What’s An LPI? Pedestrians First!

Correction!

Although APCSC advocates for LPIs-

Unfortunately Asbury Park Main Street redesign does NOT include LPIs. Main ST is NJ 71, a state highway, and NJDOT engineers are not including LPIs in the traffic lights, although they are recommended by the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Drivers have been injuring and killing people walking, and people on bikes at an increasing rate. Mixing people with cars is a bad combination. #slowthecars #toomanycars

Canadian cities are grappling with the same issues that we are here in the US. Speed kills, and there are too many cars. One way to make streets safer for people is the traffic signal that lets people cross before drivers are permitted to go, called an LPI, Leading Pedestrian Interval. (There are also LBIs in many cities, which allow people on bikes to go first.) Asbury Park will experience the benefit of LBIs at intersections when the Main Street reconfiguration is completed.

‘We need to implement this everywhere’

Critic calls for installation of LPIs, which give head start to pedestrians at crosswalks

Joel Ballard · CBC News · Posted: Apr 11, 2019

LPIs give pedestrians a head start

LPIs give pedestrians a three to seven second head start when entering an intersection. The vehicles’ traffic signal stays red for a few extra seconds while pedestrians begin to cross.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/we-need-to-implement-this-everywhere-is-vancouver-dragging-its-heels-on-pedestrian-safety-1.5093227

April 22, 2019April 22, 2019

No Surprise Here: Protected Bike Lanes Are Best

It’s not like we didn’t already know this. Protected bike lanes are the BEST way to provide safe access on streets for people on bikes. What we didn’t know is that drivers pass CLOSER to people in painted bike lanes. We’re not fans of sharrows, and we don’t advocate no markings on streets – although by law, bike riders are allowed to take the lane, even if there is a bike lane. In many situations it’s safer to ride in the lane with traffic, such as when there’s debris in the bike lane, or if the rider is in danger of being hit by a car door opening. So what’s the solution? We need protected bike lanes everywhere that infrastructure can be built so that bike riders are not marginalized and endangered. potentially inured and killed.

Study: Driver Behavior Shows Greater Need for Protected Bike Lanes

By Angie SchmittApr 15, 2019

A stripe of paint on the street isn’t enough to keep bicyclists safe from drivers, a new study confirms.

The study, published this month in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, analyzed the way drivers interact with cyclists on various types of streets. It found that drivers pass cyclists on average about 1.25 feet closer on streets with a painted bike lane and car parking than on streets with no bike infrastructure.

“When the cyclist and driver share a lane, the driver is required to perform an overtaking maneuver,” Dr. Ben Beck, Monash University’s Deputy Head of Prehospital, Emergency and Trauma Research and the lead researcher on the study, said in a statement. “This is in contrast to roads with a marked bicycle lane, where the driver is not required to overtake. This suggests that there less of a conscious requirement for drivers to provide additional passing distance.”

Read about it:

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/04/15/study-painted-bike-lanes-endanger-cyclists-more/

April 18, 2019April 19, 2019

Road Diet Support From Tri City News!

Pick up a copy of Tri City today!

Big thanks to Dan Jacobsen Publisher of Tri City News for an in-depth, informative, and supportive article about the reconfiguration of Main Street.

Part of the article quoted from Polli Schildge, APCSC committee member:

As you drive on Main Street, “traffic calming” is what you’re experiencing. It’s the driver response to a street that feels narrower, and where there’s a need to be more aware. Drivers seem to have adapted, and they’re driving more safely, even though it isn’t pretty. Right now Main Street is in the process of repair, with obstacles like barrels, trucks, and potholes which “calm” traffic. When the project is finished there will be a calmer flow of traffic, because of only one north and one south lane, bike lanes, and a center turning lane. Drivers will find that they’re getting to their destinations without losing time, and without needing to zoom traffic light to traffic light.

Scroll down for more…

More…

A small city like Asbury Park is perfectly positioned to implement infrastructure like the Main Street Road Diet, and to adopt The Asbury Park Plan for Walking and Biking, which Doug references. We’re at #peakcar. #toomanycars. With bikeshare, jitneys, electric cars, and other transit options Asbury Park can be a model city for getting around safely walking, biking, and with or…without a car.

For many years, much of the focus in engineering city streets has been how to efficiently move cars. Asbury Park is among other forward thinking cities globally where we’ve realized that safety, and PEOPLE should be the focus. Cars are often needed to get to destinations, but within the city there are much better, healthier, and safer ways to get around, especially for many residents who do not own cars at all.

We’re so fortunate to have Transportation Manager, Mike Manzella and advocate members in Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition who can help educate, and partner with residents, businesses and police to make this city truly walkable and bikeable.

Stay tuned for more ways in which Asbury Park will be creating better ways for people to move about the city without a car.

April 11, 2019April 8, 2019

APCSC Advocates For Less Car Dependence

Asbury Park is joining cities around the world which are increasingly piloting and implementing new mobility strategies to reduce vehicle congestion and curb carbon emissions. Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition advocates for “improved mobility, equitable access and reduced car dependence in communities everywhere.”

#toomanycars

Streets for All Coalition unveiled to advocate for safe, clean mobility

Kristin Musulin

March 12, 2019

During a featured South by Southwest (SXSW) session dubbed “The Future of Transportation,” panelists unveiled the Streets for All Coalition, a group intended to advocate for “improved mobility, equitable access and reduced car dependence in communities everywhere.” Read more…

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/streets-for-all-coalition-safe-clean-mobility/550241/

April 10, 2019April 8, 2019

Parking Revolution

Would this be a revolution in Asbury Park? “We need more parking!” is the familiar refrain. The fact is that we can’t create more parking. We have #toomanycars. The best ways to reduce the use of, and need for cars in any city is to reduce the availability of parking, and make it less desirable to drive. The solution is to make it more desirable to use alternative transportation, walk or bike. “Talkin’ ’bout a revolution…”

A Modest Proposal to Eliminate 11,000 Urban Parking Spots

Feargus O’Sullivan Mar 29, 2019

Amsterdam plans to systematically strip its center of parking spaces in the coming years, making way for bike lanes, sidewalks, and more trees.

