I can't link to the Wall Street Journal site behind the paywall, so I will just give you some highlights of a piece from today on the perils of "road diets". They are becoming popular in the Bay Area including Menlo Park that just made one example permanent on Middlefield Rd. and, of course, our very own Carolan Ave. example. I suppose you could add the roundabout as another example. But…..
Los Angeles, like cities nationwide, is transforming its streets. In July 2017 the city installed a “road diet” on a 0.8-mile stretch of Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista, reducing four lanes to two and adding bike lanes separated from traffic by parking buffers. The project is part of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Vision Zero initiative, which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city by 2025. Launched in 2015, Vision Zero is the most radical transformation of how people move through Los Angeles since the dawn of the freeway era 75 years ago.
By almost any metric it’s been a disaster. Pedestrian deaths have nearly doubled, from 74 in 2015 to 135 in 2017, the last year for which data are available. After years of improvement, Los Angeles again has the world’s worst traffic, according to the transportation research firm Inrix. Miles of vehicles idling in gridlock have reduced air quality to 1980s levels.
Lane reductions, bike lanes, new meridians and other innovations designed to reduce vehicle speeds make it difficult for bulky ambulances and fire trucks to respond quickly to emergencies.
Let's just file this under the Law of Unintended Consequences. Here is our local example which is OK. It gets a little confusing up at Broadway for both cyclists and drivers, but doesn't inhibit fire trucks and such.
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