20 is plenty

citylover94 said:
Again you come back with more cars are more important than people. Seriously this is so disrespectful towards anyone that uses walking as an integral part of their transportation.
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Granted I didn't make the initial comment, but I both drive and walk in the city and I don't think your argument is completely valid. There needs to be action on both parts. Pedestrians also need to obey walk signals, cross in actual crosswalks, and need to be aware of their surroundings while walking. Just as much as someone driving.
 
Honestly, given that I've never seen a city actually enforce a "default" speed limit, this seems like a lot of argument about nothing. I have no problem with people being limited to 20 on neighborhood streets, but I don't see how simply changing an non-posted limit does anything other than give the Mayor and Governor an "accomplishment".
 
JeffDowntown said:
Beyond speed limits, you really need serious traffic calming measures on the major "too wide" roadways to make this work.

Strategically placed raised crosswalks. Purpose built roadway pinch points, lane shifts, lane squeezes, etc. Also restore some two way streets, carve out lane width for segregated/protected bike lanes... That is the only effective way to slow down the traffic.
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Then you start to get panic-y headlines in the Globe & Herald about 'outrageous' commute times, the politicians freak out and the whole cycle starts anew.

I'm not saying this is the way it should happen, but it is the way does.
 
akmags said:
Granted I didn't make the initial comment, but I both drive and walk in the city and I don't think your argument is completely valid. There needs to be action on both parts. Pedestrians also need to obey walk signals, cross in actual crosswalks, and need to be aware of their surroundings while walking. Just as much as someone driving.
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Distracted walkers don't kill other people, they only put themselves at risk.

Pedestrian noncompliance at walk signals is an indication that the signal is timed to favor vehicular movements and wait times for the walk signal are too long. One of the main metrics to analyze the efficiency of a traffic signal is vehicular delay; pedestrian delay doesn't play a part, unfortunately. Jaywalking shows that there is demand to cross the street away from a crosswalk and that nothing has been done to allow that to happen safely.

We live in an age where it's easy to remove 10 parking spaces to put in a left turn lane "because of traffic" but can't remove 4 spaces to put in a mid-block crosswalk with proper sight line clearances without an uproar.
 
I'm of the school that speed limits should be reflective of reasonable driver behavior of the area. That means the 85th percentile of speed. If one is driving faster than that, then the that person is being purposefully negligent and reckless.

I don't think 20 MPH is reflective of that.
 
ant8904 said:
I'm of the school that speed limits should be reflective of reasonable driver behavior of the area. That means the 85th percentile of speed. If one is driving faster than that, then the that person is being purposefully negligent and reckless.

I don't think 20 MPH is reflective of that.
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Which is why I feel comfortable driving at 45 on the Jamaicaway when the speed limit is only 25. It just feels natural (and the 85th is about 40). Should I feel comfortable at that speed though? No.
 
sm89 said:
Which is why I feel comfortable driving at 45 on the Jamaicaway when the speed limit is only 25. It just feels natural (and the 85th is about 40). Should I feel comfortable at that speed though? No.
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You shouldn't feel comfortable... why? Because theoretically a pedestrian might jump the metal guardrail and try to cross wherever they feel like it? It's not your job as a driver to consider every single possibility, it's the designer's job to communicate to you what you should expect to see.

If the City would prefer that you not feel comfortable going that speed, then change the design of the road, but don't require drivers to behave against instinct. Have an argument about whether to calm the road, not whether to lower the speed limit.
 
How much of the J-Way was in Olmstead's original plan? It seems awfully wide for a carriage road, but a lot the houses along the road seem to date back at least that far.
 
Echoing Equilibria - Jamaicaway is not Storrow, but it not a road pedestrians should cross in the same vein as a local neighborhood road. 20 MPH would keep a pedestrian crossing where they shouldn't to survive, but I can't agree because the chance someone doing something that shouldn't means Jamaicaway should not follow the 85th percentile for a speed limit.
 
ant8904 said:
I'm of the school that speed limits should be reflective of reasonable driver behavior of the area. That means the 85th percentile of speed. If one is driving faster than that, then the that person is being purposefully negligent and reckless.

I don't think 20 MPH is reflective of that.
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So you only care about drivers when setting speed limits. Got it. Everyone else's life is worthless, according to what you have written in this quote. If drivers think that a street should be a 45 mph street, then they can start going 40-50 mph, and the city should push up the speed limit. Regardless of the threat to life and limb of other people.
 
The fuck, Matthew? I never said fuck human life or any of that shit.

The idea is based that most people will drive reasonably to the conditions of the road. If the great majority of drivers think a certain street is 45 MPH and by natural inclinations then that should be the speed limit. Not your insulting and snarky artificial construct of somehow all the drivers collectively decided to drive beyond their comfort zone to raise the speed of a street that in no way most of them would naturally speed at.

