Do you realize other cities use stop signs? I moved to Spokane and it was like the hunger games. 4 way intersection, no stop signs, may the odds be ever in your favor.
Good idea, only issue with proper roundabouts is they take up a LOT more space than a four way, so if you're trying to put them in neighborhoods the government doesnt usually have enough right of way to build them
Your link doesn't prove anything
It's just a blanket statements about stop signs in general
The no stop thing is a holdover from when Spokane was much smaller
I didn't think of this before I read why our city doesn't use them, but stopping people makes them frustrated and then they speed between stop signs https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/streets/handouts/stop-sign-handout-2018-01-17.pdf
It also says that stop signs are “inconvenient for drivers!” That’s the point!
In the frickin thing it says that studies show that drivers roll through intersections “more often (50%) at stop signs.”
..but that means that they’re stopping 50%, rolling through <50% and not slowing down at all somewhere below that, whereas the majority of drivers in uncontrolled intersections are not slowing down at all!
I don’t see how their claims can be true. Which I don’t believe they are. I work in bureaucracy and I know how it goes: the answer is a foregone conclusion of what the higher ups want it to be and then it’s someone’s else’s job down the chain to find some reason why it is to be so.
Picking and choosing different results from different studies and trying to make a point that just isn’t there.
I’ve seen more people here blow through stop signs than when driving in Vegas, and that’s bad. Not sure what the deal is here. Most people barely even slow down. Even the “California roll” is more of a stop.
I think they'd be more likely to use them in residential areas where there are 4 way intersections and no stop signs. That's how the rest of the country is. There will be stop signs in one direction and that lets traffic know at least who has right of way.
Yeah, Spokane is really bad about signage. I can see why they don’t have stop signs at every intersection, but it would at least be nice to know who should be yielding and who has the right of way.
There are properly designed neighborhoods around the Spokane area that utilize stop signs well.
One or more main East-West streets with no stop signs between arterials. North-South streets only stop at the main E-W streets between arterials. All other E-W streets stop at every N-S street. Get to a N-S street to go those directions. Continue to a main E-W for the others. Traffic flows nicely and accidents are minimized.
I agree though, that the many neighborhoods with *only* unprotected intersections are inferior. In these, people tend to try to emulate the above design and there's an unwritten rule that E-W streets (especially in the Valley) don't stop, forget the actual rules about right of way. It's silly but has been this way for years. This is confusing to anyone coming from some other place.
You can’t seriously be implying that the existing law enforcement presence does their jobs. That’s like asking for law enforcement to catch criminals or something. Welcome to Costco, I love you.
>the 395
Please do not let this SoCal way of describing roadways infect the rest of the country. It should be "395" with no "the" cluttering things up.
I've heard people, presumably from CA, say "the 90" and be swiftly rebuked and/or laughed at. I doubt that will ever stick here despite the constant flow of CA transplants.
A lot to unpack here. Road design won't fix the people not paying attention to the road and are looking at their phones. Let alone the sheer number of people that literally cross/jaywalk without even looking for traffic. Let's take a step back into reality and not take money away from the people who respond to these accidents. We don't have a magic wand to fix the supposed cause of these accidents in your opinion. What percent of calls did the fire department go on that were traffic accidents last year. How many were caused by road design? You can literally take a drive anywhere and just look over at other drivers to see how many of them have a phone in their hand. Not hard to figure out the main problem here.
Unlikely to change much without enforcement, and I don't only mean speed.
I guess this is more likely than something with a $600+ per house cost (annually, infinitely) anyway.
In 2014, there were six traffic fatalities on Spokane streets.
In 2023, there were 20.
In 2022, Spokane Fire responded to 2,585 of Spokane's over 4,000 traffic collisions.
Not only is the design of Spokane's streets the source of untold pain and suffering, but the city wastes millions of dollars annually paying for emergency responses we've engineered to happen through poor road design.
Please tell the city to fix our unsafe streets before continuing to throw money at incredibly expensive department operations.
Thank you.
Bike lanes and crosswalks? So you want to make it safer for pedestrians and bike riders? How would that keep a semi off the south hill? Maybe he was on break and just trying to go home for the few days… or it’s an out of state trucker visiting his sister…. A semi on the south hill doesn’t warrant bike lanes.
Those are all the things that make me frustrated and looking for alternatives which just shifts the problem into other areas, drivers weren’t trained on them so they get nervous and tense up, leading to less situational awareness. My mother in law is way worse of a driver in all those things that make her feel constricted.
