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So much for that traffic study
By adamg on Thu, 10/11/2018 - 10:41am
Just yesterday, the Boston Transportation Department put in one of those traffic-counting cable things on Conway Street in response to neighborhood concerns about unsafe drivers. Tim West reports that less than 10 hours later, a public-works street sweeper tore it up.
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Comments
What...
...do they hope to determine with those? Is it always unsafe driving? I thought they were just counting how many vehicles passed a particular street to determine if more traffic lights were needed. I guess there is more to them.
Baseline metrics
Those traffic measuring devices record an event every time a vehicle goes over the sensor tube, so they can get traffic count, etc.
Some of them use two tubes. That’s enough to calculate how fast the vehicles are going. Some of them have multiple tubes, which can determine things like multiple axles, which lane/direction they’re going, etc.
It’s how a city can say, definitively, things like “average speed on this street was 34 MPH last year, but after installing traffic-calming measures, the speed has dropped to 28 MPH this year”.
Thx!
That was a great explanation, thanks!
Adam thank you for being able
Adam thank you for being able to make me laugh on a daily basis. This photo says, "I don't give a fuck...BAM!!!" at its clearest. LMFAO
Not the worst fate for a traffic counter
Remember when BPD decided that a traffic counter was a suspicious device and blew it up?
1/31/07 NEVER FORGET
1/31/07 NEVER FORGET
Seems like a dumb place...
Support the effort, as a lot of streets in Roslindale have become drag strips. This location seems poorly chosen though.
Conway is a dead end street and not a cut through to any main roads. I could maybe understand the argument for it being further down the street on South or S. Conway, but you can see from that picture that its up Conway past the Conway Court housing building.
Seems like ti would make a lot more sense for this type of device to be put on popular cut through roads that people definitely speed on like Florence, South, Belgrade, etc.
Street has a ton of foot
Street has a ton of foot traffic from residents, people walking to/from Train and to the Arbs. And it's a hill so people fly up and down. I've almost been hit there. Plus Conway isn't a dead end, Aborough is. Agree that other neighborhood streets need traffic calming too.
I gotta disagree
First, Conway runs from Fairview to South Streets, so it is not a dead end. If you're cutting through from Walter, Conway could be an option.
Second, we won't know how much traffic it gets and how fast the traffic goes until there is a data set. Hence, what they were doing, or at least trying to do.
look at the picture
This device is on the stretch of Conway that becomes Arborough, not S.Conway which connects to Fairview or Walter. Seems pretty useless there.
...and Conway connects to Fairview,..and so on
its a busy street with cars speeding up and down the hill (and rarely stopping at posted stop signs). if the city is trying to address speeding problems, its a good thing.
I've looked at the picture
And I know that at the top of this hill, heading from the Square, Conway for some reason takes a left and continues for a block before ending at Fairview. I've walked this street before from South to Fairview and from Fairview to South. Heck, I believe that I once used it as a driving cut through from Walter to Robert.
Grab a map and take a look.
Pretty clear problem...
When even the damn BTD speed tracking equipment is destroyed (by city employees), it's safe to say that speeding and careless driving are are issues on that street. For crissakes, the equipment is stationary (and pretty hard not to notice), thank God there wasn't a kid running in the street.
Huh?
This doesn't make any sense.
Maybe the street sweeper has driven over 100 of these with no problem, but something went wrong this time? Or maybe the thing is marketed to withstand street-sweeping, but wasn't installed exactly right this time?
I have no idea what happened, but it isn't logical to say that this little mis-hap means the street is or isn't safe.
Contracted
BTD requested the count there, but it's a private company that owns and places the tubes.
In Boston it's PWD not DPW.
In Boston it's PWD not DPW.
It (sorta) did its job
It DID detect its first (and last?) unsafe driver in less than 10 hours.
Look at the bright side
Now they have good data on when a street sweeper goes down the road.
The thing looks like it was
The thing looks like it was chained to the fire hydrant, another potential indicator of gross incompetence.
How so?
Why is chaining equipment to the bottom of the hydrant gross incompetence?
How is that incompetent? They
How is that incompetent? They have to be secured to something to prevent theft, and this isn't going to prevent firefighters from accessing the hydrant, so why not?
What do you think is so grossly incompetent about this?
The study has concluded that
The study has concluded that 1 street sweeper passed through during the test period.
Everyone dances
with the street sweeper.