Are you calm while you sit in city traffic or are you agitated, angry and charged up? Do you imagine that while you sit in one lane of traffic that used to be two lanes, while cars around you are idling and spewing fumes in the air for neighbors, pedestrians and cyclists to breathe, that you are somehow helping the environment?
I attended the most recent Land Park Community Association meeting, where additional “traffic calming” projects were on the agenda. However, these were discussed by only a couple of enthusiastic residents. The rest of the neighbors sat upright in their seats, arms crossed against their chests, eyebrows raised in disbelief.
The downtown neighborhood of Land Park has recently had “traffic calming” projects completed on two major streets; conversions of once-flowing, one-way streets to two-way and lane reductions from two lanes to one lane. Councilman Rob Fong proudly calls this a “lane diet.” Several other downtown neighborhoods have also undergone lane conversions and lane reductions. But no one is calming down driving along Sacramento streets.
Traffic congestion increases fuel consumption and the release of harmful emissions. Yet city traffic planners keep drawing up and executing plans that create more traffic problems than they solve. Numerous traffic-engineering studies in cities across the United States show that arbitrarily interrupting traffic with “nuisance” or “speed-breaker” stop signs, speed bumps and round-abouts, increase intentional violation and can actually increase the overall speed on the road where they are used.
We should instead be working on traffic signal synchronization and the removal of unwarranted traffic signals, stop signs and traffic undulations. Increasing the flow of traffic is far more beneficial to neighborhoods, as well as safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists.
When unreasonable restrictions are continually imposed, drivers become either careless or contemptuous about the need to obey the law.
Safety on the road should come first; instead, city officials and neighborhood activists bombard us with messages of “traffic calming,” which is nothing more than a euphemism for traffic obstruction and diversion.
A significant portion of vehicular fuel consumption is wasted due to unwarranted traffic control. Traffic engineering studies have demonstrated that in cities with excessive numbers of traffic signals and stop signs, the fuel consumed by vehicles stopping and idling accounts for approximately 40 percent of all vehicular fuel consumption.
It is obvious that the decisions for traffic control devices are made in response to undue public pressure by special interests. Neighbors fear for their safety when there is no traffic enforcement. Instead, they should be advocating for realistic traffic safety enforcement and efficient traffic flow on thoroughfares.
Then there are the extreme groups of bicycle advocates, which is what’s driving Sacramento’s “traffic calming” scheme. They absurdly and unrealistically advocate for no cars on the road, and use burdensome traffic control devices as their instrument.
City Hall, listen up: Traffic signals are assets to traffic control only if they are installed at intersections that really warrant a signal. And stop signs are intended to help drivers and pedestrians decide who has the right-of-way and not for speed control. Crosswalks, another tool for “traffic calming,” should exist only to ensure pedestrian safety.
“Traffic calming” devices, such as speed bumps and traffic circles (round-abouts) are being installed in communities across the United States, without regard to their risks. But deflection devices built to slow passenger vehicles create even greater delays to large emergency response vehicles. The longer wheel-base, stiff suspension and high vehicle weight of emergency transports require drivers to slow almost to a stop to negotiate the devices safely. And on a practical note, large delivery trucks cannot navigate a right turn around the newly installed jutting street corners, or the many round-abouts that sit in the middle of small intersections.
Stop-and-go traffic creates an environmental impact that takes a toll on health and quality-of-life. “Traffic calming” is the tool used by city officials to regulate and deliberately inconvenience – as well as hinder – the legitimate travel of motorists. As a community, we must put an end to this obstruction and abuse.