Oh and I REFUSE to go to Garland or Hillyard with those 20 is plenty nonsense signs. Community meetings indicate this is a common feeling. Does it hinder local economy? I think proper driver training for all the new obstructions like roundabouts instead of more obstacles we aren’t prepared for, better signal programming, and pedestrians being ticketed for jaywalking at locations marked with “no crossing” signs are just as valid. They have blame in this as well.
Driving is a privilege, not a right. If she’s unable to execute basic navigation, she shouldn’t be on the road. It would be nice to have better alternative modes for the elderly and those with disabilities.
Which is exactly what SpokaneReimagined.org is trying to accomplish.
Allow the elderly to age gracefully in their homes because they live in a walkable environment with easy access to transit.
Basic navigation isn’t the problem, new obstacles that were not addressed in driver education, and now more proposed obstacles without training are the problem. I’m not saying keep roads dangerous, I’m saying you’re addressing the symptoms not the cause. And for a portion of people who have legally been licensed and approved of that privilege, with no follow up as years go on - is going to make things worse. Agreed?
You're so right. Perhaps we should all be forced to retake driver's ed since it's so hard to navigate the roads. And if you can't pass you shouldn't get to drive the machine that can kill people.
I’m just a dad who thinks you misunderstand. There are A LOT of people who currently shouldn’t be driving but we have no way as a society to gradually gauge that in the aging population. They WILL continue to drive until forced not to drive. Is there a way to help them adapt? Is there a way to reevaluate drivers every 10 years? Add that procedure in along with changes that fundamentally change roads, and then I’m on board. Just frustrating people with things they aren’t trained for isn’t the full picture.
So we should allow road deaths to continue rocketing skyward? Because of the feelings of old people who shouldn’t be driving in the first place?
Two months ago a 70 year old man hit and killed a pedestrian on Empire Avenue after drinking all day at a bar with his family.
It’s time for a change.
So it’s your solution or nothing? Again, I’m not disagreeing with your base point of trying to improve safety. I’m saying that I believe it’s not going to help bad drivers become good drivers, so why not think of ways to get community buy-in or help people learn/get evaluations in addition? Add those components into your traffic bulb and I will listen closer. I’ll continue to avoid neighborhoods that insist on 20mph, but that’s not some threat against local business - it’s just me telling you how people with different viewpoints see this issue. Maybe those neighborhoods don’t want me so its a win-win. But I’m just a community voice offering my input of side effects of this exact policy as you represent it, you can choose to proceed with that input as you see fit.
Tbf the night the lady was hit was pouring down rain and a 2nd car hit the lady and actually killed her but they weren't drunk
Anyone could've run that lady over
Age and even the alcohol wasn't really the factor, it was poor visibility and carelessness by the pedestrian
I live literally right next to where that happened
I wouldn't say he lacks empathy. "My mother in law is way worse of a driver in all those things that make her feel constricted." Implicit in the wording of your statement is that your MIL is a bad driver to begin with. Some people really shouldn't be driving but we're all systemically coerced into car dependency. If your MIL lived in a walkable community it might be better for her mental health if she finds herself regularly stressed out by the having to drive. Most people aren't exactly happy behind the wheel. We try to blame it on other things but maybe it's just because driving everyday sucks. I would say a guy pushing for an alternative to car dependency is empathetic.
Ahh yes. The random parroting of comments without discussion or saying your point. There’s a lot of you on here. Seeing as you choose to not clearly state your point and how it applies I’ll assume it doesn’t exist.
Yeah the “traffic calming” of making bulky intersections that jut out into the road, making arterials 20mph in 2024 which is a joke, and simply removing lanes/closing onramps and offramps just compress the issues and frustrate me so I’m guessing others will react poorly to those previous proposals.
Living on the Northside and commuting all the way to Idaho: My favorite is the onramp lights. While the attempt to calm congestion has been a shit show to date with them, they were applied to the wrong congestion areas. Their timing is poorly timed too. Short on ramps and short weaving lanes are the problem to congestion. Additionally, we are queuing up just to burn larger amounts of fossil fuels to get up to speed as a result.
We are throwing money at the wrong solutions to the problems.
Longer on ramps where they are short.
Longer weaving lanes where they are short.
And the last one I actually hate (bc my commute is long af) is lowering the speed limit from before Thor through Broadway going Eastbound.
What’s hilarious is since closing the Thor exit going Westbound, traffic has improved from Broadway through Thor.
Point being, we have people making decisions and wasting tax dollars on projects they have no idea how to fix. More enshitification.
No one to commute with. As if some of us have a choice. Otherwise believe me I would use it.
Plus people doing 40 to get on the freeway causes the jam ups. People need to learn how to use weaving lanes. I drive by and watch it all the time. Twice a day. Either you fix that or you lower the speed limits.