Keep in mind that conditions include like most people is not going to speed in a narrow neighborhood road or populated pedestrian center or places with lots of traffic. Of course, there's the masshole who would drive 45 mph in traffic and pedestrians everyone to another light or perhaps going 45 in a dense neighborhood, except that person is thus going beyond the 85th percentile and that's guy is likely the guy that will run a guy over versus the 50th percentile guy.
 
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ant8904, I agree with Matthew. The problem with your argument is that it assumes drivers will drive in a safe manner that doesn't put others at risk. That has been shown, time and again, to be untrue. Drivers mostly drive at a speed that they "feel" is safe. But the cyclist to his right, the pedestrian scurrying across the street, the traffic engineer, and the accident reconstruction specialist often know when a driver is operating at unsafe speeds, even while the driver is oblivious to this fact. So, why make policy based around a driver's provably false "feeling" and the behavior that results from this feeling?

One of the well-studied, well-documented effects of driving is that it makes the driver feel safe moving at speeds that are very much not safe. It also impairs a driver's ability to realize the true power of the weapon he is operating.
 
The reason I said you disregard other's lives is because you said that measured speed of drivers is all that should be used for setting speed limits. Bigeman basically nailed it.

Every driver who pushes past 85th percentile is justifying an increase in the speed limit according to that rule. Thus the speed limit keeps getting pushed up, while the potential victims of speeding are silenced by the same rule. They get no input, because they are not inside of motor vehicles. Perhaps if you counted the 85th percentile of all road users then it might make more sense: people walking and cycling -- even people loitering too.

Why do you think the city has been reluctant to use speed studies thus far? It's because of this very problem: people walking and cycling are ignored by speed studies, and drivers routinely break the law. So the result of a speed study under the current regulations would have the effect of recommending an increase in the speed limit! Even though the common sense approach would say that's madness.

Speed studies were designed this way in order to prevent them from being used for creating speed traps. I certainly don't want to create speed traps. But I do want people to be driving safely. And the danger caused by high speeds is, in my mind, a much greater moral imperative than worrying over speed traps.

The designated speed limit also has a big effect on future design changes to the street. It tells the engineers what the desired speed is, and then they can design around it. Whereas under the current law, they are not allowed to design for under 30 mph, and as a result, most drivers go 35-40 mph. When the city decides that a street should be 20 mph, then they can go to BTD and BPW and say: change your design for the next iteration of this street.

For example, if you want to see nice calming, "living street" features on residential streets, then being able to designate them as slower areas is going to be very important bureaucratically. But right now there's no distinction between arterial streets and such residential streets. They're all 30 mph!
 
My assumption is not fault because most driver driving to what they "feel" is safe is fine because the majority are driving at a reasonable speed. Meanwhile your example of a driver driving at an unsafe speed and not aware he is driving unsafe, that person is still going faster than the other cars - going beyond the majority, going beyond the 85th percentile.

Keep in mind, just because its a majority, does not mean you won't see regular violations. Even the smallest of percentages are very still visible and have great impact.

My argument would be faulty it is not a driver is going too fast and not knowing it. If the great majority of drivers is going too fast and not know it. But I think most drivers on a road are driving fine. There an exception of every rule or philosophy, but they remains exceptions. Most of the time, if an area is collectively going too fast, the road either needs to be changed to go slower or separated completely if it finds serving that serves more to the greater good. Lowering the speed limit to 20 MPH while everyone naturally would drive 30 MPH will just create more conflicts between the subgroup who wants to ensure they obey the law and the drivers who keep driving at 30. While also dramatically increasing the number of driver in violation while I don't think would collectively lower the speed.

I think most of the time we are going that that guy is making this road unsafe, he's going beyond the 85th percentile of driver range of speed in the area.

That should also include road design of a residential area. You just argued that we need to lower the speed limit so a design can design around the the lower limit. I say change the law and allow the designer to design. Under my logic, drivers in the residential area would drive slower and thus the 85th percentile of the area would be lower and thus the speed limit would be lower.
 
Well one thing we do agree on is that the best way to address unsafe driving speeds is to redesign a road for slower travel. Other than that, we are never going to see eye to eye on whether 85% drivers operate at safe speeds on city streets. I do not buy that premise one bit.
 
Yes, we seem to in agreement about that. Regardless of the direction of the approach, ultimately, if you want someone to not so fast as they shouldn't, it need to be design as so.
 
From what I've been gathering about how the law is currently written, it requires the city to design to 30 mph, not 20. If the city can set the default to 20, it means they can design the streets to 20 mph (or less). Right now you have to go through extensive traffic study to prove that the street can handle speeds less than 30 mph, and it means it costs the city a lot of money to do any kind of traffic calming. This seems completely backwards. The proof should be on making streets faster, not slower.
 
The speed limit doesn't matter if it's not enforced. People will still continue driving 40mph like they do in 20mph *school - blinking light* zones and running red lights.
 
Not if the road is designed for 20 mph which by setting the city speed limit to 20 makes it easier to do.
 
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