Safer Intersections Project a Traffic Calming Success

Safer Intersections Project a Traffic Calming Success
By Uyen Ngo

mage from Vision Zero SF entitled “A Turn Toward Safety” with images of a person on a bicycle, a person walking a dog, a person pushing stroller with a baby in it, and a person on a scooter

This week the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) released “A Turn Toward Safety: The Safer Intersections Project,” a report detailing the impact of the Left Turn Traffic Calming Project and the “Safety—It’s Your Turn” education campaign. The Safer Intersections Project now has tested traffic interventions that can reduce unsafe left turns. Overall, SFMTA found a 17% reduction in average speed (1.7mph slower) and a 71% reduction in the likelihood of a car turning left at higher speeds over 15mph at seven high-crash test intersections.

In 2019, 40% of traffic deaths in San Francisco were caused when drivers made left turns and didn’t see the person in the crosswalk, until it was too late. To combat this trend, also seen in other cities, and encourage safer left turns and adoption of safer left turn behaviors, San Francisco’s multilayered project combined engineering treatments in seven high-crash intersections with an education campaign, which led to promising results.

The Left Turn Traffic Calming Project consisted of installing waist-high vertical delineator posts, small rubber speed bumps, and paint to create enhanced center lane lines and painted safety zones to encourage slower, wider left turns and increase drivers’ awareness of other road users. To measure the impact, SFMTA collected left-turning driver speeds before and after installation and then compared driver speeds at the seven project intersections with four other control intersections. The result of this project showed that these treatments are proven to slow driver speeds and encourage safer left turns for both people in the crosswalks and opposing traffic.

photo of plastic safety posts separating a bike lane from a general traffic lane

The second part of the Safer Intersections Project was designing and implementing an education and community outreach campaign– “Safety—It’s Your Turn” –funded by a $2 million grant through the California Transportation Commission Active Transportation Program. The campaign presented three safer left turn behaviors (Take it slow—5mph is safest; Make it square—90-degree angles are best; and Stay aware—look out for cars, cyclists, and people) and data suggests the “Safety—It’s Your Turn” campaign extended the speed reductions from the Left Turns Traffic Calming project. Year-to-year survey results also show that public perception of the dangers of speeding is trending in the right direction, indicating a sustained change in attitudes influenced by education campaigns and engineering.

A unique aspect of this project was the use of behavioral science. SFMTA partnered with the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), a leading behavioral science organization, to analyze how drivers make left turns in order to develop interventions that would prompt safer behaviors. By changing the architecture of intersections, we were able to move people toward making safer left turns in the moment. The combination of these physical changes and SFMTA’s educational campaign encouraged safe driving behaviors and increased awareness of how individual actions have an impact on the community.

montage of three posters and a sign on a bus that state 40% of traffic deaths involve drivers making left turns

The education campaign also included working with community-based organizations (CBOs) to broaden and deepen the traffic safety messaging. Through a community grant process, six CBOs were compensated for their time and knowledge, creating additional materials and events supporting the campaign. Many of our grantees were new to Vision Zero and helped us reach additional residents through creative ways such as food delivery, artistic public service announcements, virtual bike rides, and youth poster contests. Finally, we worked with an additional eight CBOs to share educational materials and present the Safety—It’s Your Turn campaign to their members.

In addition to the treatments’ impact on slower speeds, there were two key takeaways from the project:

Well-funded and evidenced-based education campaigns are an important and effective tool in in raising public awareness, encouraging safer driving behaviors, influencing policy discussions, and building community support.
For maximum effectiveness, calming treatments should become a standard engineering tool and applied at locations with existing high left-turn speeds, conducive street geometry, and lots of people walking and biking.