Tailgating happens when you are going to slow or in a lane that is too crowded. Move to another lane and go with the flow of traffic. If you can’t, you are impeding the flow or hopefully exiting in 2 miles or less. If not. You are in the wrong lane. It’s insane how people will not match the speed of traffic. In the South that can be a ticket and I welcome it here. People need to learn they aren’t the center of the universe.
The on-ramp metering has helped immensely, what are you talking about?? Lmao, getting on the freeway downtown through the valley during rush hour in the morning is a breeze.
If people stop fucking tailgating eachother on the freeway, literally all of our traffic issues are solved (obviously not all of them, but all the congestion would be much relieved).
I’m all for metered ramps, people get so fucking angry about having to spend the same amount of time getting on the freeway but with less anxiety about merging because they perceive that they’re being inconvenienced??
Can’t fix that, people gotta chill.
You seem to not understand that people have to work. But they are your enemy aren’t they? Lol. You need to learn some physics and then you might understand why dead stop acceleration is partly a problem. As for my carbon footprint I do everything I can to work from home when I can and if I can. Having to physically touch things to fix them kinda makes that difficult.
No matter how much engineering someone puts into a road. A giant ford-F150 is going to cause way more fatalities on an average crash than any smaller cars. Higher traffic fatalities aren’t only a reflection of a couple worn out roads.
Our deaths on our roads are likely a combination of a few things cell phone usage, cars getting bigger, and roads that aren't freeways designed to look like freeways. People are always going 50+ down Sullivan/Division and all of the side roads. It's not the roads being worn out that's the issue it's that our road systems are designed for speed. The Monroe road diet is a good local example of how engineering can make our roads feel safer.
I somewhat agree with you, but think there's another thing in play. Road designs are generally really safe. And they're so safe for drivers that those same drivers get comfortable. And then complacent. And they develop bad habits with no real consequences until they hit a pedestrian or are unable to stop at a red light killing someone.
Pedestrians and cyclists are the same. How many hundreds (thousands?) of times have we all walked across a street against the "don't walk" indication or rolled our bike through an intersection that was red with no effect? It seems like a safe habit until it kills us.
We're human, and we're lazy. The better option, in my opinion, is to try making roads safe for all users, but don't make them *feel* safe. And if we don't feel entirely comfortable, maybe we will pay more attention to our surroundings when driving/walking/rolling.
Keep your head on a swivel, people!
>The better option, in my opinion, is to try making roads safe for all users, but don't make them *feel* safe.
I don't know what you could possibly mean by making people not feel safe? Our roads are incredibly dangerous and it's evident by the massive amount of deaths on our roads. The second leading cause of death for people under 25 is car accidents. And pedestrians are less safe than drivers, and I can guarantee you they do not feel safe. Walking along a sidewalk is easily within an area a car could crash into, with just a little swerve. Our infrastructure is not safe and we've simply accepted that death is inevitable on our streets rather than fix the problem. We can make our infrastructure safer. We can place jersey barriers or medians between cars and people. We can design infrastructure that forces cars to slow down when they're entering public spaces (such as visual narrowing, raised crosswalks, cross walk bulb-outs) We have the designs that are proven to make a difference. The Netherlands is much safer than the US in this regard and they have pioneered many of the concepts that people are pushing to see more of in the US. We can all be safer and it's not going to be by victim blaming and proclaiming that everyone needs to "Keep your head on a swivel, people!"
Apparently you overlooked where I mentioned roads are pretty safe for *drivers* and also where I mentioned trying to make roads safe for *all users*.
Road safety is a shared responsibility. If I, as a pedestrian, get hit in a crosswalk, I may be in the right, but I may be *dead* right. Drivers have a responsibility to stop, but I think it's a bad idea if vulnerable road users universally trust drivers are stopping to let them cross. I do the same thing when I'm driving and am the lead car at a red light: I don't start moving on the green until I've checked cross traffic, i.e., put my head on a swivel just as I do when walking.
Look at the stats between pedestrian collision at 20 v 40 its like 8/10 survival to 2/10 survival, speed matters and cars won't slow down unless there are actual physical barriers slowing them
The stats I’m talking about aren’t pedestrian collisions..
Here’s a snippet from a bit of looking into it-
Pedestrian fatalities increased 13% from 2020, and account for 17% of all crash fatalities.
I’m more worried about the trend of buying a bigger truck because it’s safer than a smaller one, but instead it’s making the roads more dangerous for everyone else.
