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Councilors look at lowering Boston speed limit to 20 m.p.h.
By adamg on Fri, 11/16/2018 - 11:15am
NorthEndWaterfront.com reports. In 2016, the city reduced the default city speed limit from 30 to 25. You may recall that before the city did that, councilors approved a reduction to 20 but were stymied by state law. Councilors say that today, as then, the issue is safety - for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers themselves.
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Comments
Enforcement
Obligatory comment that they could reduce it to 0.000001 mph, but if they don't enforce the posted speed limit, nothing will ever change. Cars routinely travel at ≥40mph down tight, residential streets, sometimes achieving lift-off on our street. Start issuing tickets.
The cops do nothing. They are
The cops do nothing. They are useless. Actually they are worse than useless because they are taking a six figure salary away from tax payers to do nothing. You will only see them issue tickets once another criminal driver kills another two year old on a sidewalk. Even then it will be only on one street for a couple weeks. Meanwhile criminal drivers are flagrantly breaking the law and injuring and killing people all over the city on a regular basis.
With all that said, I still strongly support the 20 MPH speed limit. It will help somewhat and when auto driving cars become popular we need to make sure the law states that they cannot go over that limit. Having a law abiding vehicle in front of them will slow down the criminal drivers.
You have no idea what they do.
And it is because of people like Kinopio why police don't issue tickets like they used to. Afraid of complaints for BS stuff. Thanks for making everyone unsafe Kinopio.
FYI traffic citations down 54% in the past 5 years in Boston from about 55K to 26K.
I have an idea what they do
I have an idea what they do. I have heard they have one cop per shift per station for traffic. That cop has a relatively low quota.
When they added L Street patrols after the death of the child, they used detail/OT to pay for the extra patrols.
Traffic enforcement is not considered a routine of BPD or even state police - all paid with federal grants and detail/OT pay. Another Massachusetts peculiarity. Same as they automatically give points to your DL which automatically increases insurance payments for years (maybe this double financial hit is also contributing to low enforcement as even police are sympathetic to the financial burden imposed by one speeding ticket).
Now I still think lowering from 25 to 20 is overall silly. Especially on wide streets such as Old Colony, Summer St (between 1st and Fort Point Channel), American Legion Hwy, Washington St in West Rox, Columbia Road, Blue Hill Ave, Rutherford Ave, and so on. Some streets need to be reserved for more traffic with reasonably higher speeds to move them (30-35, maybe even 40).
Lack enforcement is the problem. And lack of speed limit signs - another stupid state law that you are not supposed to post the defaco speed limit . Change that law too!
You're right, I have no idea what they do
But it's something I often wonder while I, an untrained civilian, am standing at a bus stop or walking down the street and see countless red light runners and texters go flying by.
Hope by "runners" you are including cyclists
Every morning as I wait for my bus, I watch cyclists run through the red lights on Mass Ave.
Funny thing about that
If one of them hits you, they go down too and probably nobody dies. If a car hits you, maybe you die and chances are nothing will ever happen to the driver.
Funny thing about that
If you would stop your bike at red lights, stop signs and yield to pedestrians in crosswalks as YOU are legally required to do, maybe we would all have a less stressful commute. Setting the bar at 'well if I hit you with my bike you won't die' is a rather low bar to set. Take a deep breath: people who walk and take the bus aren't your enemy.
Not even a biker, man
But the amount of ire directed towards them compared to the vast numbers of imcompetent and dangerous drivers out there regularly is amazing to me.
Not defending the average
Not defending the average Masshole idiot car driver, but...
As people are fond of repeating here when the "registration/gas/cost of roads/use of roads" or "test, license & ticket bicyclists" trope flags are raised - bicyclists on the road (aka bike drivers) are overwhelmingly adults, taxpayers, car owners who just don't happen to be using their car all of the time, are licensed car drivers already, etc... Which is true.
Unfortunately, the companion piece of ugly truth is that bicyclists are from that same pool of crappy Masshole idiot drivers. Aggressive, rude, impatient (so are a lot of other places in the country) but also with a sense of entitlement (which sometimes exceeds their sense of traffic law or physics) and unfortunately prone to maneuvers that are "creative" (or to put it more accurately - random and/or arbitrary and/or from somewhere out beyond Left Field). Put them on a bicycle and too many of them think "I'm quick, I'm nimble, I can squeeze through anywhere, I don't have to stop, etc..."
