BikeSD Recommendations for Traffic Calming

I sent this email out earlier to all planning group chairs, Councilmembers and planning staff. This email (posted below with one edited typo) was put together with the help of some very dedicated volunteers – thank you! Much thanks to Michael Lewis for first bringing this to my attention.

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Good morning Planning Chairs and Councilmember representatives and staff,

I write not only as the executive director of BikeSD but also as someone who shares a similar value to you: wanting our neighborhoods to be livable places for both our residents and guests.

We, at BikeSD, regularly review the Community Planning Group agendas for issues relating to bicycling to better inform our audience and members to take action as needed. I have noticed an item that is coming up with increasing frequency and making us a bit alarmed: the requests for stop signs as a solution to stop speeding drivers and thus address the issue of neighborhood safety.

Stop signs are not an effective solution for dealing with speeding drivers (pdf link). Furthermore, stop signs contribute toward sign pollution, increase air and noise pollution and, waste fuel (pdf link). We strongly believe that engineering solutions are best implemented to address problems caused by human behavior. While some solutions may be part of a capital improvement program, interim solutions for traffic calming to address neighborhood needs could include paint, trees and landscaping as listed by the Project for Public Spaces.

Many traffic calming solutions could be disastrous for bicycle riders and we encourage you to consider solutions that would not unintentionally make bicycling more challenging than it currently can be, given how our city streets have been designed exclusively for one mode of travel, the automobile.

We recommend the following solutions to deal with traffic calming in residential neighborhoods:

Encourage communities to adopt a “20 is plenty” standard of maximum speed limit in residential neighborhoods. This can be both a solution that is self imposed, and imposed through road design as highlighted above by PPS.

Specific bicycle infrastructure based on best practices that have been tried and tested what works best for all users for nearly three decades:

Any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Samantha Ollinger