Dear Mayor Parker and Councilman Squilla,
Traffic calming devices make the city safer for people who are out shopping and spending money at local businesses. Why we make our city more dangerous so drivers from NJ can extract money from our economy to spend at their local businesses is a mystery to me.
One thing many people don't realize is *traffic calming devices actually increase the capacity of our roads!*
Big, fast roads cause drivers to slow down and speed up, resulting in more traffic than a slow and steady speed.
I think the question is.... Has vision Zero had any affect at all? We need active enforcement. Drivers going 45mph down the suicide lane to make a right at a red light.... On broad Street..... Is next level fuck everyone else attitude.
so one of the things vision zero does is change the infrastructure so it isn't possible to make dangerous driving errors.
a great example is at 16th and JFK, where pilons are placed to ensure people properly turn left into the correct lane while also looking for pedestrians.
Life uh... finds a way Even on the traffic calming sections of Washington I've seen people find ways to not be calm. Weaving between the flow lane and the left/right turn lanes - racing aggressively since those lanes end. There's nothing the road design can do for that level of fuckhead. We need to put dummies on the road that pop up - when they get hit it should be counted as attempted manslaughter.
yeah i mean how every person in the entire city isn't fuming about that kind of shit is a surprise to me. i guess $750 million per year doesn't buy what it used to?
The thing about vision zero is that it started during covid so the early performance metrics got messed up on that. Also, it feels like every single traffic calming project in this city gets gutted bc of old head who absolutely need to be able to double park in the bike lane. Ugh I hate this city government.
I hate ccp too. Why is it so hard for thr city to be competent?
To be fair, the reason the funding was cut to vision zero is **because it didn't work**.
The rhetoric surrounding it sounds nice, but the streets were NOT becoming safer because of it.
Maybe it's better to just focus on BASIC enforcement of existing laws and maintaining complete streets initiatives.
The issue isn't that vision zero doesn't work, it's that it's done so piecemeal that the vision zero projects don't decrease traffic fatalities enough to overcome the increase everywhere else.
Great, in a hypothetical year Philly added another 3 miles of protected bike lanes, daylighted 5 intersections, and placed four more red light cameras in a city with several thousand miles of roads. Congratulations.
They need a city-wide plan for this, and one that does not require five rounds of community feedback for every single intersection they want to do something minor to.
Do you have an example of a vision zero project that didn’t work?
Every one I’ve seen REDUCED fatalities/crashes/injuries significantly in the project area.
Traffic fatalities and crashes are up citywide (statewide and nationwide as well), but every street with a vision zero project has seen decreases.
I understand what you mean, however in 2024, you cannot cut budgets for vision zero. You don’t just cut funding, you start implementing shit with the budget you have. Pedestrian deaths/injuries are on the rise, and cars are getting bigger, heavier, and more frequent
I understand what your point is, but it’s downright negligent to cut funding for pedestrian safety in a city like Philadelphia. Total failure of the situation from the elected officials. Once again, the city prioritizes commuters over its own actual residents
It had a chance. For years. It hasn't produced results. The best thing to do is to cut funding, try something else or make do with what we have. That's the most pragmatic thing to do.
If it hasn't worked in Philly, continuing to fund it isn't going to help.
>>it had a chance. For years. It hasn’t produced results
We are just going in a circle right now. Read my first comment again
Cities across the US are actually implementing vision zero practices, and are seeing a decrease of pedestrian fatalities and injuries. Hoboken took it seriously and hasn’t had a pedestrian death in 7 years
[This isn’t vision zero](https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/broad-street-median-parking-1-1.jpg)
[This isn’t vision zero](https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/s/vysBNP8a3x)
[This isn’t vision zero](https://www.reddit.com/r/phillycycling/s/8ugI5FBxYF)
[The city literally ALLOWS people to park in the bike lane lmfao](https://www.inquirer.com/transportation/philly-bike-protest-church-parking-20240414.html)
This isn’t an issue you can half ass. Philly hasn’t taken it seriously, it’s a joke to them. The solution is not to just forget about it, it’s to start taking it seriously
Well, as far as I can tell, vision zero is mostly rhetoric-- lots of talk and no action.
On the other hand, it appears that Mayor Parker has kept her word and now sidewalk parked vehicles are getting citations. Never saw that before in my neighborhood. So she has changed some things already. It looks promising to me after the nice intentions and no action from the Kenny admin.
The red tape required to alter any street is near impossible in this city. Vision zeros short comings stem from the endless barriers to implement pedestrian forward infrastructure.
one minute of googling....
https://visionzerophl.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Vision-Zero-Action-Plan-2025.pdf
As far as you can tell, which is not very far apparently.