Sure, there are "vast numbers" of bad drivers behind the wheel of a car. By percentage, though, I see much more bad behavior from bike drivers
Red-light runners? Sure, car drivers who speed up, push their approach past any point of safety through yellow and even the beginning of red are a problem, just as those on bicycle who do so. But - only someone on a bicycle passes five full-stopped cars without slowing to run a signal that's been red already for 10, 20, 30, 60 seconds - and I see THAT almost every day.
...and I absolutely reject the ridiculous "bicycles/bicyclists hardly kill anyone like cars/trucks do" canards. Cyclists cause crashes just the same as motorists do. Mass, rigid frames/bodies, and transfer of energy/momentum and all the rest of the physics may mean that the car generally wins and the bike generally loses - but it's the behavior of the operator (inattentive, reckless, aggressive) that creates the crash.
false equivilance
There is bias against cyclist that makes it difficult to evaluate your claim that cyclist cause crashes just the same as motorists do. What ever mistakes I make as a cyclist, I don't crash into things because I am going slow enough to stop.
Wow.
Wow.
So... a car driver is reckless or dangerous or whatever sort of grievous malfeasance, but with you and your bike it would have been "a mistake".
...because along with it being only a "mistake", YOU'RE going "slow enough to stop", so you won't hit anything. Right. As if "mistakes" don't put you in dangerous spots that how quickly you can stop (even if it is actually as quickly as you think) doesn't get you out of danger. Or put somebody else in danger because you created a situation then stopped and they have to do something dangerous to avoid you or it.
"I'm going slow enough to stop" Hopefully nobody will ever have to bury you under those self-assured words, cin, right between the coffee-klatsch I sat beside last week (that was talking about they don't like expressway driving so they slow down whatever lane they're in to a speed they're comfortable with) and the "I don't wear a seatbelt while driving because _____ (whatever fill-in-the-blank excuse) and I always remain in control" crowd.
Just tell me you're not professionally employed teaching bike safety to children, please.
Very insecure
Bicycles are easy to control because they are slower. Cars require more control and responsibility to operate safely. Comparing the responsibility of both doesn’t make sense. That is not an attack on drivers.
Bicycles don’t cause the same amount of crashes that cars, that’s just stupid. But that doesn’t mean that it is ok ride carelessly. It just means equivocating is dishonest.
I'll try one more time.
I'll try one more time.
oh.... where to start?
"Bicycles are easy to control because they are slower."
Even though a car's max speed is much higher than a bike's, there are frequent situations especially on city streets) where bicycles are moving faster than cars - such as congested traffic or lines at red lights (as I mentioned above) and weaving around cars (and running red lights).
There are circumstances (weaving/turns, wet pavement) where a two-wheeled conveyance is less stable and therefore more difficult to control than a four-wheeled conveyance going the same speed.
"Cars require more control and responsibility to operate safely. Comparing the responsibility of both doesn’t make sense. "
When the operators of both have to share the same road, it sure as hell makes sense to discuss the identical responsibility (and disparate typical failings) of both groups.
"Bicycles don’t cause the same amount of crashes that cars, that’s just stupid."
I flat out stated that they didn't, but that percentage-wise bicyclists are more frequent offenders. Read carefully. Don't try to bullshit.
"But that doesn’t mean that it is ok ride carelessly. "
If you agree that carelessness is a problem, why are you arguing when I describe careless behavior?
"It just means equivocating is dishonest."
I wasn't equivocating. I was speaking quite plainly and directly.
That's the last from me, as this thread has reached an important viability threshold. Not Godwin's Law or any subtopic equivalent - just the one that if when viewed on my smartphone, the nested posts reduce the column width of comments to six characters or less, it's time to pack it in.
Have a good Thanksgiving
So convoluted it is just plain lying.
Getting held up in traffic does not equalize the speed of bicycles and cars. People driving in traffic seem to be ( not scientifically proven) much more dangerous because they break more traffic laws in there desperation to "win" at traffic.
Bringing up random road damage does not prove that bicycles are less stable than cars. Do you have some statistics on this? Unless you are using a thin wheeled racing cycle, you can handle potholes, wet pavement, and all other etc.
Ok, to parse this correctly, You acknowledge that cars cause more crashes that cycles. But you say that in all crashes involving a bicycle the cyclist is more likely to be at fault. Bias, and Bullshit. Do you have stats on that one?
