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Archive for August 26th, 2009

The Taking of Pelham’s Trees

Apparently this issue has been around awhile. From a letter to the New York Times, 1999:

To the Editor:

Re ”Drivers Fear Leafy Menace by the Side of the Road” (Sept. 19): Pelham Parkway is not a limited-access highway; it is a parkway, a road that connects Pelham Bay Park with Bronx Park. Coincidentally, it now connects the Bronx River Parkway with the Hutchinson River Parkway and the New England Thruway (I-95). It was designed for light pleasure traffic at speeds of 25 to 30 miles per hour, not 50 to 60 m.p.h.

When people fall asleep at the wheel, are cut off by another vehicle or seek to avoid an animal in the road and hit one of the trees transplanted from the subway construction on the Grand Concourse, it is not the fault of the tree, nor the design of the road. I would hate to see the trees removed simply because motorists are not observing the speed limit.

If the police would enforce the speed limit on Pelham Parkway, the city would make money on the road instead of spending it. If the road could have been redesigned, you could be sure the master builder (and destroyer) Robert Moses would have rebuilt it after his failure to complete the Sheridan Expressway, which would have been the main east-west roadway to compliment the Cross Bronx Expressway.

THOMAS VASTI JR.

Morris Park, Bronx

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Posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 8:36 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
2 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

Snow Job

Reader Pat sends along a photo he snapped of the old Glenn Highway near Anchorage, Alaska. In case you can’t make it out, the sign after the avalanche warning notes “School Bus Stop Ahead.”

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Posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 7:40 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
1 Comment. Click here to leave a comment.

Le Justice

From a very good article in the ITE Journal (”French Lessons: A Review of an Effective Road Safety Program,” by Andrew Kwasniak and Michael Kuzel) on efforts in France to reduce the country’s road fatalities (now lower than the U.S., per million population, a far cry from the 1970s):

An example of the seriousness of driving over the speed limit in France was experienced by two British drivers who were stopped after a high-speed pursuit (257 km/hr). As a result, they were arrested and spent 48 hours in a police station pending a hearing. They were fined 1,000 Euros and received a three-month suspended jail sentence. Their cars, each worth approximately 68,000 euros, were confiscated and sold at auction.

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Posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 7:25 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
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Dangerous Trees or Dangerous Drivers?

The Daily News notes that a number of trees are going to be cut down on Pelham Parkway in the Bronx and replaced by a guard-rail, presumably to cut down on the number of fatalities by drivers swerving into trees. “The roadway is very dangerous the way it is,” a local pol said.

But dangerous for whom? As the story notes:

According to Police Department figures, there were 185 accidents — with 29 injuries — from January to July 31 of this year along the parkway. Since 2003, there have been two fatalities, both involving struck pedestrians.

The only certainty in removing trees is that speeds will increase. I’m not sure how those pedestrians were struck, but I would guess the issue is not that the trees failed to protect them, and their risk will only increase with driver speed.

(thanks Streetsblog)

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Posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 7:15 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
3 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.
Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

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Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

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