Crossing My Fingers for this One


BikePortland has a report on efforts by the City of Portland to gain local control over setting speed limits on some local streets.

This is one of the most important things we can do for safety. I’m wishing this effort much success.


8 responses to “Crossing My Fingers for this One”

  1. How much of an impact does lower neighborhood speed limits have on congestion on the arterials that some will switch to?

  2. Since when is slower safer? Are they forgetting that high speed freeways are the safest roads we have? It is road design, not necessarily speed. Besides how many ped fatalities occur on neighborhood streets? Answer, very few – the majority occur on busy arterials.

    This is just part of a Portland’s desire to replicate European plans to make driving more difficult. Europeans call the campaign “twenty’s plenty”. But it won’t save lives because so few fatalities occur on 25 mph streets. But it will get Adams more votes from the bikers and the advocates of this don’t realize that this will hurt our standard of living by reducing everyone’s ability to get things accomplished quickly.

    I note that the linked article says that bike boulevards are now to be called “neighborhood greenway” in, apparently Orwellian fashion. (Guess “bike boulevards” didn’t fare so well with the general population.)

    Thanks
    JK

  3. It’s a very odd comparison. Except on the shoulders some areas, and in emergency situations, pedestrians aren’t allowed to walk on (or across) freeways. So of course the rate of pedestrian fatalities is lower.

    One could argue that the incidences of food poisoning on airport runways is also very low, because people aren’t usually allowed to sit an have a picnic in the middle of the runway. It would be a true statement, but it wouldn’t really prove anything about safety.

    If I wouldn’t get arrested or killed, I’d be happy to walk across the Marquam bridge as a pedestrian and see just how “safe” it is to cross the freeway. But I can’t, and that’s the point.

  4. The term “Neighborhood Greenway” has been in use in a number of cities (and not just the Pacific NW) for a number of years, I’ve seen materials from 2006 that delineated types of greenways. It’s gradually becoming a more widespread term in Portland, and appropriately so, as greenways are intended to help a variety of users in a variety of ways, not just bicycles. Nothing “Orwellian” about it.

  5. What does neighborhood greenway even mean?

    A greenway has always, to me, meant a swath of parkland with connecting trails.

    Streets are now considered greenways?

  6. “Neighborhood Greenway” is the new name for “bike boulevards” but is also intended to tie into green features like bioswales and tree canopy. In general they are streets that are prioritized for people walking and biking where cars asked to slow down and car volumes are intended to be lower.

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