You accused me of giving cyclists permission to drive carelessly previously, and I am not. But that does not mean that cyclists are equally responsible for poor driving in Boston or that agree with your dishonest drivel.
American drivers kill 35,000
American drivers kill 35,000 per year but you don't care. You are only concerned with the harmless cyclists. That is incredibly messed up. Were your parents sociopathic too?
Afraid of complaints?
I'm sorry that BPD is has had their feelings hurt too much to do anything about the way people drive around here, boo hoo. How is that Kinopio's fault?
Those stats aren't really helping instill confidence for the police to keep us safe, no clue what you're trying to prove there.
No really, what do they do aside from roll past violation after violation after violation?
I'm not trying to prove anything.
Just giving you information.
What a load of horseshit
Waah! You were mean to us, so we're not going to do our job!
If I tried that at my job, I'd be shown the door.
Funny, though, I never really got the impression that police officers were really all that concerned with what civilians thought of the work they were doing. If cops actually wanted to write tickets, they would do it. And if they were doing their job correctly, they would have no reason to be "afraid of complaints for BS stuff".
Small part of their job.
And it is still being done, just not to your satisfaction. A lot of cops love to write tickets. But there is a lot of pressure on them not to, and it is time consuming in a department with a high call volume.
You've never had a BS complaint against you, so you have no idea. If you were a cop Scratchie, you would. Maybe that is why those cops get paid so much, because people like you and Kinipio (making it a low demand job) don't want to do it.
Thanks!
So you're saying
So you're saying that there's pressure (presumably from their superiors) not to enforce the law and not to improve public safety?
Sounds like the cops just don't want to deal with complaints. Well, suck it up, buttercup, that's part of the job. If doing the entire job is too much work for them to earn their six-figure salaries, they're quite welcome to take a job in my industry. We're hiring.
I'ts both
Standard labor theory (See the Hawthorne Studies), and some cops don't want to deal with complaints. And they probably don't want to work in your industry, but if your industry paid more, throw it out there, I'm sure many of them would love to join. (I don't know what that is).
His "industry" is probably...
the same one that sells the Zakim bridge online...
Traffic citations are down
Traffic citations are down because cops are too lazy to write them. Thanks for proving my point, dummy.
Lol
No, the laziest cops are the ones who do nothing but traffic enforcement because they want to go to court and get time off and sit in court all day and are afraid of answering actual police calls. Lol dummy.
cool approach
cops do nothing - cops are useless,....biased trolling much?
good lord
tip - when expressing an opinion or point, try not to marginalize an entire group of people at the outset.
Agreed on all counts. To make
Agreed on all counts. To make matters worse, I've encountered a bunch of police officers who did not know basic traffic laws. I was once signaling a turn on a bicycle (shocking - a cyclist signalling!!!) and the duty officer watching the street asked what that arm motion meant (it's in the friggin' driver's manual).
USELESS????
Next time you need help dial 411 rather than 911
I'm not surprised you are a
I'm not surprised you are a blue lives matter loser. You gave your kid the same name as yourself. Do you know what the point of names are? To differentiate people! You were too dumb to think come up with a name that wasn't your own!
Not only do speed limits have to be posted, but they have to be
enforced, as well. The fact that the posted speed limits are not enforced is why there's so much anarchy on our streets.
Let's just keep lowering it
Let's just keep lowering it by 5mph so we can all pat ourselves on the back!
How about instead we enforce traffic laws and get dangerous drivers off the road?
This undermines the value of laws
I agree with the above post that only enforcement will make anything change. I don't like to see laws on the books that are impractical, as they dilute the value of all the other sensible laws. There are locations were 20 mph makes sense, but for much of the city that is simply ridiculous.
The only ridiculous thing is
The only ridiculous thing is allowing drivers to speed through the city at 40MPH. There is no need for that. Peoples lives are more important than the convenience of those who insist on driving in a dense, walkable city with adequate public transit. It is sad that anyone would argue otherwise. Study after study shows that low speeds save lives.
I agree with Kinopio
the speed limit in Boston should be zero!
/s
Adequate public transit, you
Adequate public transit, you say?
Beat me too it
He's really playing it fast and loose with that word.
Not too fast I hope,
Not too fast I hope, otherwise he should be cited.
Don't worry, he won't be going too fast
Not if he's on public transportation, that's for sure.
Then the speed limit shouldn
Then the speed limit shouldn't be 40.
Wait, it already isn't.