A woman parks her bike beneath boxes of daffodils on a bridge in Amsterdam, Netherlands April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Coombs – RC190EAE23D0

This week, Amsterdam is taking its reputation for pro-bike, anti-car polices one step further by announcing that it will systematically strip its inner city of parking spaces.

Amsterdam transit commissioner Sharon Dijksma announced Thursday that starting this summer, the city plans to reduce the number of people permitted to park in the city core by around 1,500 per year. These people already require a permit to access a specific space (and the cost for that permit will also rise), and so by reducing these permits steadily in number, the city will also remove up to 11,200 parking spaces from its streets by the end of 2025.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/03/amsterdam-cars-parking-spaces-bike-lanes-trees-green-left/586108/

April 9, 2019April 8, 2019

Do Wider Streets Move Traffic Better?

Some drivers and traffic engineers believe that making streets wider will effectively provide for more cars and make traffic move more efficiently. Learn more here.

CityLab University: Induced Demand

Benjamin Schneider Sep 6, 2018

When traffic-clogged highways are expanded, new drivers quickly materialize to fill them. What gives? Here’s how “induced demand” works.

Two Key Points:

In urbanism, “induced demand” refers to the idea that increasing roadway capacity encourages more people to drive, thus failing to improve congestion.
Since the concept was introduced in the 1960s, numerous academic studies have demonstrated the existence of ID.

Is Asbury Park A Strong Town? Here’s The Test

Think of the reasons that you love Asbury Park. Four cities were in the semi-final round of The Strongest Town. (Voting is now closed, and results are in as of April 6. Stay tuned.). Would Asbury Park someday be able to see our name on this list? Could we win? Take a look at the The Strong Towns Strength Test. Click on the underlined questions for details. How do you think we would score? Asbury Park might only score a 1 out of 10 right now – We have work to do, but with your support of APCSC advocacy we are moving in the right direction!

Preview the upcoming New book by Charles Marhon, Jr., Strong Towns.: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.

Strong Towns Strength Test

November 17, 2014 by Charles Marohn

We understand that cities are complex, adaptable systems that defy easy or precise measurement, so we asked ourselves: are there simple observations we use to signal that a city is either a strong town or on its way to becoming one? If you went to a place and had a little bit of time, could you scratch the surface and get a sense of how strong and resilient it was?

Here are ten simple questions we call the Strong Towns Strength Test. A Strong Town should be able to answer “yes” to each of these questions. (Click on the underlined questions to read a step-by-step guide for answering that question.)

Take a photo of your main street at midday. Does the picture show more people than cars?

Cyclists Are ‘Less than Human’?

Are you that driver?

I’ve been riding bikes all of my life, sometimes with a child in a bike seat, and even with an infant on my back (horror in the US but normal in The Netherlands), and in the last 15 years on a road bike dressed in the much maligned SPANDEX.

Whenever I ride my bike I feel a relationship – a connection- with people driving cars around me. I ride a bike, and I drive a car too, after all. We’re exhorted to “Share The Road”, but I now realize that drivers are not feeling a relationship with me. I sometimes ride a bike with a basket, wearing street shoes, and sometimes a skirt around town. But very often I’m that spandex clad “cyclist” riding with a streamlined road bike, riding fast for training 50 miles or more, or commuting with a backpack to work about 12 miles away from home. In both scenarios I am not considered a human. If I am injured or killed by a driver, the driver may be absolved.

Aggressive Drivers See Cyclists as ‘Less than Human

By Angie Schmitt Mar 28, 2019

A shocking number of people view cyclists as less than human — even likening them to insects — and that those “dehumanizing” attitudes are connected with aggressive driving targeted at people on bikes, according to a new study.

The Australian researchers asked participants about their attitudes toward cyclists — and 31 percent rated cyclists as less than human. The dehumanization was even worse among non-cyclists: 49 percent viewed people who ride a bike as non-human, according to the study published in the journal Transportation Research,

“Studies have shown that dehumanization is associated with increased antisocial behavior and aggression toward a variety of groups, and that it does so by removing normal inhibitions against harming others,” the author Alexa Delbosc, and her team wrote in their summary.

Read about it~

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/28/study-aggressive-driving-is-linked-to-seeing-cyclists-as-less-than-human/

April 5, 2019April 4, 2019

Congestion Pricing Is A Great Idea…It’s About Time

We’ve hit peak car. People are complaining about traffic, and lack of parking in Asbury Park and in cities all over the US. Building wider roads was never a good idea (induced demand), and it isn’t feasible or economically a great idea to build more parking (Cities are eliminating parking.) Maybe car culture in the US is about to change.

The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain.

The policy could change not just traffic, but also how we think about the infrastructure cars require.

By Emily Badger April 4th, 2019

The idea of the open road evokes these intertwined meanings: The freedom to use it should be free. Residential street parking should be free. Traffic lanes should be free. Stretches of public curb dedicated to private driveways? Those should be free, too.

In other ways, the government has heavily subsidized driving, or hidden the reality of who pays for it in places no one sees. Local laws require off-street parking from businesses and housing developers, who pass on the construction cost of it to tenants and customers who may not drive at all.

Read the article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/upshot/the-streets-were-never-free-congestion-pricing-finally-makes-that-plain.html