Pinthouse Pizza
Convenience of Motorists Should Not Be Overemphasized
RECEIVED Tue., Aug. 31, 2004
Dear Editor,
It's amazing how much time, effort, and money our various governments spend to keep people in cars from having to stop and get bored. The goal, as one letter writer notes ["Postmarks Online," Aug. 20], is that people driving cars should never have to stop, as long as they drive at or a little over the speed limit.
Most traffic lights now run on sensors, not timers. The sensors often fail to detect bicycles. They do not even attempt to detect pedestrians. Thus, cyclists and pedestrians must often wait at high-speed intersections through several light cycles. These are dangerous places to wait. They are the more dangerous because the cars are encouraged to keep moving at or a little above the speed limit. Speed limits are set for motorist convenience, not for the safety of unarmed people whom the cars may injure.
When cyclists go to public meetings, the trip often takes 45 minutes or longer. On arrival, the cyclist hears the car people complain that it took them 15 whole minutes to drive across town, and that they had to wait at a light for two whole minutes. Poor souls!
Streets on which the cars go fast and never have to stop cannot be crossed safely by pedestrians. The highways built "to increase mobility" box people in. "Increasing mobility" means speeding up the pace of those who are already moving fast. For people who truly lack mobility, nonmotorists boxed in by highways, road-building, and light synchronization just make things harder.
The same letter writer urges the City Council to "think outside the box." I concur. Let's start thinking outside that two-ton four-wheeled box that eats so much time, space, effort, money, and good will. Maybe we can get rid of the boxes we live in, whose sides are the high-speed highways.
It's amazing how much time, effort, and money our various governments spend to keep people in cars from having to stop and get bored. The goal, as one letter writer notes ["Postmarks Online," Aug. 20], is that people driving cars should never have to stop, as long as they drive at or a little over the speed limit.
Most traffic lights now run on sensors, not timers. The sensors often fail to detect bicycles. They do not even attempt to detect pedestrians. Thus, cyclists and pedestrians must often wait at high-speed intersections through several light cycles. These are dangerous places to wait. They are the more dangerous because the cars are encouraged to keep moving at or a little above the speed limit. Speed limits are set for motorist convenience, not for the safety of unarmed people whom the cars may injure.
When cyclists go to public meetings, the trip often takes 45 minutes or longer. On arrival, the cyclist hears the car people complain that it took them 15 whole minutes to drive across town, and that they had to wait at a light for two whole minutes. Poor souls!
Streets on which the cars go fast and never have to stop cannot be crossed safely by pedestrians. The highways built "to increase mobility" box people in. "Increasing mobility" means speeding up the pace of those who are already moving fast. For people who truly lack mobility, nonmotorists boxed in by highways, road-building, and light synchronization just make things harder.
The same letter writer urges the City Council to "think outside the box." I concur. Let's start thinking outside that two-ton four-wheeled box that eats so much time, space, effort, money, and good will. Maybe we can get rid of the boxes we live in, whose sides are the high-speed highways.
Yours truly,
Amy Babich
Amy Babich