Not quite
The city speed limit doesn't apply to state roads, such as the West Roxbury Parkway, where the speed limit is still 40, at least between Belgrade Avenue and Washington Street.
It's also still 40 on Washington Street, at least northbound from roughly Grove to West Roxbury Parkway.
Why are our city councilors so out of touch?
The issue, as aptly & repeatedly pointed out, is enforcement of existing laws. Invite the top BPD brass to your next meeting and ask them why very little speed and traffic enforcement takes place. Hey, better yet, have some stats to re-enforce your regulatory initiative - say for example - what facts does the council have to support the need to lower speed limit again? Present those facts to BPD and ask them to respond - next, give them 6 months to demonstrate increased enforcement and report back to the council their progress.
This ain't rocket science folks!
This isn't about writing tickets
This is about road design.
If the speed limit is 20, they can design the streets and intersections to limit travel speed.
If the speed limit is 30, they can't design for 20mph.
You keep saying this every
You keep saying this every time this topic comes up. But Boston has been installing speed humps for years, with a design speed way less than 25 or 30.
Voter apathy has allowed
Voter apathy has allowed relatively incompetent people to get themselves elected to the council where they do little besides tilt at windmills and pass nanny ordinances to ineffectively curtail things they personally dislike while the city at large is essentially run as a feudal state by the mayor and his department heads.
How many councilors walk, bike or take the MBTA to work? How many councilors held a middle class job making 50k a year in the city? How many councilors had or have children in non-exam BPS schools? How many councilors didn't move from one government internship or job to the next? I rest my case.
Thank you
Glad I'm not the only person willing to blame the electorate for our problems.
They're too chicken
They're too chicken to confront the BPD union. And the union will fight it or demand a lot more $$.
Why don't we have automated speed enforcement?
BPD doesn't have the manpower to increase enforcement of traffic because of the amount of crashes in the city. From Nov 14th 12am to Nov 15th 4pm, there were 31 motor vehicle crashes reported by the Boston Police. Remember, that does not include statie reports or exchanged papers.
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/08/29/study-lowering-the-speed-limit-wo...
https://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/speed-cameras-yield-long-term...
http://whatworksforhealth.wisc.edu/program.php?t1=109&t2=126&t3=45&id=187
Automated speed enforcement works. It lowers speeds when people know its there and the crashes that happen are less deadly.
You can't blame the BPD for lack of enforcement when bad drivers keep them running from crash to crash. By the way, in 13 of those crashes the driver left the scene (2 of which included injury to a person).
Speed bumps and closing streets to motor traffic would also reduce the burden of enforcement.
That would help, but it's not enough
Speed cameras do work, although you can't put them all over the place and once people know where they are, they just slow down for the camera and then speed back up once passed.
When they used to regularly have cops on traffic duty, I would be a lot less likely to roll through a stop sign or maybe go faster than I should down a neighborhood street. It's the surprise factor plus seeing others getting pulled over that keeps people (well me anyway) from getting blasé about obeying the letter of the law.
What If The Cameras Could Be All Over The Place
By using autonomous camera drones instead of fixed installation speed cameras?
Incidentally in Brookline, which granted has less felony crime overall to occupy their police, you can count on multiple cars spending most of the day hiding around corners from stop signs and such, looking for violators.
Very true
And as a result, when I venture over the border into Brookline, I'm more careful about my speed.
Don't speed. Just double park
Brookline's finest routinely ignore double parked cars or cars parked in bike lanes. Don't speed, and make sure you yield to walking people in front of Coolidge Corner Theater. Also, feed your meter and don't violate the 2 hour limits curbside.
But don't worry about live parking violations. You won't be ticketed.
wat?
https://imgur.com/gallery/2nbwwzv
read the research and articles I linked, Gary C.
Facts say you don't have to put them everywhere. There is a program that notifies drivers of a speed enforced districts and moves the cameras around randomly.
The truth is people are just selfish.
well, enforcing traffic is
well, enforcing traffic is one of the few parts of police work that actually brings money in. I'd support hiring more officers if their entire 8 hours was devoted to writing ticket after ticket, busting speeders (and double parking, and blocking the box, and illegally parking). however, excuse me for believing it's not just a case of manpower -- as I stood out in the street this morning, waiting for the bus, because there was a cop car parked squarely in the stop and blocking the driver from seeing me.
