208
Hoboken, NJ reduces annual traffic deaths to zero (www.bloomberg.com)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by azimir@lemmy.ml to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml
3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The mayor of Hoboken, NJ came in with a vision of reducing traffic deaths to pedestrians and cyclists. He instituted several strategies of traffic calming, increasing pedestrian visibility, reducing city wide street speeds to 20 mph with schools and parks down to 15 mph. Within a few years of road improvements and redesigns their pedestrian traffic deaths to zero for several years.

The article does note that half of the streets have bike lanes, they've put buffers between pedestrians and cars, and continue to redesign intersections with a focus on safety instead of just focusing on car speed/throughput.

top 3 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] hyperhopper@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The bike lanes suck though. They are next to the street, instead of behind the parking and next to the sidewalk. As a result, on the main street in Hoboken (Washington street), there are always cars double parked in the bike lane during the day or drinking hours of the night, because parking in that city is horrendous. It's common to see an entire block or two full of cars double parked in the bike lane, making it unusable. Also, they redid the bike lane with textured hexagonal bullshit so using any wheels smaller than e-scooter wheels (skateboard, roller skate) is just a super rough ride.

Great that he stopped pedestrian casualties, but he severely harmed personal non-car transit.

[-] cobra89@beehaw.org 5 points 7 months ago

He still added bike lanes that weren't there before no? How is that harming personal non-car transit? Maybe go to city council meetings and ask that double parking in bike lanes be enforced. I would certainly think the city wants to make money from fines.

Also how many people are riding around on rollerblades? The "hexagonal bullshit" makes the bike lanes distinct and noticeable increasing awareness and also gives tactile feedback if a driver starts driving on the bike lane. Yeah it sucks for skateboarders but the tradeoffs are worth it, especially because again, how many skateboarders are there really? Some municipalities don't even allow skateboards in bike lanes because the drastic speed difference between them and bikes tends to cause issues.

Could the bike lanes be better? Absolutely, they could be actually protected bike lanes like you pointed out but don't let perfect be the enemy of good, they don't "suck". And 0 pedestrian deaths over the span of a few years is very very good.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

because parking in that city is horrendous

There's no such thing as horrendous parking. There is only too many people showing up by car when they ought to be walking/biking/riding transit instead.

this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
208 points (99.1% liked)

Fuck Cars

9465 readers
4 users here now

This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.

This community exists for the following reasons:

You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.

Rules

  1. Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.

  2. No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.

  3. Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.

  4. No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.

  5. No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.

  6. No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.

  7. No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.

Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
uthredii@lemmy.ml
uthredii@beehaw.org