i dunno maybe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mad Scientist Wrote:
> >...
> > In the name of stopping untested theories,
> > reliance on true believer blind faith, and
> utterly
> > foolish wishful thinking, I'll be going to
> monitor
> > one of my goofier local idiot Councilmembers,
> > tonight. This is the kind that wants us all to
> > swallow some of his own brand of "new urbanist"
> > koolaide, and to "save the planet" (and cause
> > gridlock and massive spillover traffic into our
> > adjacent neighborhoods) by punishing us who
> live
> > here (and who make well over 85% of those local
> > trips), with "two lane" "road diets" on our few
> > arterials (with daily volumes between 25,000
> and
> > 40,000 AADT), for using our "evil" automobiles
> too
> > much to access our needs in life. The
> > consequences of our last local election gave us
> > this dumba$$.
> >
> > Given the madness which seems to be afflicting
> all
> > of the fringes these days, maybe we need a
> > National Academy of Science study to determine
> if
> > we took the lead out of gasoline too late?
>
> Yeah, I'm reconsidering whether to bother signing
> up as a "friend" of any of the new committees, or
> as a paper reviewer.
>
> As for the 'evil automobile' saw a news item about
> an overhead crossing UP tracks, part of a yard,
> and a rail-parallel arterial. It's 4 lanes, speed
> limit 40 with most drivers exceeding that, with
> minimal shoulder masquerading as bike lanes, and
> no sidewalks. There's a high school on one side
> and the closest bus line for many is on the other
> (a student was quoted saying it took 1 1/2 hr to
> ride multiple buses from the school to home across
> the tracks, but 1/2 hour to walk on the roadside
> over the tracks to a direct bus). A student was
> recently killed there by a hit & run driver.
> Clearly, it needs sidewalks, but current project
> review criteria pretty much prevent that. Wonder
> if there's a road diet project that could be
> delayed a few years to yield enough money to add
> sidewalks to that structure? Or is doing either of
> those expressing too much "empathy" to be
> acceptable today?

There you go with that doing real basic simple stuff that we have real data that shows it works. What an innovative concept? We can't get money for traffic signals to protect pedestrians, which are the most effective single thing we can do. But we can get money for 'hip and cool" "traffic circles" which the data we have from to two we put in back in the 90's in my City shows increase traffic accidents nearly doubled, after installation, and has no documented effect at all on reducing speeds approaching or leaving intersections with traffic circles.

A lot of this "new urbanist" theory needs some serious before and after studies, to see if spending this money is worth it. In some cases, the data already looks bad, but for some things there are probably some real benefits. It's nice to know which ones my "save the planet" "do gooder" Councilman should be spending our taxpayer money on, that might actually have a chance of working to make things better and not actually worse. That, as opposed to listening to other hip and cool people who believe twaddle they don't really know, telling him how hip and cool he will look being a hip and cool "new urbanist", while pulling much of the supposed and purported justification or benefits for some of this true believer new urbanist twaddle straight out of their rear ends.

Both fringes these days really seem to hate data, especially when it tells them something they don't like to hear. So, obviously we cancel all research and stop collecting data, and the things we don't like to acknowledge or deal with, will just magically disappear, right?

Independent transportation safety, engineering, business and economic research at universities and colleges are in a sad state as well, at places like the University of Utah, in areas like driver safety studies and automated vehicle system safety studies, as many of those grants are also getting cut.

It's a sad commentary on our state.