Can we stop linking enforcement to revenue
Because once you consider revenue, your enforcement is tainted. And speed limits should ALWAYS be based on an engineering study (google 85th percentile), and not what some random politicians arbitrarily decide is "best" fro everyone.
Want traffic to go slower, than rebuild the streets so they are forced to go slower. Then post a lower limit. But this proposal, just like the "make everything 25" idiocy they forced through the Legislature, will not work because, on most roads, it's TOO LOW to be practically enforced.
Good.
Maybe at 20 they will finally go 30...
speedbumps
We have been fighting with the city for years to lower / enforce the speeding on our street.
Nothing has been done.
If they would install a speed bump (which they will not do) the problem would be solved immediately.
speedbumps are useless
Accelerate hard right before hitting the bump. This lifts up the front end, and you'll glide right over it. Kind of like doing a wheelie on a motorbike.
This conversation
as historians will one day decide, is actually about the nascent topic of banning cars (as we know them) from Boston.
you're welcome!
I remember
a neighborhood meeting a few years back that included a city councilor and BPD liaison. When neighbors complained about people driving too fast and asking for more enforcement, their response was basically:
"You don't really want us to put a cruiser at these intersections, because most of the time they'll just end up ticketing one of you or a neighbor."
For the life of me I don't understand why they felt that was a bad thing. I don't give a rat's arse where someone lives when they're doing 40mph down a narrow residential street.
What if *you* get a ticket
What if *you* get a ticket for going 25 down a wide residential street?
Sane planning would help, too
I commute several times per week down the Jamaica Way and Riverway. It is an absolute nightmare. Just a few improvements off the top of my head:
And while I'm ranting, close Commonwealth Ave to vehicle traffic from Kenmore to Packard's Corner, especially Uber /Lyft vehicles. In fact, you could probably get away with keeping Comm Ave open as long as Uber / Lyft are blocked by some sort of force field. Pepsi trucks, too.
Great ideas all.
Great ideas all.
Never understood why striping is allowed to fall into such a poor state. Is the paint that frigging expensive?? Drivers are much better behaved when driving is predictable for them - so we need lane markings going through not just up to intersections and we need them put down fresh when they get worn of by a winter's worth of salt and sand.
Pain Upkeep
Agreed! Crosswalks are regularly allowed to disappear, making it even more dangerous to cross streets around here.
Use Commonsense - not that common
You can't avoid pedestrians jumping in the roads like they own it, like their parents never thought them how to cross a street or a bicyclist who's in and out of traffic with no care, this is not your quite neighborhood.... start paying some excise taxes, get a bike license plate, get a license to ride a bike and maybe even a training how to ride in traffic before putting them on the road, before criticizing the people that drive and pay stupid money for insurances etc. Start paying and then you'll can talk.....
bicyclist pay more than their share of taxes
don't fall that dishonest argument.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/...
huh?
paying taxes and getting licenses hasn't made drivers any better, so how would it work for bikes?
training how to ride in traffic
Would that test be like the 15 minute version that you have to only take once in your life to get behind the wheel of multi-ton motor vehicle? And also, if you're paying "stupid money" for insurance it means that you're a bad driver.
Field of Vision
Pedestrians only appear to "jump into the road" when someone is driving too quickly. At higher speeds your field of vision narrows, so a pedestrian who you would easily see at lower speeds is no longer visible. So when you're zipping down our streets, you only see the pedestrian at the last possible second even though they may have been crossing the street long before you noticed them.
Details: https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/design-controls/...
Starting to get ridiculous...
What's next 15, 10 citywide? There are places in the city where 20 MPH is warranted and places where it is much slower than necessary. People will not obey the limit where they know it is clearly ridiculous. This just leads to lack of respect for the law and encourages ignoring the speed limit in general. And as has been mentioned in other comments, no matter how low the limit is, it doesn't do any good if it is not enforced.
Exactly. The ONLY place I've
Exactly. The ONLY place I've seen speed enforcement in the city of Boston since the 25mph limit went into effect is on an outer stretch of Commonwealth Ave in Brighton, with few lights, light pedestrian traffic, and separate carriage lanes in each direction. In other words, one of the few stretches of road where a 25mph limit is probably too slow.
Enforce 25mph where it makes sense, on narrow residential streets and areas with heavy pedestrian/bike use.
Come to Roslindale
There's been some enforcement on the "slow" part of Washington Street, near Nick's.
Signs also say cars must
Signs also say cars must yield to pedestrian when making a turn and that rarely happens... honestly, for only 5mph, it's not worth changing all of the signs in Boston.