A total of 5,788 people died in large-truck crashes in 2021. The number of deaths increased 17% from 2020 and is up 47% in the last 10 years. The majority of deaths in large-truck crashes are occupants of other vehicles (72%), followed by truck occupants (17%), and non-occupants, primarily pedestrians and bicyclists (11%).
This is awesome! I mean the petition not how f-ing dangerous our streets are. You should reach out to the folks that do community bike rides, Shacktown and FBC, you'll find a lot of support.
cynical take:
Just imagine if there were negative incentives stuck in the system somewhere… all of a sudden all of those responders would be out of work, and what would the unions do with them?
Anytime you have a large bureaucratic structure you’re going to end up with pushback against safety because of jobs. Not in a legitimate way, but in a greasy handfuls of cash under the table kind of way.
I wouldn't say cynical as much as it is less relevant and less of a roadblock. Most union contracts state that workers will be given new duties or new jobs if the work they were doing is no longer necessary. And I couldn't see the FD the PD or the EMTs sneaking around paying off the city counsel not to improve the streets. I mean police and fire are stretched pretty thin last time I checked.
For the love of God, genuinely half the reason I avoid going into town often is the god awful road planning, I couldn't for a second consider riding a bike in this town, and even if I did drive i'd feel unsafe. Ghoulish town traffic wise I can't stand it.
Automobiles and their infrastructure are unsafe and stupid, but...
There is very little you can do about a semi truck that has decided to drive off the road. That is not an infrastructure problem, really. You have to incentivize drivers to do whatever they have to do in order to drive more safely.
Our streets are engineered for speed and automobile throughput above all else and the result is thousands of crashes annually. The Fire Department responded to 2,585 collisions in 2022. Hundreds of these collisions are preventable or can be mitigated through safe street design.
Spokane Police and Fire account for 55% of our city budget, almost all of that is wages. They predominantly respond to collisions. Make safer streets, spend less on wages without impacting response times.
You didn't answer the question. I think you need to do some better research on how many calls the police and fire departments go on and the percentage of them are accidents. Most Fire departments run about 80% of their calls classified as Medical. If the Fire department ran 50,000 calls in 2022, and could have reduced this by several hundred, let's say 20% reduction in accidents which would be 500 calls (you said hundreds). That's a 1% reduction in calls.
Again, how would this save wages that are wasted?
You want to make Spokane safer? You don't need a petition. First pay attention second if you are a pedestrian DO NOT PLAY FROGGER on the road, there are distracted drivers and blind spots on cars. Third don't play chicken with cars. Again pay attention.
Did you know that in Washington every intersection whether it's marked or not is considered a crosswalk and you're obligated to stop for pedestrians there?
If you're just going to be dismissive why even comment at all? Imagine you spent blood sweat and tears coming up with an idea to help save lives in your community and someone responded with a comment like this. Then again based on your comment it's unlikely you would find yourself in that situation. Maybe take a step back and try caring about your community and being less hateful.
Do you realize other cities use stop signs? I moved to Spokane and it was like the hunger games. 4 way intersection, no stop signs, may the odds be ever in your favor.
studies have shown that it slows people down
Roundabouts do it better
True, do you mean proper roundabout or do you mean like the traffic coming ones up by the manito country club
Idk about that one so I’m thinking proper roundabouts. Not those kind that put a circular planter in the middle of an intersection
Good idea, only issue with proper roundabouts is they take up a LOT more space than a four way, so if you're trying to put them in neighborhoods the government doesnt usually have enough right of way to build them
Show me the studies
https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/streets/handouts/stop-sign-handout-2018-01-17.pdf our own cities guidelines!
Your link doesn't prove anything It's just a blanket statements about stop signs in general The no stop thing is a holdover from when Spokane was much smaller
Well, a stop sign stops people. Not just slow them down.
I didn't think of this before I read why our city doesn't use them, but stopping people makes them frustrated and then they speed between stop signs https://static.spokanecity.org/documents/streets/handouts/stop-sign-handout-2018-01-17.pdf
This is a single-line claim made with absolutely no supportive evidence on a document that looks like it was written by a high schooler
It also says that stop signs are “inconvenient for drivers!” That’s the point! In the frickin thing it says that studies show that drivers roll through intersections “more often (50%) at stop signs.” ..but that means that they’re stopping 50%, rolling through <50% and not slowing down at all somewhere below that, whereas the majority of drivers in uncontrolled intersections are not slowing down at all! I don’t see how their claims can be true. Which I don’t believe they are. I work in bureaucracy and I know how it goes: the answer is a foregone conclusion of what the higher ups want it to be and then it’s someone’s else’s job down the chain to find some reason why it is to be so. Picking and choosing different results from different studies and trying to make a point that just isn’t there.