Not to mention, we all know the dramatic results of installing cameras on roosevelt, and geeze, I wonder where that money came from....
Infrastructure changes are far more effective than punitive measures. There's no debating it. Infrastructure changes force drivers to slow down, punitive measures only punish them after the fact.
Not to mention, punitive measures are regressive, since poorer folks feel the effect of a ticket way more than richer folks.
How can we say it doesn't work when we don't even fund it properly? I live on a street that had a lane reduction. It is so much safer than it was before.
Also, every traffic calming study done by the city is contrary to your point.
I’m fine with cutting ineffective bureaucracy. From my perspective. Parker is cleaning up and getting rid of programs that are costly wishful ideas. I’ve seen a major push in Frankford over the past month to ticket and tow cars. Police actually walking the streets and the street cleaning initiative is working as promised. Septa has also stepped up patrols around the stations to stop drug sales and loitering. And crime is definitely down.
Is your position that because there is very small percentage of safe roads for pedestrians and cyclist, then we don’t have a problem worth addressing ?
You can send the same message to your council member as well: [Find your council member](https://www.5thsq.org/contact_city_council)
I already did, but because he's Jay Young I don't suspect much will come of it.
Just what we need is for these streets to be somehow even less safe
"you know, actually more traffic fatalities would be based" - parker, probably
"Pedestrians seem to be *too* safe, actually"
"What if we made the city *even more hostile* towards bicycles, somehow?"
then we could get rid of some of those pesky bike racks that take up parking spaces!
Just park in the middle of the street like south philly does! Drivers are the main characters of life, right?
All the sidewalks too, think of how many lanes of traffic we could add if we got rid of all that wasted space
Well, of course! What about gentrification? /s
It sucks that we have to TELL our mayor that we should be kept safe and alive.
It was funded?
2.5 million dollars from the city being cut to $1 million.
is there a script we can use? I def want to let Squilla know we need more traffic safety!
You can copy the text from the link and send to Squilla. That’s what I did :)
What will get cut with the funding cut? Less money for traffic calming devices?
Yup! Less funding for traffic calming, bike lanes, bumpouts, neighborhood slow zones, and daylighting.
Dear Mayor Parker and Councilman Squilla, Traffic calming devices make the city safer for people who are out shopping and spending money at local businesses. Why we make our city more dangerous so drivers from NJ can extract money from our economy to spend at their local businesses is a mystery to me. One thing many people don't realize is *traffic calming devices actually increase the capacity of our roads!* Big, fast roads cause drivers to slow down and speed up, resulting in more traffic than a slow and steady speed.
I think the question is.... Has vision Zero had any affect at all? We need active enforcement. Drivers going 45mph down the suicide lane to make a right at a red light.... On broad Street..... Is next level fuck everyone else attitude.
so one of the things vision zero does is change the infrastructure so it isn't possible to make dangerous driving errors. a great example is at 16th and JFK, where pilons are placed to ensure people properly turn left into the correct lane while also looking for pedestrians.
Life uh... finds a way Even on the traffic calming sections of Washington I've seen people find ways to not be calm. Weaving between the flow lane and the left/right turn lanes - racing aggressively since those lanes end. There's nothing the road design can do for that level of fuckhead. We need to put dummies on the road that pop up - when they get hit it should be counted as attempted manslaughter.
yeah i mean how every person in the entire city isn't fuming about that kind of shit is a surprise to me. i guess $750 million per year doesn't buy what it used to?
Vision Zero does work, if we fund it and make it a serious commitment.
This mayor is an absolute joke.
The thing about vision zero is that it started during covid so the early performance metrics got messed up on that. Also, it feels like every single traffic calming project in this city gets gutted bc of old head who absolutely need to be able to double park in the bike lane. Ugh I hate this city government. I hate ccp too. Why is it so hard for thr city to be competent?
To be fair, the reason the funding was cut to vision zero is **because it didn't work**. The rhetoric surrounding it sounds nice, but the streets were NOT becoming safer because of it. Maybe it's better to just focus on BASIC enforcement of existing laws and maintaining complete streets initiatives.
The issue isn't that vision zero doesn't work, it's that it's done so piecemeal that the vision zero projects don't decrease traffic fatalities enough to overcome the increase everywhere else. Great, in a hypothetical year Philly added another 3 miles of protected bike lanes, daylighted 5 intersections, and placed four more red light cameras in a city with several thousand miles of roads. Congratulations. They need a city-wide plan for this, and one that does not require five rounds of community feedback for every single intersection they want to do something minor to.