❤️
Not necessary to change “all the signs in Boston.” The 25mph and proposed 20mph speed limits are the City-wide default speeds. Meaning, unless otherwise marked, the speed is 25/20.
So 15 miles per hour quicker than..
The Councilors themselve move?
I would like to see
I would like to see enforcement of traffic laws for bikes too. They run lights and stop signs. Ride on sidewalks. Weave in and out of pedestrians. I fear bikes more than cars.
Are you afraid of inconvenience?
or are you just trolling along?
Good point anon
Please cite MGL about the sidewalks.
(Yes, I know some specific sidewalks are disallowed for bikes.)
Cyclists Are Safer Drivers
Cyclists are safer drivers than people who only drive. For that reason, British insurance companies offer them lower car insurance rates.
Details: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2018/10/09/cyclists-are-better-...
Personally, I always
Personally, I always considered the lack of traffic enforcement as one of the pluses of living in this city. 20mph is laughably low for most streets, and no body will follow this speed limit. Boston streets are incredibly safe. This is an attempt at solving a problem that doesn't exist.
Boston streets are incredibly safe.
I'm going to do you a favor and not link all the bicyclists and pedestrians who have died in Boston this year but the Google can help
I just Glimpsed at the Google link.
There are too goddamned casualties for comfort.
One cyclist death is too many
One cyclist death is too many, but many of these incidents are either a) freak accidents, b) involved some kind of large truck (as opposed to a passenger vehicle), or both.
They're about to tear up Inman Square in Cambridge because a freak accident happened there - a cyclist entered the roadway from a sidewalk and somebody opening a door couldn't see them approaching.
If anything, heavy truck use on city streets need to be more restricted. More streets closed off to all trucks (or trucks over a certain length/weight), or limited to off-peak hours.
You don't bike through Inman, do you?
Actually, I don't even have to ask if you make a statement like that.
It isn't about a "freak accident" but the daily deluge of cyclists vying for space with motorists who think the bike lanes are free ME parking spaces, and don't respect the light cycles in a complex intersection.
I have been biking through Inman for ... TWENTY SIX YEARS. It isn't about a "freak accident", hon. It is about years of needing to do something to fix a mess.
Sounds like you spend very little time in the area or just moved there to me.
Really?!?
So, you prefer anarchy on the streets and roads of Boston, where people can do whatever the hell they want, be they cars, bicyclists, motor cyclists, and/or pedestrians? I don't buy that.
What anarchy are you
What anarchy are you referring to? The streets look pretty safe and quiet to me. If there are any real problems, BPD deals with them swiftly.
4,500 Serious Crashes in 2017
Boston alone experienced 4,500 serious crashes--those requiring EMS response--in 2017. That's over 12 crashes per day. While the streets "look pretty safe and quiet" to you, that's not the reality.
Source: https://whdh.com/news/vigil-held-in-honor-of-last-years-4500-crash-victims/
20 mph? Seriously?
I agree with Pete Nice that every department has "Chapter 90" guys, Mass. General Law Chapter 90 and 89 covering most motor vehicle law but 20 mph is ridiculous.
A great Police Chief once told me that the focus should be on enforcing current law on problematic streets and intersections where most accidents happen. Not on a side street where a vocal citizen wants to watch traffic stops. Very few if any officers are going to write a "speeding" ticket for 21 mph.
BPD used to have one traffic car per station but once the ticket book (20) the job was done for the shift.
If they're serious, form a full time Traffic Bureau, 24/7. State Police have no staff, better odds of hitting the lottery. One on the desk, two on the road. Baker should hire 300-500 troopers immediately. Commissioner Gross should hire a traffic squad with men and women willing to write more than the 20 in the book (if necessary).
Also, take the insurance companies out of it unless they want to deny insurance for the worst of the worst. Cops don't want to be revenue collecters for Commerce, Geico etc.
Guess wha
There are many cities and states where 20mph is the default speed limit for a business district and/or school zone.
Which cities? Cite examples.
Which cities? Cite examples. Also, do you actually drive?
I can name a state that has 15 and 20 mph defaults
Can't vouch for anon, but I can direct you here: https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Engineering/Pages/Speed-Zones.aspx
I learned to drive in OR and was taught that 20mph was the default in business districts and school zones. 15 for alleyways and narrow roads.
I believe it is pretty standard in school zones in nearly every state.
