[*BCM*] BTD PED Rules

[Turtle]

On 6/4/07, Jim Leonard <jim_bcm at xuth.net> wrote:
>
> Turtle,
> I understand what you're saying, but I must disagree with you on this.
>
> First at it's simplest I can completely disrupt traffic by moving at
> 0.3 mph on a busy narrow road and while it's completely antisocial, it
> is still within your rules.  More realistic is the person who is
> unable to move faster than this but is still given the full right to
> disrupt traffic.


This happens now anyway.  We get traffic jams all the time!  So my set of
laws wouldn't make that problem any worse...

What would help in either my scenario or the current one, would be to create
better engineered roads, with at least two travel lanes in each direction,
one for normal traffic and one for passing.  (Adding more efficient public
transit would clearly help a hell of a lot too!) Most current roadways
wouldn't need any extra width than they already have to create two full
travel lanes in each direction if you add the sidewalk or shoulder to the
road width.

Also, allowing equal access to travel lanes doesn't preclude having other
spaces for more chaotic local commerce.  Imagine Downtown Crossing as it is
now, then remove the hardline curbs, and plunk my laws into the scenario.
In dense urban districts with a lot of pedestrian traffic and lots of local
commerce, everyone already has to move slowly and carefully anyway (which is
as it should be for healthy and safe communities).  While in more empty
areas and on rural roads, traffic can move more smoothly and quickly, since
there will be less cross traffic, which is also how it is now.

The thing is, my set of laws are really what we've all already come up with,
as unwritten rules of the road.  The only addition that I see necessary is
making those unwritten, human-nature rules official, and making it clear
that ALL road users have the same rights and the same responsibilities while
using the roads.

Also, studies have shown that when people are expected to make their own
decisions, and are help responsible for the consequences for those
decisions, they make far better decisions than when someone else tries to
foist one-size-fits-all decisions on them.  And that's what I'm trying to
work with here.


> On a complete tangent, thinking about the utility of separating
> vehicles by speed, I find myself lamenting that I'm in a place with no
> bike paths.  Yes there are several multiuse paths, but no place where
> bicyclists have the right of way.  When I lived in Columbus, it was
> often worth my while to get onto one of the bike paths because it was
> safe and useful.  I could travel at reasonable bicycle speeds and not
> have to worry about pedestrians or worse, their pets.


But, but, but... bicyclists have the right of way all the time on public
roads!  It's pretty much the first-come-first-served rule on most roads, so
once you get into a travel lane, you've got the right of way (until you come
to an intersection, where there are probably signs and signals that tell you
when your turn to get the right-of-way).

-Turtle
who notes that about 90% of travelers choose not to stop for the stop sign
next to her house, yet the intersection manages to have an infinitesimal
number of crashes!  So, removing the stop signs AND telling people that it's
their job to not hit anyone in the intesection probably wouldn't make much
of a difference, and it would save money on signage, would eliminate the
psychosis caused by people trying to repress the fact that they are
"criminals" for blowing through the stop sign, and it might even improve
things a bit by clarifying what people's responsibilites are...
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