Snowy Neckdowns Redux: Winter Traffic Calming (Now: #sneckdown)

The same thing happened after #snOMG in Chicago on Wesnesday.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesbondsv/5420039852/

What a great natural experiment and demonstration! One minor clarification: you say the neckdown increases the turning radius, when in fact it decreases the turning radius--that is, it makes the cars take sharper turns.

Great post! In my town, pedestrian crossing distances have been reduced from 22 feet to 10 feet by the snowstorms in some cases, and it is great.

Regarding the comment about fire trucks - sure, neckdowns may slow down fire apparatus, but:

1) They can be designed as "drive over" neckdowns for large vehicles, and

2) In the vast majority of scenarios, the number of people killed from fires each year is far lower than the number killed by vehicles traveling too fast around the corners, hitting one another, and running over pedestrians. So even before you consider quality of life concerns (like elderly people being able to walk around their neighborhoods), the increased safety created by traffic calming far outweighs any possible delays to fire equipment.  The Fire Departments at a national level actually have met with Placemaking and Urbanism organizations, and basically agree with this point -- we shouldn't sacrifice the lives of hundreds of drivers and pedestrians in order to potentially save one or two lives each year.  See #1 above - ideally you can have your cake and eat it too.

It may slow traffic, but it also may make quite invisible the pedestrian crossing the street on which you're turning, or the car about to smash into you. Those piles of snow are now so high that, behind may lurk much more disaster than a traffic slowing device may intend.

Don't be too self-satisfied with such pictures. People can die of such good intentions.

Such self-satisfaction is precisely the weakness of your movement. Argue for traffic calming while also arguing for more visibility. It's one thing to slow things down, and quite another to hide the lurking dangers.

Joe Beckman is right. These piles at intersections only are a danger to mothers with strollers, people with canes or anyone who is not sure-footed.
Anon, 2/7/11, 4:02: Last time I read up on fire apparatus(and don't forget ambulances) and traffic calming it was agreed that planners and LOCAL providers would talk first and share their needs. All life-saving is a local function and conditions vary from locality to locality, and any national organization would understand this. If you have any source for another conclusion, please let us all know.
There are neckdowns that are sloped and mountable already in use but there is always the question of whether they are appropriate to each and every situation.
Regarding whether we can tolerate one or two death-by-fire victims to potentially save many driver and pedestrians lives, well, I won't go there.

I think Joe and Tom are misinterpretting Clarence's initial post and overlooking his clarification. He isn't advocating large piles of snow or other objects on corners that might lessen visibilty or walkability.
He is pointing out a natural illustration of how neckdowns work. (He also noted he did not know if a fire truck could handle these inadvertant neckdowns.)
Knowing Clarence, however, I'm sure he was not advocating use of snowbank substitutes for neckdowns, nor proceeding without accounting for the needs of emergency vehicles.
Maybe I'm wrong, though..... Clarence, is your real aim to create a city that is more dangerous for pedestrians and motorists, a city where people are more likely to die in fires and at accident scenes because emergency vehicles are unable to turn corners? Come clean.

Len,

But of course.  The point of the video is showing that cars can make these turns even with the most ridiculous 8, 9, 10 foot banks of snow extending into the street.  And as we all know there are lots of naysyaers in community board meetings and politicians and neighborhood groups who would say you can't install neckdowns or curb extensions because it will impede traffic.  This video is evidence that is not so.

We are certainly not disputing that these icy, ridiculously high piles of snow are a danger to pedestrians cause they are when they are high enough to obstruct views for drivers and those on foot.  But that is not the point of the video.  And - again - if you look at all of the examples of good neckdowns/curb extensions we provide throughout the film we would never endorse a practice of building anything that obstructs views.

There's reporting in today's newspapers about the City Council's multitude of bills/proposals in response to snow emergencies. Eventually it looks like it will all be consolidated and the final bill will have some sort of language about how fast the city must get rid of snowpiles at end of streets to clear the crosswalks. Clearly this is an issue and needs to be addressed as there are still some (now nearly two weeks later) that are still in very bad shape and unusable by handicapped and a challenge for some seniors.

In the end I would rather not have these giant, large snowpiles around because it impedes locomotion and endangers people. But using them as an example as to how they can show cars do not need a large amount of that space - and we can give it back to pedestrians for more safety is a way to turn something bad into a good example to learn from.

Shovel/plow the snow on to the neck down.

Streets get plowed by Sanitation. Sidewalks are supposed to be cleared by property owners. All well and good. But nobody takes responsibility for crosswalks so that we have a minimountain of snow ice and slush that is a real impediment to pedestrians especially seniors and others who may not be nimble on their feet.

Considering that the evidence is that cars don't need to use that portion of the road, we don't need to plow them. As far as the pedestrians, we're already used to climbing over snow and snow mounds to cross the street !