By COLE PAFFETT, MD
Los Alamos
In both Robert Bourque’s (link) and Sherril Couts’s (link) letters, they claim that the North Mesa roundabout is dangerous as currently designed and landscaped. They both appear to have a flawed understanding of safe driving practices and safe street design.
The roundabout design and landscaping is there to force drivers to slow down and pay attention while maintaining traffic flow. These accounts of accidents and near-misses at the roundabout suggest that many drivers need a refresher in defensive driving.
Couts’s comments about “the idiocy of the popouts on Central Avenue” require an additional response. For clarification, “popouts” are called curb extensions by city traffic engineers. From a public health perspective, traffic calming measures like curb extensions reduce pedestrian vehicle collisions by the following mechanisms:
- reducing vehicle speed;
- making pedestrians more visible to drivers; and
- reducing the crossing distance for pedestrians.
There are multiple studies (links below) that demonstrate pedestrian collision rates decreased with the implementation of curb extensions and other traffic calming measures. The “pinchpoint” curb extensions on Central force drivers to slow down along the stretch of Central where they are present. Given that Central between the roundabout and Oppenheimer is a high traffic area for pedestrians, it makes sense to have curb extensions at every crosswalk. Additionally, the curb extensions don’t make parking difficult; in fact they provide a clear on-street parking area along with preventing illegal parking (e.g. on a crosswalk, in front of a fire hydrant, or right next to an intersection).
The curb extensions do require snowplows to be a little more careful when plowing Central; however, they have the same impact on snowplowing that a car parked on the side of Central does. The snowplow drivers have adjusted to their presence since they were first installed over 20 years ago.
As for inhibiting the smooth flow of traffic, that’s the point of the curb extensions. It’s dangerous to have a street going through the middle of the central business district be free-flowing for vehicles without any measures for pedestrian safety, especially when there is a high amount of foot traffic. If one desires to travel on a free-flowing road, they can take Trinity.
What is actual idiocy is the assertion by some community members that the Central Avenue curb extensions are unsafe because they force vehicle traffic to slow down and move more inefficiently. It goes against all current research into safe road design and the County Council would be foolish to have them removed.
Regards.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457518308856
https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/pedestrian_safety_impacts_of_curb_extensions_randal.pdf
