StreetFilms' Animation Explains Diverters as Traffic-Calming Measure
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA 
on 05.13.08
From the benefits of raised crosswalks to traffic calming chicanes, StreetFilms have produced some great animations that help to explain the tools at our disposal to make streets more pedestrian and bike friendly. The video above illustrates how traffic diverters can help direct motorized traffic in the appropriate direction, while creating safer routes for the rest of us. Of course, as with any of the other solutions StreetFilms offers up, diverters won’t work in every situation – but by providing an overview of the vast diversity of strategies we can deploy, Clarence and co are certainly helping us understand that walkable, bikeable, liveable communities need not remain a pipe dream. And to see how such communities might look, check out some more StreetFilms action below the fold.
StreetFilms Elsewhere on TreeHugger
Raised Cross-walks
Traffic-calming Chicanes
Bike Advocate Keeps Memory of Her Husband Alive
Clarence the Cycling Sasquatch
Bogota Shows How to Reinvent Cities
Bogota Revisited
StreetFilms Looks at Bus Rapid Transit in LA
Melbourne: A Pedestrian’s Paradise
Istanbul Learns from Bogota
Clarence: The Purple Traffic-Calming Wizard
Physically Separated Bike Lanes
NYC’s First Documented Bike Move?
StreetFilms Grades New Yorkers’ Bike Locking Abilities
Lady Liberty Dumps the Car and Marries Mass Transit
::StreetFilms::via tipster Clarence::
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Um, they are preventing traffic from going straight. Glad I don't live 1 street up where all the cars are now reconnecting to the closed route.
If they closed all the roads entirely, it would become even more pedestrian friendly.
"Um, they are preventing traffic from going straight. Glad I don't live 1 street up where all the cars are now reconnecting to the closed route."
That's the first thing I thought, burn more fuel, and make my drive longer and more complicated, that'll help make things calmer.
And the extra greenhouse gasses will make things warmer, you can save on heating costs!
Traffic calming is as much BS as saying people who flash their lights are "aggressive drivers."
Totally lame. Somehow they managed to cut traffic in that intersection to 25 percent- unrealistic. Plus no traffic can get to park across the one intersection. Cars will be circling around blocks multiple times to try to park or get close to businesses on the blocked off roads.
If people want nicer intersections, they must be designed from the start, retrofitting is a nightmare.
Traffic calming or maddening? I think maddening.
How about this for a change, instead of trying to divert or slow traffic down, why don't they work on making it flow more steadily? Network the lights (not just timing) so they can see when cars are coming, and have the lights already green.
Make it so if the cars follow the speed limit, they will not have to stop to continue down a road. That will really calm drivers, to know their mileage is up, they don't have to speed up to get through the next light before it turns red.
Why do people think that slowing traffic down is what makes the environment better. Here's a newsflash: PEOPLE spend money in stores, go to work, build cities and make an economy work. I can't remember the last time I saw a car go out for dinner, movie and end the evening in a bookstore.
When priority is given to pedestrians, then businesses thrive. Don't believe it? When was the last time you saw a car driving down the center of the aisle in a mall, stopping into a department store to do some shopping.
These retrofits CAN be a disaster if they are not integrated with additional appropriate forms of additional transit and traffic management. But stop being so damn whiny about anything that gets between a driver and travelling at 60 mph from destination to destination with door-to-door service. Hire a driver or buy a helicopter or personal jet-pack if you're that damn lazy and impatient.
Of course there are such as things as roundabouts, where people can join and leave from all directions at once. Not as great for bikes (although there are ways round this is people actually bother) and not quite as space efficient (but you can put useful things on top of them), but then cars aren't generally.
This traffic calming device is designed to protect walkers and bikers in a crowded metropolitan area. This type of device will detour drivers from going in to the area faster than needed and protect walkers and bikers from all you quickies.