{"id":644,"date":"2008-11-22T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-23T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/slower-is-safer.html"},"modified":"2008-11-22T19:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-23T00:34:00","slug":"slower-is-safer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/slower-is-safer.html","title":{"rendered":"Slower is Safer"},"content":{"rendered":"The public plan for paving Quarterman Road includes a 45 MPH speed limit. That’s too fast for a rural local road.\n

\n\"Speed<\/a>\nEven the already-paved part of Quarterman Road currently has a posted\nspeed limit of 35 MPH (shown at right). That’s the part the subdivision uses to go to work.\nI have never heard anyone complain that speed limit is too low. Why, then,\nwould anyone need a faster speed limit on the rest of Quarterman Road,\nwhich has less traffic?\n

\nAs mentioned in the previous post<\/a>,\nI understand that county staff and commissioners are concerned\nabout their certifications, liability, and even, as we heard at\nthe public commission meeting,<\/a>\nabout getting telephone calls in the night. Here is\nevidence that turning Quarterman Road into a wider,\nfaster, collector road would not reduce any of those risks to\ncounty staff or commissioners, rather, by decreasing the safety\nof the road and its residents, such changes would increase risks\nto staff and commissioners.\n

\nFirst note that AASHTO itself carefully distinguishes residential\nneighborhoods from highways:\n\n\n

\nWhen it comes to residential streets, narrower streets are\nbetter. Narrow streets slow traffic by increasing drivers\u2019 perception\nof impediments to motion. If a driver perceives more obstructions,\nhe\/she is more likely to drive at slowers peeds to avoid potential\nconflicts. The American Association of State Highway Transportation\nOfficials (AASHTO) asserts in, A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways\nand Streets: 2001, that residential streets are typically associated\nwith short trips and are commonly used as a means of accessing property,\nso there is no need for high-speed travel.\n

\n…\n

\nNot only do excessively wide residential streets contribute to the\nnumber of accidents, they also add to the severity of accidents. Wide\nresidential streets encourage speeding and in doing so, increase the\npotential severity of accidents. According to an article by John Anderson\nentitled, \u201cFraming the Debate on Stre ets and Public Safety\u201d (New\nUrban News, July\/August 2000): \u201c\u2026wide streets encourage speeding\nand increase the risk of traffic accident injuries and fatalities.\u201d\n

\n—The Relationship between Street Width and Safety Essay<\/a>\n<\/blockquote>\nThere is more in that essay; I recommend it to anyone interested in this\nsubject, especially anyone whose responsibility includes road safety.\n

\n\"Quarterman<\/a>\nAlso note that no county staff or commissioners live on Quarterman Road.\nI do, and I plan to live here until I die, as do most of the people who\nopposed paving the road in the first place. The map on the right\nshows in red the 2\/3 of the road frontage owned\nby opponents of paving, which my brother David sent to the commission\nbefore their public meeting. Although the commission decided to pave the road against the\nwishes of a majority of the households on the road, many of us still\nhave concerns about related issues, such as road width, curves, and\nspeed limit.\n

\nOn the west side, there is already a sharp curve with a 15 MPH advisory\nspeed limit, shown on the right.\nIt would make sense to put the same advisory in front of the canopy parts of the road.\nAnd there is another sharp 90 degree bend at the southwest corner of the road.\nWhat would be the point of setting the speed limit up to 45MPH only to\nset it back down repeatedly?\n\"15<\/a>\n

\nOn the east side, Quarterman Road has a mile-long straight stretch,\nwhich by paving and widening the county now proposes to turn into\na mile-long speedway, right past my front gate. I do not want to\nhave to be concerned about my wife’s safety as she turns into\n70 MPH traffic when we are 90 years old. I do not want my sister-in-law\nto risk being run over by speeders whenever she bicycles on the road.\nI do not want the neighboring school children to be hit, nor the teenagers\nvisiting each other. You heard Tuesday that Abigail and Lauro Barzallo\nplan to have children; I do not want their future babies to be run over\nin their stroller. I don’t want David Buckholts’ annoying dog to become\nroad kill. I do not want the retirees on the road, some of them veterans,\nto risk life and limb whenever they go to the grocery store. I don’t\neven want to be run over on my tractor.\n

\nBrooks County just dropped the speed limit on Troupeville Road from\n55 MPH to 45 MPH. I’m told they did this because more residents\nhad moved in on the road, and people were pulling out into traffic.\nSo it is possible to lower a speed limit below design speed.\nI’m told this was noted in the Quitman Free Press of 12 November.\nI do not have a copy, but I’m sure county staff can obtain one,\nor just ask neighboring Brooks County directly.\n

\nMany of the smaller lots visible on the road frontage map have become\ninhabited since the right of way was obtained by the county. For example,\nthe Board of Assessors’ online real estate search shows the\nhouse on the southeast corner as being built in 1996, well after 1991.\nThe five five-acre lots on the west side appear to have all been\noriginally split out in 1996.\n

\nThus the residential population of Quarterman Road has increased\nsince the right of way was obtained; the right of way that determined\nthe old road design (the design dating back to at least 2001 that the county still plans to use to pave Quarterman Road). Not just the total population: the number of\nschool age children has increased even more. Thus Quarterman Road\nis in a similar situation to Troupeville Road, and its speed limit\nneeds to be set lower than the design speed of the old road design.\n

\nRegarding that mile long straight stretch, it is my understanding that\nfor the sheriff to use radar to enforce any speed limit, the limit\nmust first be certified by GDOT and the state patrol. And that the\nfirst thing the state will do will be to check current actual\ntraffic speeds on the road. If Quarterman Road is paved according\nto the old design, it is very likely people will be going very fast\non that mile-long straight stretch, and the state will thus be\nreluctant to certify a speed limit lower than the design speed.\n

\nThe best solution would be to redesign that straight stretch\nto be narrower, thus making the design speed slower.\n

\nIf the county will not do that, an even simpler solution would be to\ninstall speed bumps from the outset on that straight stretch.\nI understand there is some reluctance on the part of the county to\nuse speed bumps, because people sometimes use them as ramps and\ntake to the air, landing who knows where. I suggest installing\nmany speed bumps, close enough together that nobody can get up\nenough speed to do that.\n

\nAnd please set the speed limit low, for example just keep it at\nthe current 35 MPH (or even lower).\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public plan for paving Quarterman Road includes a 45 MPH speed limit. That’s too fast for a rural local road. Even the already-paved part of Quarterman Road currently has a posted speed limit of 35 MPH (shown at right). That’s the part the subdivision uses to go to work. I have never heard anyone […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[913,1736,12,72],"tags":[2153,1108,3,2,917,2789,2152],"class_list":["post-644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canopy-road","category-lowndes-county-commission-georgia","category-politics","category-safety","tag-aashto","tag-canopy-road-2","tag-georgia","tag-lowndes-county","tag-quarterman-road","tag-safety","tag-speed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-ao","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}