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November 21, 2005
Road Diet, Dutch Style?
Since I reflected on road diets in my last post, let me share these photos from the recent Netherlands trip. My guess is that this road may once have had more auto lanes and went on a road diet at some point.
With this post I'm also experimenting with a different way to display photos from Flickr, so I may be tweaking a bit.
This street had a slip lane carved out of it. It was primarily used as a bicycle lane. Cars were 'allowed' to use it (including accessing parking), but they did not get priority.
This lane served the neighborhood retail very well.
Posted by Chris Smith at 11:08 AM
Comments
November 22, 2005 2:59 PM
NJD Says:
wow, such a simple yet different approach to traffic calming. the slip lanes pictured would be an amazing fit for the clashes on Hawthorne, Sandy and MLK between the neighborhoods who live there and the thousands of commuters who drive quickly and recklessly through them. if there isn't enough viable room for a slip lane then those streets should at least have two travel lanes, a middle turn lane, and bike and parking lanes as discussed in the previous post. it's unfortunate that these main streets (with thier small town style downtowns) have arterial highway status otherwise 'calming' or 'dieting' would be realistic alternatives. i know how hard it is to get anything done, especially drastic changes to this vehicle centered American mentality.
November 23, 2005 8:53 AM
Lenny Anderson Says:
Hawthorne certainly came to mind for me as well. What a shame that its commuter traffic trumps local community needs.
When PDOT looked to do a "Main Street" project there 10 or so years ago, there was lots of opposition from retail to reconfiguring Hawthorne below 39th to the three lane option; they were wedded to the idea that their businesses depended on all that through traffic. True? good question. Above 39th Hawthorne has two lanes plus a center turn lane, but without bike lanes, though there is plenty of room. Who's got some paint! We could do it tonight.
What gave me pause to putting lower Hawthorne on a "diet" was transit, wanting to be sure all those 14 buses can get through, for which the double lane configuration serves.
So here's my suggestion...designate with signs, paint and some design the right hand lane on lower Hawthorne for buses, bikes and local traffic only by putting "right turn only" at every signal. Make clear that the left lane is for through traffic. This will calm things somewhat and make clear what the right lane is for...local trips, transit and bikes...vs the left lane...through traffic.
This could be done in conjunction with the modest ped improvements that will be done next year.