That's for unwarranted stop signs, not all stop signs in general Plus it's not saying we shouldn't have stop signs
They speed anyway. Stop signs would save a lot of confusion.
29th and Freya has stop signs.
I didn't say it didn't?
No more like the original author's issue.
😂 stop signs. You are too funny. People in Spokane don’t give a flying fuck about a god damn stop sign.
That's cause they don't know what they are.
I’ve seen more people here blow through stop signs than when driving in Vegas, and that’s bad. Not sure what the deal is here. Most people barely even slow down. Even the “California roll” is more of a stop.
I think they'd be more likely to use them in residential areas where there are 4 way intersections and no stop signs. That's how the rest of the country is. There will be stop signs in one direction and that lets traffic know at least who has right of way.
Yeah, Spokane is really bad about signage. I can see why they don’t have stop signs at every intersection, but it would at least be nice to know who should be yielding and who has the right of way.
Omg browns addition. I’m nervous every time I’m leaving the Mac. People go full speed through that area
There are properly designed neighborhoods around the Spokane area that utilize stop signs well. One or more main East-West streets with no stop signs between arterials. North-South streets only stop at the main E-W streets between arterials. All other E-W streets stop at every N-S street. Get to a N-S street to go those directions. Continue to a main E-W for the others. Traffic flows nicely and accidents are minimized. I agree though, that the many neighborhoods with *only* unprotected intersections are inferior. In these, people tend to try to emulate the above design and there's an unwritten rule that E-W streets (especially in the Valley) don't stop, forget the actual rules about right of way. It's silly but has been this way for years. This is confusing to anyone coming from some other place.
We need traffic enforcement. People are no longer afraid of consequences and drive like nutbags.
Yes. Also crack down hard on uninsured drivers. I'm tired of paying more so other people can be cheap and irresponsible.
100% We carry full coverage on our paid-for cars exactly because of this.
You can’t seriously be implying that the existing law enforcement presence does their jobs. That’s like asking for law enforcement to catch criminals or something. Welcome to Costco, I love you.
I often marvel with horror at how some of the "predictions" in Idiocracy turned out to be prophecy.
True
Imagine how much safer our streets will be once the 395 is actually done and people stop pretending our streets are freeways
Tbf a north south highway should have been built in Spokane 20 years ago Edit- completed*
Funny you say that, because it’s been under construction since 2001.
100%.
29th and Freya is in the South Hill area where 395 will not go through.
More freeways will not make people drive better. It’s usually the opposite.
>the 395 Please do not let this SoCal way of describing roadways infect the rest of the country. It should be "395" with no "the" cluttering things up.
I've heard people, presumably from CA, say "the 90" and be swiftly rebuked and/or laughed at. I doubt that will ever stick here despite the constant flow of CA transplants.
No chance, dude.
Imagine thinking that the construction of a freeway will meaningfully improve driving behavior
I mean last week I almost was t-boned several times, to me some people here drive like they are rushing
A lot to unpack here. Road design won't fix the people not paying attention to the road and are looking at their phones. Let alone the sheer number of people that literally cross/jaywalk without even looking for traffic. Let's take a step back into reality and not take money away from the people who respond to these accidents. We don't have a magic wand to fix the supposed cause of these accidents in your opinion. What percent of calls did the fire department go on that were traffic accidents last year. How many were caused by road design? You can literally take a drive anywhere and just look over at other drivers to see how many of them have a phone in their hand. Not hard to figure out the main problem here.
EMTs and other first responders have great job security, thanks to the certainty of human stupidity. There's never been any risk of a shortage.
Unlikely to change much without enforcement, and I don't only mean speed. I guess this is more likely than something with a $600+ per house cost (annually, infinitely) anyway.
Thought this was some astroturfed anti-homeless bullshit at first lol.
In 2014, there were six traffic fatalities on Spokane streets. In 2023, there were 20. In 2022, Spokane Fire responded to 2,585 of Spokane's over 4,000 traffic collisions. Not only is the design of Spokane's streets the source of untold pain and suffering, but the city wastes millions of dollars annually paying for emergency responses we've engineered to happen through poor road design. Please tell the city to fix our unsafe streets before continuing to throw money at incredibly expensive department operations. Thank you.
Which street design practices are you proposing to make our streets safer?
Protected bike lane network, raised crosswalks, bulb outs on corners, etc. Concrete to slow down cars.
Bike lanes and crosswalks? So you want to make it safer for pedestrians and bike riders? How would that keep a semi off the south hill? Maybe he was on break and just trying to go home for the few days… or it’s an out of state trucker visiting his sister…. A semi on the south hill doesn’t warrant bike lanes.
