Tag Archives: traffic

by | July 12, 2014 · 6:00 am

Citizens Of Chicago Seeking More Speeding Tickets

It’s quite rare when citizens are begging police officers to hand out more speeding tickets. But that’s exactly what happened this week at a citizen comment meeting in Chicago about how to fix up a seven-mile stretch of Lake Shore Drive, according to the Sun-Times.

Ctizens urged police to start dealing with an out of control speeding situation, the Sun-Times reports. Staggering numbers of drivers along the drive are speeding as they enter and exit the city. According to the Sun-Times, “During the week, 95 percent of drivers headed out of the city and 78 percent of the those traveling into the city are speeding — some by as much as 30 mph over the 40 mph speed limit.”

That has encouraged even residents of the area to ask for more enforcement of speed along Lake Shore Drive.

“Get those cops out there and give tons of tickets,’’ said resident Steve Kungis to the Sun-Times. “It’s a revenue pool right there, just waiting to happen.’’ Continue reading →

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by | June 27, 2014 · 8:45 am

Think Bikes Create Traffic Hazards? Think Again

Boulder Bike Story from Bikes Belong on Vimeo.

As biking continues to grow in popularity, a new report is adding to the list of reasons why cities should step up their efforts to accommodate cyclists. Researchers at the University of Colorado Denver found that as more bikes hit the streets the number of collisions goes down.

The study focused on Boulder, Colo., because of its high biking population and because the city has been performing bike counts for more than a decade. Wesley Marshall, an assistant professor of civil engineer at CU Denver, told Curbing Cars that once intersections began seeing upwards of 200 bicyclists a day, the number of collisions began to drop.

“It’s interesting because you see the same affect with other modes of transportation too,” said Marshall, a co-author of the study. “If you have more cars going through, it is sort of safer per car.”

It may seem counter intuitive that as an intersection has more moving parts, the number of incidents would go down. While the CU Denver study did not look into the reasons why incidents were reduced, Marshall provided some possible explanations.

“If you’re in a city that has bikers everywhere, as a driver you expect to see them,” he said. Continue reading →

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by | December 15, 2013 · 9:00 am

From Paris, Getting Around With — And Without — A Car

Paris traffic.

Paris traffic.

Bertrand Rakoto is a marketing intelligence manager for R.L. Polk. For the past decade, he’s been focused on the electric car industry and electric car services. In the first of a series of guest posts for Curbing Cars, he writes about the way people get around Paris.

By Bertrand Rakoto

Paris has a very extensive public transportation system. This might look presumptuous to begin with, but honestly, it’s quite realistic. Prior to any explanation, I must describe how the French capital city is trying to change back from cars to mass public transportation. Paris is not huge when compared to other Megacities in the world, but it’s European-big.

It’s distributed into three concentric areas. The smallest one is the inner city of Paris. A little over 2.2 million people live in the 20 administrative subdivisions (or “arrondissements”), which are shaped like a snail. When it comes to France, clichés are never very far off. The city is an expensive place to live in and numerous Parisian workers commute to downtown Paris.

However, living in the inner city is a great choice for urban lovers, with lots of cultural events, bars and clubs. And most of all, you don’t need a car when living downtown.

The second concentric area is called “Petite Couronne”. It represents 4.4 million inhabitants, divided in three departments (Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne). In this area, you can live without a car, but it’s more convenient to have one for weekend activities outside Paris and grocery shopping. You can avoid the daily drive for cost efficient public transportation. But in some case, it can become necessary to commute to work despite the traffic jams.

The last, largest, and third concentric area is the “Grande Couronne”. Over 5 million people live in the four remaining departments of the Ile-de-France region (being Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Essonne, and Val-d’Oise). In this area, a car is mandatory, or else freedom of movement is quite reduced.

 Now that you have the big picture, let’s have a look at the public transportation network. Continue reading →

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by | August 22, 2013 · 3:10 pm

We Mistakenly Think The Roads Are Safer. Why?

By Micheline Maynard

The American Automobile Association has a new survey that makes us scratch our heads. It says Americans perceive less of a threat from drunk driving, road rage and texting while driving, even though traffic fatalities have gone up.

AAA’s survey measures attitudes over the past four years. Some of the findings:

  • People  who consider drowsy driving a very
    serious threat declined from 71 percent in 2009 to 46 percent in 2012.
  • Those who believe that texting or emailing
    while driving is a very serious threat declined from 87 percent in 2009
    to 81 percent in 2012.
  • People admitting to texting while driving jumped to 26 percent, from 21 percent.

You can read my story about the survey at Forbes.com. Do you feel safer on the roads these days?

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