Published November 19, 2021 at 09:58PM
https://ift.tt/3FyixLU

Comments

New top story from Time: All 53 People Aboard Indonesia Submarine Declared Dead After Vessel’s Wreckage Found

https://ift.tt/3ezrzg5 ANYUWANGI, Indonesia — Indonesia’s military on Sunday officially said all 53 crew members from a submarine that sank and broke apart last week are dead, and that search teams had located the vessel’s wreckage on the ocean floor. The grim announcement comes a day after Indonesia said the submarine was considered sunk, not merely missing , but did not explicitly say whether the crew was dead. Officials had also said the KRI Nanggala 402’s oxygen supply would have run out early Saturday, three days after vessel went missing off the resort island of Bali. “We received underwater pictures that are confirmed as the parts of the submarine, including its rear vertical rudder, anchors, outer pressure body, embossed dive rudder and other ship parts,” military chief Hadi Tjahjanto told reporters in Bali on Sunday. “With this authentic evidence, we can declare that KRI Nanggala 402 has sunk and all the crew members are dead,” Tjahjanto said. An underwater ro...

New top story from Time: Nirvana Is Being Sued by the Man Who Was the Nude Baby on the Nevermind Album Cover

https://ift.tt/3gAIAZ3 LOS ANGELES — A 30-year-old man who appeared nude at 4 months old in 1991 on the cover of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” album is suing the band and others, alleging the image is child pornography they have profited from. The lawsuit, filed by Spencer Elden on Tuesday in federal court in California, alleges that Nirvana and the record labels behind “Nevermind” “intentionally commercially marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense.” The lawsuit says Elden has suffered “lifelong damages” from the ubiquitous image of him naked underwater appearing to swim after a dollar bill on a fish hook. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] It seeks at least $150,000 from each of more than a dozen defendants, including the Kurt Cobain estate, surviving Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl and Geffen Records. Emails seeking comment from representatives for the defendants were n...

New top story from Time: Over 550,000 U.S. Borrowers Could Be Newly Eligible for Student Debt Relief

https://ift.tt/3lf52cK The Biden administration is temporarily relaxing the rules for a student loan forgiveness program that has been criticized for its notoriously complex requirements—a change that could offer debt relief to thousands of teachers, social workers, military members and other public servants. The Education Department said Wednesday it will drop some of the toughest requirements around Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that was launched in 2007 to steer more college graduates into public service but, since then, has helped just 5,500 borrowers get their loans erased. Congress created the program as a reward for college students who go into public service. As long as they made 10 years of payments on their federal student loans, the program promised to erase the remainder. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But more than 90% of applicants have been rejected. After making a decade of payments, many borrowers have found that they have the wrong type of...

New top story from Time: ‘One Slip of the Tongue Could Ruin Things.’ Bipartisan Talks on Police Reform Advance—Delicately

https://ift.tt/2ScOdmJ A small bipartisan group of lawmakers in Washington are making an urgent push to get a police reform bill passed in Congress in the wake of a Minneapolis jury finding Derek Chauvin, a white former police officer, guilty of murdering George Floyd, a Black man, last May. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they are optimistic that renewed bipartisan talks will result in a deal that can pass both of the closely split chambers of Congress. President Joe Biden has given lawmakers a deadline to get it done by the anniversary of Floyd’s death on May 25. “Congress should act,” said Biden during his joint address on Wednesday. “We have a giant opportunity to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.” The way forward in reforming America’s police force must now be found in a legislative body regularly paralyzed by partisanship and disagreement, on an issue that has become so divisive that compromise can translate to losing support from member...

New top story from Time: 11 Moments From Asian American History That You Should Know

https://ift.tt/330kaRq More than 30 years after President George H.W. Bush signed a law that designated May 1990 as the first Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month , much of Asian American history remains unknown to many Americans—including many Asian Americans themselves. Often the Asian-American history taught in classrooms is limited to a few milestones like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the incarceration of people of Japanese descent during World War II, and that abridged version rarely includes the nearly 50 other ethnic groups that make up the fastest-growing racial and ethnic group in the U.S. in the first two decades of the 21st century . To many, the resulting lack of awareness was highlighted after the March 16 Atlanta spa shootings that left six women of Asian descent dead. The killings fit into a larger trend of violence against Asians failing to be seen or charged as a hate crime , even as leaders lamented that “racist attacks [are]… no...

