further why Tom Norman's remarks as quoted piss me off, i would expect an NCDOT budget analyst to talk about how expensive this project is. I would expect the resident engineer, or the traffic engineer, to refer to it in terms of an "intersection improvement project," and the higher up the chain you go, the more likely it would be for the two to be combined.
But NCDOT has a long history of designing, funding, and building transportation models for cars, and not for people. It's taken a lot of pushing and cajoling, some public and some behind closed doors, to get NCDOT to start taking pedestrian issues seriously. If the guy who is supposed to be the bike and ped advocate for NCDOT can't actually, you know, advocate for pedestrian issues as such, then how seriously can we take NCDOT's pronouncements that such things matter.
A more appropriate statement from the bike and ped guy at NCDOT would have been, "We realize that this seems like a lot of money to spend, but we anticipate avoiding at least a dozen fatalities over the next 8 or so years. We can't really put a price on human life. These pedestrian safety improvements, and other projects similarly designed to make walking in our community safer, may be expensive, but we think saving lives is worth the cost."
That's what we need to hear from our bike and ped advocates within the system. There's enough budget and traffic people to make the cost/benefit analysis, or to advocate for road designs that put vehicle throughput ahead of pedestrian safety. There aren't enough voices within the system saying something different.
(I'm bumping this to the top because the updated comments justify it)
Raleigh has decided to make Capital Boulevard $420,000 safer for pedestrians.
In a report released Monday, the city's Department of Public Works said it would improve five crossings on Capital, Wake County's most fatal road for pedestrians, excluding interstate highways. Since 2002, eight people have died crossing Capital between Peace Street and Durant Road.
So, now we know that it takes 8 fatalities to get pedestrian improvements implemented.
But this really pisses me off:
"If you're talking about intersection improvements, that is a substantial amount of money," said Tom Norman, head of N.C. Department of Transportation's pedestrian and bicycle safety division.
Yeah, $52,500 per life is a "substantial amount of money," if you're talking about making intersection improvements. But we're really talking about saving lives, aren't we? And how much do those cost? No wonder we can't get the state to put up a "State Law: Must Yield to Pedestrians in Crosswalk" sign on any state maintained roads in Durham, if the frikkin' NCDOT bike and ped main guy can let himself get quoted in the N&O saying something that stupid.
UPDATE: added commentary in italics above.
UPDATE2: To clarify further why Tom Norman's remarks as quoted piss me off, i would expect an NCDOT budget analyst to talk about how expensive this project is. I would expect the resident engineer, or the traffic engineer, to refer to it in terms of an "intersection improvement project," and the higher up the chain you go, the more likely it would be for the two to be combined.
But NCDOT has a long history of designing, funding, and building transportation models for cars, and not for people. It's taken a lot of pushing and cajoling, some public and some behind closed doors, to get NCDOT to start taking pedestrian issues seriously. If the guy who is supposed to be the bike and ped advocate for NCDOT can't actually, you know, advocate for pedestrian issues as such, then how seriously can we take NCDOT's pronouncements that such things matter.
A more appropriate statement from the bike and ped guy at NCDOT would have been, "We realize that this seems like a lot of money to spend, but we anticipate avoiding at least a dozen fatalities over the next 8 or so years. We can't really put a price on human life. These pedestrian safety improvements, and other projects similarly designed to make walking in our community safer, may be expensive, but we think saving lives is worth the cost."
That's what we need to hear from our bike and ped advocates within the system. There's enough budget and traffic people to make the cost/benefit analysis, or to advocate for road designs that put vehicle throughput ahead of pedestrian safety. There aren't enough voices within the system saying something different.
(I'm bumping this to the top because the updated comments justify it)
Labels: Pedestrian safety
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9 Comments:
Was Tom Norman quoted out of context? Maybe as far as "intersection improvements" go, it is more money than usual?
Is Norman a Democratic appointee trying to placate state Republicans, who wilt at the sight of any public expenditure (except for ones that benefit their cronies)?