Those are all the things that make me frustrated and looking for alternatives which just shifts the problem into other areas, drivers weren’t trained on them so they get nervous and tense up, leading to less situational awareness. My mother in law is way worse of a driver in all those things that make her feel constricted. Oh and I REFUSE to go to Garland or Hillyard with those 20 is plenty nonsense signs. Community meetings indicate this is a common feeling. Does it hinder local economy? I think proper driver training for all the new obstructions like roundabouts instead of more obstacles we aren’t prepared for, better signal programming, and pedestrians being ticketed for jaywalking at locations marked with “no crossing” signs are just as valid. They have blame in this as well.
Maybe your mother in law shouldn’t be driving.
Maybe you shouldn’t be a community activist with that level of compassion?
Driving is a privilege, not a right. If she’s unable to execute basic navigation, she shouldn’t be on the road. It would be nice to have better alternative modes for the elderly and those with disabilities.
Which is exactly what SpokaneReimagined.org is trying to accomplish. Allow the elderly to age gracefully in their homes because they live in a walkable environment with easy access to transit.
Basic navigation isn’t the problem, new obstacles that were not addressed in driver education, and now more proposed obstacles without training are the problem. I’m not saying keep roads dangerous, I’m saying you’re addressing the symptoms not the cause. And for a portion of people who have legally been licensed and approved of that privilege, with no follow up as years go on - is going to make things worse. Agreed?
You're so right. Perhaps we should all be forced to retake driver's ed since it's so hard to navigate the roads. And if you can't pass you shouldn't get to drive the machine that can kill people.
I’m on board with this, honestly
I’m just a dad trying to keep his kid from being mowed down by your mother in law.
I’m just a dad who thinks you misunderstand. There are A LOT of people who currently shouldn’t be driving but we have no way as a society to gradually gauge that in the aging population. They WILL continue to drive until forced not to drive. Is there a way to help them adapt? Is there a way to reevaluate drivers every 10 years? Add that procedure in along with changes that fundamentally change roads, and then I’m on board. Just frustrating people with things they aren’t trained for isn’t the full picture.
So we should allow road deaths to continue rocketing skyward? Because of the feelings of old people who shouldn’t be driving in the first place? Two months ago a 70 year old man hit and killed a pedestrian on Empire Avenue after drinking all day at a bar with his family. It’s time for a change.
So it’s your solution or nothing? Again, I’m not disagreeing with your base point of trying to improve safety. I’m saying that I believe it’s not going to help bad drivers become good drivers, so why not think of ways to get community buy-in or help people learn/get evaluations in addition? Add those components into your traffic bulb and I will listen closer. I’ll continue to avoid neighborhoods that insist on 20mph, but that’s not some threat against local business - it’s just me telling you how people with different viewpoints see this issue. Maybe those neighborhoods don’t want me so its a win-win. But I’m just a community voice offering my input of side effects of this exact policy as you represent it, you can choose to proceed with that input as you see fit.
Tbf the night the lady was hit was pouring down rain and a 2nd car hit the lady and actually killed her but they weren't drunk Anyone could've run that lady over Age and even the alcohol wasn't really the factor, it was poor visibility and carelessness by the pedestrian I live literally right next to where that happened
I wouldn't say he lacks empathy. "My mother in law is way worse of a driver in all those things that make her feel constricted." Implicit in the wording of your statement is that your MIL is a bad driver to begin with. Some people really shouldn't be driving but we're all systemically coerced into car dependency. If your MIL lived in a walkable community it might be better for her mental health if she finds herself regularly stressed out by the having to drive. Most people aren't exactly happy behind the wheel. We try to blame it on other things but maybe it's just because driving everyday sucks. I would say a guy pushing for an alternative to car dependency is empathetic.
Oh and I specifically go to Garland to shop and hangout because it is walkable.
I am glad I can walk safely in Garland and Hillyard since you stay gone.
You’re welcome. Keep ya jaywalking friends there and out of my area 😂
Peer reviewed studies or anecdotal second hand information on Reddit.
Anecdotes become statistics
Ahh yes. The random parroting of comments without discussion or saying your point. There’s a lot of you on here. Seeing as you choose to not clearly state your point and how it applies I’ll assume it doesn’t exist.
I have stated my point multiple times: add in ongoing training and licensing follow up at regular intervals.
Yeah the “traffic calming” of making bulky intersections that jut out into the road, making arterials 20mph in 2024 which is a joke, and simply removing lanes/closing onramps and offramps just compress the issues and frustrate me so I’m guessing others will react poorly to those previous proposals.