Most of Boston is not a
Most of Boston is not a business district or school zone.
There is no national standard for school zones. Could be 15, 20, 25, or a case-by-case basis. https://www.ite.org/pub/?id=e26610b5-2354-d714-51f1-c266857615f0
Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland set 20mph speeds as the citywide default. Although you can hardly "lead" if you are always waiting for somewhere else to take the initiative.
This sign implies the speed
This sign implies the speed limit is 20 mph in the neighborhood, but not on the main road: https://goo.gl/maps/V8TNYoZPpNr
And you know what? Most people already go about 20 mph on similar neighborhood streets in Boston. A lower speed limit would only catch people on the major roads where 25 or 30 is fine.
I'd rather increase pedestrian safety by not building stuff like this: https://goo.gl/maps/KeHwbnDCVJv
Also, you don't need a car in Edinburgh. For example: https://www.lothianbuses.com/our-services/nightbus/
Makes sense
As I think you’re saying it’s easily done and would pay for itself. I walk every day on Centre Street in West Roxbury and Roslindale. There’s one traffic officer and when he’s there he bangs car after car for speeding, running lights, not stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks. But he can only be there so often. Even when he as a car pulled over people are speeding by. An officer could be there all day writing tickets until behavior changes. As long as there’s a 1% chance of f getting caught drivers blow through.
I wonder
How many of these keyboard warriors actually drive. Judging by their comments the answer seems obvious
I wonder
DId your mother bring you hotpockets or does she make you get your own?
See how this works. I can make shit up, too!
Something on the order of 80-90% of adults hold drivers licenses. That means that they drive or know how to drive.
Do the math. It isn't hard.
Holding a drivers license
Holding a drivers license doesn't mean you drive, especially in a major city where people forego their car entirely. People who forego their car usually develop an anti-car bias, or they forget what it's like to drive in this city everyday. They forget that the vast majority of people who drive here everyday are law-abiding citizens with clean driving records. They forget that the 5% of idiots you hear about driving too fast or crashing into things do not at all represent the behavior of most normal drivers
I drive, bike, and walk
Drivers are atrocious, and when I try NOT to drive like an asshole I get tailgaited, honked at, passed in non-passing zones or with someone cutting from behind me to run the red light on the wrong side.
Sorry, but cyclists are annoying to other cyclists even. Pedestrians are entitled and think a crosswalk makes them always right. BUT THEY DON'T KILL PEOPLE WITH HEAVY EQUIPMENT.
There is a huge difference between being stupid and annoying, and being stupid, annoying, and deadly.
You're getting honked at
You're getting honked at because you're not driving the speed. Not driving the speed limit as in going too slow. Yes, that's a thing and it happens constantly, especially on the highway (Priuses don't have a good reputation because of this)
Community
I think the issue is lack of concern for the residents of the community, not the speed limit.
People are driving like maniacs through these neighborhoods. Not sure speed limits will help. Daily I get almost killed by a contractor in a pick up truck or van driving like an Indy 500 race car driver....no turn signals...tailgating...reckless lane changes...
These are neighborhoods, not the Autobahn...
Maybe its just a crazy idea but how about "Drive like your kids live here" signs...that might have more traction with some people....
"Drive like your kids live here" signs are a good idea,
but how about adding to the signs, creating signs that say "Drive like your kids and/or your pets live here", as well?
I always picture an enraged
I always picture an enraged driver speeding down the road, shouting, "You kids better shut up back there!"
An anecdote with some data.
I was driving for Uber/Lyft last night in Brighton when a pedestrian I passed on a corner screamed at me to "slow down!". Now, I log all my trips with a Bluetooth dongle that plugs into my car's OBD port and it will record my speed every couple of feet at any given location on my trip. I had gone up this street and made this right from a one-way onto a one-way twice last night: My max recorded speed on this narrow residential street was 11.9MPH, and both times I had decelerated and made this turn going between 5.5 and 5.9 MPH! This guy, who was still well on the sidewalk when I passed him also declared that I "almost hit" him. Traffic enforcement is disgracefully non-existent in Boston, and there are plenty of reckless drivers on the streets. Based on his experience last night, this idiot is probably telling people today that something needs to be done about the speed limit because of drivers like me.
A close buzz by a car is no
A close buzz by a car is no fun, and people often shout "slow down" as a reflex when the actual issue was something more subtle.
Could you have yielded to him?