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Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

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61–70 of 174 posts

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#61
post #11

See also "Why UPS drivers don't turn left and you probably shouldn't either" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25379743

That definitely doesn’t apply. UPS drivers have routes with multiple stops. Planning routes to avoid left turns is a very different (much more feasible, convenient, and efficient) than going from A to B without left turns.

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#62
post #45

Are there any stats that left turns are/how dangerous? Here most (at least the majority of media reports is about) cyclist die when a truck turns right.

The biggest problem with right turns are:

1. Free rights a uncontrolled right turns that don’t protect crossing cyclists and pedestrians through time based segregation. 2. No physical/grade segregation. Cyclists become invisible in blind spots during right turns because intersections are terribly designed to support anything other than cars. A well designed intersection puts cyclists in front of cars where they are visible at all times, instead of in a blind spot.

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/a-common-urban...

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#63
post #2

Probably one on the most American articles I've read in a while... "Great job team"... Also, I wonder the impact of introducing proper diving tests and learning to drive.

Design plays and engineering play a massive role in the safety of streets. Q: People make mistakes regardless of training. How do you dolve those problems? A: You work to understand them and then eliminate them with intentional action.

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#64
post #27
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was waiting for this response. As someone who doesn’t live in the city center, and has no easy means of mass transportation to get there, my response is: fine I just won’t go then. You lose my money. In NYC or Chicago that’s probably not a big deal. In the vast majority of the rest of the US, that’s how you kill a city center. I can tell you in my case, given the homelessness issue that’s been getting worse the las…

One thing to remember about NYC's crazy tolls and congestion pricing plans is that there are not many reasons why visitors should need to drive in. There's NJTransit, PATH, light rail to Hudson valley and CT, LIRR, Amtrak, so many regional bus routes and frequent shuttles to EWR and other popular places, where most of these have park-and-ride options. And then of course once in the city there are subway and buses. Ot…

It was cheaper and faster for me to drive 25 miles into Manhattan than take the train in from a walkable station. Then getting back out doesn't have to be at the mercy of the train schedule which is often every two hours for the line in question.

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#65
James Dean died in an accident caused by just that: "Intersections are dangerous because they are where cars, often moving very fast and in different directions, must cross paths."

"As Turnupseed's Ford crossed over the center line..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_James_Dean

Redacted photo (save, only the street is shown), that shows the intersected lines: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-scene-of-james-dean-crash-...

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biking is not that susceptible to weather imho. When it rains you can wear a rain coat and rain trousers. When it's cold you can wear any outdoor jacket (gore tex is great even if maybe not healthy). When it snows you have to work a bit harder. When there is ice you can use tires with spikes for great grip. The worst is hot weather, since you can only shed so much clothing. An ebike helps here, but that reduces the h…

Sure if you are super motivated you can bike in any weather. But for 95% of people they will only be willing to bike if it is nice out. The average person is not going to go out and buy a fat bike or spiked tires for the winter. And they probably shouldn't, biking in winter is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. And sure I could wear a full rain suite and bike in the rain, but that is far less convenient…

Dublin, which is crap for cycling infrastructure and weather in the winter, has about a 25% higher cycle count for summer months, according to the 2019 data (the last year unaffected by covid).

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#67

Better yet, replace intersections with roundabouts. But that would mean knocking down a lot of buildings.

Roundabouts have better throughput in most cases, but have higher variance for time to complete transit, as one strong stream of cars from a single direction can choke off the alternative directions.

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#68

One of the best ways to eliminate left turns is to replace four way intersections with roundabouts. This has the advantage of working even where there isn’t a grid to facilitate the “3 right turns” strategy. For a great description of why this is so effective, see the recent freakonomics podcast: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/roundabouts/

I'm a little skeptical that it would be safer for pedestrians and bikes. Bikes need to merge with traffic already in the roundabout instead of simply going straight through an intersection, and pedestrians would need to always check for oncoming cars rather than being able to mostly rely on lights telling them when they can cross.

But then most of my experience with roundabouts is with large, multilane roundabouts so the traffic is still pretty fast - maybe smaller roundabouts with significantly slower traffic would be safer than I'm picturing.

Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic

#70
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was waiting for this response. As someone who doesn’t live in the city center, and has no easy means of mass transportation to get there, my response is: fine I just won’t go then. You lose my money. In NYC or Chicago that’s probably not a big deal. In the vast majority of the rest of the US, that’s how you kill a city center. I can tell you in my case, given the homelessness issue that’s been getting worse the las…

You could replace cars with public transport rather than just moving the cars. If you don't want to build too much infrastructure then buses and bus lanes work well.

Very convenient to haul 60lb of stuff in public transport...
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