-
To respond privately, use the "Reply" command.
To post to the list "Forward" to [at]
-
I am so sorry for the loss of pets -- I have two cats that I care about
deeply, and I can only imagine how devastating it would be to have them
killed by a callous and indifferent driver.
I think some people believe the neighborhood association has done little
on the issue of traffic calming, but as traffic is a major theme in our
neighborhood plan, I've been pushing for traffic calming quite a bit
over the past few years.
Unfortunately, I have had very little success with the city in my
efforts for traffic calming. I have had multiple conversations with COA
traffic engineers about traffic-calming on 51st Street, Ave. F, and
56th. They are remarkably unresponsive. Other neighborhood association
reps at ANC meetings are similarly miffed about the city's ineptitude
when it comes to traffic calming. The recent Shoal Creek debacle is
often brought up as an example of the city's blundering attempts at
traffic calming.
I've been told several times that City Manager Toby Futrell is the
primary culprit, and she is now retiring. Picking a new City Manager
that understands the importance of traffic calming would help
tremendously. Contact your elected officials here
(http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/) and recommend that the next City
Manager be more responsive to citizen requests for traffic calming.
I have also said many times that getting the attention of City Council
members BEFORE they are elected is one of the best ways to get them to
take action in our neighborhood. We have an election coming up, so I
think we should start thinking about a prioritized laundry-list of
things we want in our neighborhood and start talking to the candidates.
And now a few words on traffic-calming measures:
Keep in mind that as residents, we do not want people driving rapidly on
our streets, but as drivers, we want to be unimpeded everywhere we go.
For every resident asking the city for traffic calming measures, there
are just as many drivers (if not more) asking for clear, wide streets
free of obstacles. At least that's how the city sees it.
And every traffic calming measure has problems.
Residents often ask for speed humps first, but the city is loathe to put
these out unless absolutely necessary. The new ones don't really affect
emergency vehicles (they straddle them), but some cars and the
occasional cyclist are hurt by them, so the city uses them only very
rarely any more.
Next residents ask for stop signs, but the city has a policy against
using stop signs for traffic calming. At one time, the city was willing
to install 4-way stop signs to calm traffic, but for some reason, a few
years ago they decided they would ONLY install a 4-way stop sign if
there was significant and equivalent traffic flow from both directions.
Curb islands and traffic circles are sometimes offered as solutions, and
those actually do work fairly well. But they are expensive, some people
get confused by them, and again, the city is loathe to do them.
Speed limit signs do nothing. People who stomp on the gas don't care
that they are breaking the law. I've asked the city if we could
experiment with the speed-limit signs that give you feedback about your
speed (mostly I want these on 51st Street), but so far I've had no luck
on that front.
In the short term, I think the best thing we could do for 56th Street is
to ask the city to remove the "No Parking" signs along the north side of
the street. Personally, if I lived there, I would ENCOURAGE people to
park on 56th Street. I was told that the "No Parking" signs were
originally put there because the gas company employees used to park
there, and residents did not like that. I don't know if that's true,
but I would recommend that we reverse that decision. Parking cars in
the street is a great way to slow traffic down.
Cheers.
____________________________________________
Sebastian Wren, Ph.D.
Director
http://BalancedReading.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in messages are solely that of the author
and not of the list administrators nor Druma Inc (sponsor 14gram.com).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe & "howto" info, send a blank email to [at]
-
Post new comment