Or is Norman a Republican appointee who honestly feels spending any tax dollars on anything is basically a waste of money? (unless it's the roads themselves, apparently)
With the Weekly World News gone now, how will we know?
By
Tony, at 10:56 PM
I would assume that's a staff level position, not a political appointment, so his politics should be irrelevant.
He may be quoted out of context. That's why i phrased my remarks "allowing himself to be quoted saying . . . " the way i did.
I'll put a clarification on the front page as to why this bothers me so much.
By
Barry, at 9:25 AM
I appreciate that it's the tone of the official's comments that is pissing you off, but Capital Blvd is, after all, a divided highway with three lanes in each direction throughout most of the stretch of road in question.
By
toastie, at 1:11 PM
And yet, it still generates enough pedestrian traffic that 8 people have been killed crossing it in the past 5 years.
The pattern that we've come to expect, that is, state maintained roads are designed to move as many vehicles as possible, and pedestrian safety is only considered after enough injuries and deaths result in community outrage, is one that has to change. Even NCDOT realizes that. That's why they even have the position of bicycle and pedestrian safety coordinator in the first place, so they can say to the public that "this matters to us."
The problem is, the bike and ped guy has got to act like it matters. Otherwise it's the same old shit.
I've recently been told that the state won't allow any additional ped safety measure on another of their surface streets in Durham because there haven't been enough incidents to warrant them.
Waiting for someone to get killed before you take action is incredibly tupid public policy.
By
Barry, at 1:36 PM
I am glad to see someone else has taken notice of this article. I cut it out and pasted it on my cube wall at work. Actually, the thing that irritates me the most was the paragraph that read like this:
"Put in perspective, the money for Capital is less than 7 percent of the $6.3 million the city plans to spend on its largest pedestrian safety project on Hillsborough Street, a street with nowhere near the deaths of Capital Boulevard."
But then again, NCDOT indifference always gets my goat.
By
Anonymous, at 6:55 PM
They're counting the Hillsborough St. project as a pedestrian safety project?
I thought it was mostly as a traffic calming/visual upgrade to make it a more desirable street to do business?
Not that it's a bad project. I like what i've seen of the design. And you shouldn't have to wait until people get killed before you make sure that intersections are safe. But still, that money should be counted against a different part of the budget, if pedestrian safety funds are as limited as they seem to be.
By
Barry, at 11:06 PM
Capitol Blvd:
Designed in the day when the fad was to put "feeder roads" down either side of a big road with the idea that the feeders would take care of the traffic from all the driveways and that there would be only a few spots where you could get on into the main traffic flow. Kinda' like a halfway limited access interstate. The concept was, obviously, a failure and now they're stuck with what do do with it. They need to elevate the damn thing and make it an interstate from the beltline to downtown but that'll never happen.
Hillsborough St:
Having nearly been run over in a crosswalk there a few years ago I can tell you the "traffic calming" aspect is to get people to slow down for the crosswalks. They're doing it by putting in the latest fad, traffic circles, which will be a way to make the impatient drivers go even faster. I predict they will be ripping them out in a few years. They need to close the Hillsborough St. interchange with the beltine and make the traffic go to Western Blvd. which is now supposed to be the main entrance to NCSU as it bisects the old campus and Centennial Campus. This would also solve the problem on the beltline as the Western Blvd. and Hillsborough St. interchanges are waaaay too close together anyway. Western Blvd. has, if anything, a worse pedestrian crossing problem than Capitol Blvd. due to the large number of students transiting back and forth. Go down there sometime and watch the students play dodgecar. I can only attribute the lack of fatalities to the agility of young people.
By
Anonymous, at 4:44 PM
$420,000 isn't much when you consider the $160,000 Durham spent on traffic calming on little ol' Anderson St.
By
Anonymous, at 10:53 PM
$420,000 isn't much when you consider that 8 people have already died there. It should be pretty clear that i'm not bitching about the money.
If every idiot behind the wheel of a car would simply drive as though other people mattered, however, we probably wouldn't need to retrofit our roads to get people to slow down.
By
Barry, at 8:00 AM
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