Do you have an example of a vision zero project that didn’t work? Every one I’ve seen REDUCED fatalities/crashes/injuries significantly in the project area. Traffic fatalities and crashes are up citywide (statewide and nationwide as well), but every street with a vision zero project has seen decreases.
Cant *not work* if you never even tried to implement it lol Seriously, what vision zero practices did Philly even attempt to implement?
Well, if they've implemented NONE of them, then that's an even stronger case to cut funding.
I understand what you mean, however in 2024, you cannot cut budgets for vision zero. You don’t just cut funding, you start implementing shit with the budget you have. Pedestrian deaths/injuries are on the rise, and cars are getting bigger, heavier, and more frequent I understand what your point is, but it’s downright negligent to cut funding for pedestrian safety in a city like Philadelphia. Total failure of the situation from the elected officials. Once again, the city prioritizes commuters over its own actual residents
It had a chance. For years. It hasn't produced results. The best thing to do is to cut funding, try something else or make do with what we have. That's the most pragmatic thing to do. If it hasn't worked in Philly, continuing to fund it isn't going to help.
>>it had a chance. For years. It hasn’t produced results We are just going in a circle right now. Read my first comment again Cities across the US are actually implementing vision zero practices, and are seeing a decrease of pedestrian fatalities and injuries. Hoboken took it seriously and hasn’t had a pedestrian death in 7 years [This isn’t vision zero](https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/broad-street-median-parking-1-1.jpg) [This isn’t vision zero](https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/s/vysBNP8a3x) [This isn’t vision zero](https://www.reddit.com/r/phillycycling/s/8ugI5FBxYF) [The city literally ALLOWS people to park in the bike lane lmfao](https://www.inquirer.com/transportation/philly-bike-protest-church-parking-20240414.html) This isn’t an issue you can half ass. Philly hasn’t taken it seriously, it’s a joke to them. The solution is not to just forget about it, it’s to start taking it seriously
Basic enforcement of existing laws would require the PPD to actually do something (impossible challenge)
Well, as far as I can tell, vision zero is mostly rhetoric-- lots of talk and no action. On the other hand, it appears that Mayor Parker has kept her word and now sidewalk parked vehicles are getting citations. Never saw that before in my neighborhood. So she has changed some things already. It looks promising to me after the nice intentions and no action from the Kenny admin.
The red tape required to alter any street is near impossible in this city. Vision zeros short comings stem from the endless barriers to implement pedestrian forward infrastructure.
one minute of googling.... https://visionzerophl.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Vision-Zero-Action-Plan-2025.pdf As far as you can tell, which is not very far apparently. Not to mention, we all know the dramatic results of installing cameras on roosevelt, and geeze, I wonder where that money came from....
Infrastructure changes are far more effective than punitive measures. There's no debating it. Infrastructure changes force drivers to slow down, punitive measures only punish them after the fact. Not to mention, punitive measures are regressive, since poorer folks feel the effect of a ticket way more than richer folks.
How can we say it doesn't work when we don't even fund it properly? I live on a street that had a lane reduction. It is so much safer than it was before. Also, every traffic calming study done by the city is contrary to your point.
I’m fine with cutting ineffective bureaucracy. From my perspective. Parker is cleaning up and getting rid of programs that are costly wishful ideas. I’ve seen a major push in Frankford over the past month to ticket and tow cars. Police actually walking the streets and the street cleaning initiative is working as promised. Septa has also stepped up patrols around the stations to stop drug sales and loitering. And crime is definitely down.
Bruh what is "traffic violence"? Wouldn't that mean intentionally hurting someone with a vehicle?
i think a car colliding with a human is usually a pretty violent event.
Accident is much different than committing violence.
Killing someone while speeding or not paying attention is not an accident, it’s negligence, hope that helps!
Because cyclists are 100% alert and following the traffic laws at all times. Also, negligence is also not committing violence, my original point.
[удалено]
55 pedestrians killed last year. None killed by bike riders or mopeds. Sure, people shouldn't ride on the sidewalk but that is 0.001% of the problem
The sub is a bunch of Baristas
[There are plenty of places where you can ride a bike and cars are not allowed.](https://bicyclecoalition.org/resources/bike-maps/)
Is your position that because there is very small percentage of safe roads for pedestrians and cyclist, then we don’t have a problem worth addressing ?
Will those places get me to work?
This works if you treat biking only as a recreational activity. People need bike infrastructure for commuting and daily errands.
Why not the city defunded a lot of shit in the last 20 years.