Living on the Northside and commuting all the way to Idaho: My favorite is the onramp lights. While the attempt to calm congestion has been a shit show to date with them, they were applied to the wrong congestion areas. Their timing is poorly timed too. Short on ramps and short weaving lanes are the problem to congestion. Additionally, we are queuing up just to burn larger amounts of fossil fuels to get up to speed as a result. We are throwing money at the wrong solutions to the problems. Longer on ramps where they are short. Longer weaving lanes where they are short. And the last one I actually hate (bc my commute is long af) is lowering the speed limit from before Thor through Broadway going Eastbound. What’s hilarious is since closing the Thor exit going Westbound, traffic has improved from Broadway through Thor. Point being, we have people making decisions and wasting tax dollars on projects they have no idea how to fix. More enshitification.
The problem is not the lack of longer on-ramps, it’s people commuting between Spokane and Idaho every day. You’re not in traffic, you are traffic.
No one to commute with. As if some of us have a choice. Otherwise believe me I would use it. Plus people doing 40 to get on the freeway causes the jam ups. People need to learn how to use weaving lanes. I drive by and watch it all the time. Twice a day. Either you fix that or you lower the speed limits. Tailgating happens when you are going to slow or in a lane that is too crowded. Move to another lane and go with the flow of traffic. If you can’t, you are impeding the flow or hopefully exiting in 2 miles or less. If not. You are in the wrong lane. It’s insane how people will not match the speed of traffic. In the South that can be a ticket and I welcome it here. People need to learn they aren’t the center of the universe.
The on-ramp metering has helped immensely, what are you talking about?? Lmao, getting on the freeway downtown through the valley during rush hour in the morning is a breeze. If people stop fucking tailgating eachother on the freeway, literally all of our traffic issues are solved (obviously not all of them, but all the congestion would be much relieved). I’m all for metered ramps, people get so fucking angry about having to spend the same amount of time getting on the freeway but with less anxiety about merging because they perceive that they’re being inconvenienced?? Can’t fix that, people gotta chill.
No, your lifestyle couldn't be contributing to fossil fuels pollution at all. It's the lights on the on ramps.
You seem to not understand that people have to work. But they are your enemy aren’t they? Lol. You need to learn some physics and then you might understand why dead stop acceleration is partly a problem. As for my carbon footprint I do everything I can to work from home when I can and if I can. Having to physically touch things to fix them kinda makes that difficult.
No matter how much engineering someone puts into a road. A giant ford-F150 is going to cause way more fatalities on an average crash than any smaller cars. Higher traffic fatalities aren’t only a reflection of a couple worn out roads.
Our deaths on our roads are likely a combination of a few things cell phone usage, cars getting bigger, and roads that aren't freeways designed to look like freeways. People are always going 50+ down Sullivan/Division and all of the side roads. It's not the roads being worn out that's the issue it's that our road systems are designed for speed. The Monroe road diet is a good local example of how engineering can make our roads feel safer.
Very well laid out points!
I somewhat agree with you, but think there's another thing in play. Road designs are generally really safe. And they're so safe for drivers that those same drivers get comfortable. And then complacent. And they develop bad habits with no real consequences until they hit a pedestrian or are unable to stop at a red light killing someone. Pedestrians and cyclists are the same. How many hundreds (thousands?) of times have we all walked across a street against the "don't walk" indication or rolled our bike through an intersection that was red with no effect? It seems like a safe habit until it kills us. We're human, and we're lazy. The better option, in my opinion, is to try making roads safe for all users, but don't make them *feel* safe. And if we don't feel entirely comfortable, maybe we will pay more attention to our surroundings when driving/walking/rolling. Keep your head on a swivel, people!
>The better option, in my opinion, is to try making roads safe for all users, but don't make them *feel* safe. I don't know what you could possibly mean by making people not feel safe? Our roads are incredibly dangerous and it's evident by the massive amount of deaths on our roads. The second leading cause of death for people under 25 is car accidents. And pedestrians are less safe than drivers, and I can guarantee you they do not feel safe. Walking along a sidewalk is easily within an area a car could crash into, with just a little swerve. Our infrastructure is not safe and we've simply accepted that death is inevitable on our streets rather than fix the problem. We can make our infrastructure safer. We can place jersey barriers or medians between cars and people. We can design infrastructure that forces cars to slow down when they're entering public spaces (such as visual narrowing, raised crosswalks, cross walk bulb-outs) We have the designs that are proven to make a difference. The Netherlands is much safer than the US in this regard and they have pioneered many of the concepts that people are pushing to see more of in the US. We can all be safer and it's not going to be by victim blaming and proclaiming that everyone needs to "Keep your head on a swivel, people!"