New top story from Time: ‘We Are Standing up for Equal Treatment Before the Law.’ Pennsylvania Abolishes Prison Gerrymandering

https://ift.tt/3koSa1Z A Pennsylvania commission responsible for drawing the state’s legislative districts voted 3-2 on Tuesday to end prison gerrymandering, the practice of counting prisoners where they are incarcerated rather than in their last known residence before incarceration. Advocates have lauded the move as helping right an injustice that unfairly skews the state’s political power away from urban areas and communities of color. The change will apply to those incarcerated in a state correctional facility or state facility for adjudicated delinquents—but not to individuals in federal or county prison facilities or those serving a life sentence. (A spokesperson for Democratic House Minority Leader Rep. Joanna McClinton says that federal and county prison facilities were excluded because they don’t fall under the state’s jurisdiction, while people given life sentences were excluded because they are not expected to return to their homes.) [time-brightcove not-tgx=”t...

New top story from Time: The Northwestern U.S. Endures the Hottest Day of an Intense Heat Wave

https://ift.tt/3qzoAK3 SEATTLE — The hottest day of an unprecedented and dangerous heat wave scorched the Pacific Northwest on Monday, with temperatures obliterating records that had been set just the day before. Seattle hit 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 Celsius) by mid-afternoon — well above Sunday’s all-time high of 104 F (40 C) — on the way to an expected high of 110 F (43 C). Portland, Oregon, reached 115 F (46 C) after hitting new records of 108 F (42 C) on Saturday and 112 F (44 C) on Sunday. The temperatures were unheard of in a region better known for rain, and where June has historically been referred to as “Juneuary” for its cool drizzle. Seattle’s average high temperature in June is around 70 F (21.1 C), and fewer than half of the city’s residents have air conditioning, according to U.S. Census data. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The heat forced schools and businesses to close to protect workers and guests, including some places like outdoor pools and ice cream...

New top story from Time: Bomb at Seminary in Pakistan Kills 7 Children and Wounds 70

https://ift.tt/3kL67GR PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A powerful bomb blast ripped through an Islamic seminary on the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday morning, killing at least seven students and wounding 70 others, police and a hospital spokesman said. The bombing happened as a prominent religious scholar during a special class was delivering a lecture about the teachings of Islam at the main hall of the Jamia Zubairia madrassa, said police officer Waqar Azim. He said initial investigations suggest the bomb went off minutes after someone left a bag at the madrassa. TV footage showed damaged main hall of the seminary, where the bombing took place. Several of the wounded students were in critical condition, and hospital authorities feared the death toll could climb further. Authorities said some seminary teachers and employees were also wounded in the bombing. Shortly after the attack, residents rushed to the seminary to check up on their sons...

New top story from Time: The 23 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2021

https://ift.tt/3jmOizz At long last, the final blockbusters that were supposed to arrive in 2020 are hitting re-opened movie theaters. This will be the last time to see Daniel Craig as James Bond —but the first time to glimpse Angelina Jolie as the Marvel immortal Thena in Eternals , which sees Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao join the Marvel Cinematic Universe . It remains to be seen how the Delta variant will affect in-person moviegoing this fall; the movies below represent a mix of streaming, theatrical-only and hybrid release models. But however you get your movie fix this fall, there’s no question the circumstances of the past 18 months have yielded quite a bounty. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Here are the most notable films hitting theaters and streaming platforms this fall. Cinderella (Sept. 3) The centuries-old fairy tale gets a modern retelling as a jukebox musical on Amazon Prime, with the pop star Camila Cabello donning the glass slipper. This vers...

New top story from Time: Trump Campaign Website Briefly Defaced With Cryptocurrency Scam

https://ift.tt/3oxeEze One of Donald Trump’s campaign websites, donaldjtrump.com , was briefly made to look like it had been seized by law enforcement Tuesday, an effort that appeared to be part of a cryptocurrency scam. The takeover, termed a defacement by cybersecurity experts, lasted for less than an hour. During that time, the web page was made to look like it had been take over by the government and included images of Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department seals. It also included a message urging people to send digital currency to an account, a technique used by criminals. Trump's campaign website hacked by cryptocurrency scammers https://t.co/wIqNATXtEU | by Devin Coldewey — TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) October 27, 2020 It is unknown who caused the defacement, or if the Trump website was hacked. A website defacement doesn’t necessarily mean information from the site was taken. TechCrunch previously reported the incident. A Trump campaign spokesman...

My precise view

Search This Blog