Continued from Part 1
Streets should be designed to induce traffic speeds that are appropriate to that street, consistent with surrounding uses. In my mind, that means 20 mph in residential areas and up to 30 mph in commercial areas. What about all those other roadways? They are mis-designed stroads. Properly designed streets:
- have a grid pattern so that use is spread out rather than concentrated on a few streets, so that intersections may functions without stop sign or signal control
- have good visibility at intersections
- have both physical constraints and visual clues to ensure that they are used at the intended speed
- have a minimum of signs
Of course that is largely not what we have now. What to do?
The solutions to an excess of stop signs are:
- Roundabouts, covered in my previous post What is a roundabout?
- Spread out traffic by installing traffic calming equally on parallel streets, rather than focusing traffic on select streets by installing traffic calming on other streets.
- Change intersections to increase visibility, by modification or removal or vegetation, fences, and parking.
- Replace four-way stops with two-way stops where there are sufficient gaps in traffic on the busier street.
- Replace both four-way and two-way stops with two-way yields, with the yield signs being on the lower traffic street.
- Remove all signs from low traffic streets, and allow vehicles normal yielding behavior at the intersection.
- Analyze all intersections over time to assess whether signing is really necessary, with the default assumption being that it is not.
I suspect that after analyzing intersections for the purpose of the stop sign, and alternate solutions, the number of stop signs would be reduced by at least 60%. Safety would not be reduced. Speeds would not increase. Both motor vehicle drivers and bicycle drivers would be happier.