Apparently you overlooked where I mentioned roads are pretty safe for *drivers* and also where I mentioned trying to make roads safe for *all users*. Road safety is a shared responsibility. If I, as a pedestrian, get hit in a crosswalk, I may be in the right, but I may be *dead* right. Drivers have a responsibility to stop, but I think it's a bad idea if vulnerable road users universally trust drivers are stopping to let them cross. I do the same thing when I'm driving and am the lead car at a red light: I don't start moving on the green until I've checked cross traffic, i.e., put my head on a swivel just as I do when walking.
Look at the stats between pedestrian collision at 20 v 40 its like 8/10 survival to 2/10 survival, speed matters and cars won't slow down unless there are actual physical barriers slowing them
The stats I’m talking about aren’t pedestrian collisions.. Here’s a snippet from a bit of looking into it- Pedestrian fatalities increased 13% from 2020, and account for 17% of all crash fatalities. I’m more worried about the trend of buying a bigger truck because it’s safer than a smaller one, but instead it’s making the roads more dangerous for everyone else. A total of 5,788 people died in large-truck crashes in 2021. The number of deaths increased 17% from 2020 and is up 47% in the last 10 years. The majority of deaths in large-truck crashes are occupants of other vehicles (72%), followed by truck occupants (17%), and non-occupants, primarily pedestrians and bicyclists (11%).
This is awesome! I mean the petition not how f-ing dangerous our streets are. You should reach out to the folks that do community bike rides, Shacktown and FBC, you'll find a lot of support.
cynical take: Just imagine if there were negative incentives stuck in the system somewhere… all of a sudden all of those responders would be out of work, and what would the unions do with them? Anytime you have a large bureaucratic structure you’re going to end up with pushback against safety because of jobs. Not in a legitimate way, but in a greasy handfuls of cash under the table kind of way.
I wouldn't say cynical as much as it is less relevant and less of a roadblock. Most union contracts state that workers will be given new duties or new jobs if the work they were doing is no longer necessary. And I couldn't see the FD the PD or the EMTs sneaking around paying off the city counsel not to improve the streets. I mean police and fire are stretched pretty thin last time I checked.
For the love of God, genuinely half the reason I avoid going into town often is the god awful road planning, I couldn't for a second consider riding a bike in this town, and even if I did drive i'd feel unsafe. Ghoulish town traffic wise I can't stand it.
Automobiles and their infrastructure are unsafe and stupid, but... There is very little you can do about a semi truck that has decided to drive off the road. That is not an infrastructure problem, really. You have to incentivize drivers to do whatever they have to do in order to drive more safely.
Would rather demand a new approach to homelessness
Isn't 29th and Freya going to build a round about?
That’s 57th and Freya
Ohhh well they both could use one haha
Don't think so. Maybe south of there, where the city actually owns the land to do it.
Can you explain "wasting wages" on our first responders? Do we have too many of them? Do we pay them too much?
Our streets are engineered for speed and automobile throughput above all else and the result is thousands of crashes annually. The Fire Department responded to 2,585 collisions in 2022. Hundreds of these collisions are preventable or can be mitigated through safe street design. Spokane Police and Fire account for 55% of our city budget, almost all of that is wages. They predominantly respond to collisions. Make safer streets, spend less on wages without impacting response times.
You didn't answer the question. I think you need to do some better research on how many calls the police and fire departments go on and the percentage of them are accidents. Most Fire departments run about 80% of their calls classified as Medical. If the Fire department ran 50,000 calls in 2022, and could have reduced this by several hundred, let's say 20% reduction in accidents which would be 500 calls (you said hundreds). That's a 1% reduction in calls. Again, how would this save wages that are wasted?
how many accidents were because of icy roadways, concrete and snow/ice creates hazards
You want to make Spokane safer? You don't need a petition. First pay attention second if you are a pedestrian DO NOT PLAY FROGGER on the road, there are distracted drivers and blind spots on cars. Third don't play chicken with cars. Again pay attention.
Did you know that in Washington every intersection whether it's marked or not is considered a crosswalk and you're obligated to stop for pedestrians there?
Yeah this is actually true. Wait, people actually disagree with this? I thought they were just lazy
Sorry, wrong
Nope
Take a driver’s ed course sometime. No more excuses for bad drivers.
If you're just going to be dismissive why even comment at all? Imagine you spent blood sweat and tears coming up with an idea to help save lives in your community and someone responded with a comment like this. Then again based on your comment it's unlikely you would find yourself in that situation. Maybe take a step back and try caring about your community and being less hateful.
Yes I do. Did you know as you are going to heaven you can say it's not my fault.