Greenville could reduce pedestrian deaths if it would follow its own example: Main Street
Why are there so many pedestrian deaths on South Carolina roads?
Because the primary "safety" measures normally used are the same failed tools we've used for a century: more warning lights, warning signs, warning education, and warning paint.
More: Deadly trend: Greenville County pedestrian, cyclist deaths exceed pace of last five years
The effective safety tools in a town center have been disregarded for the past century, as they are thought to be incompatible with the drivable lifestyle we are trapped in.
Those tools include redesigning our roads and streets in town centers so that they induce low-speed, attentive driving. They include removing travel lanes when the road has more than two. They encompass removal of double-left turn lanes, slip lanes, and other right-turn lanes.
They are tools that shrink street lanes to no more than 10 feet in width. They involve installing on-street parking pockets by inserting landscaped bulb-outs. The size of intersection's turning radii is reduced.
One-way roads are converted back to two-way streets. Large canopy street trees are planted along the street.
Human-scaled street signs, street lights, and traffic signals are erected – rather than the daunting, towering street devices that only belong on highways.
And building frontages are pulled forward to abut the public, street-side sidewalk.
More: Opinion: Greenville, other cities' dilemma: 'Car-happy' or 'people friendly' development?
The good news is that unlike most American cities these days – cities that have been ruined by several decades of motorized mania -- Greenville already has an outstanding model to mimic elsewhere: Main Street in the town center. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I count 16 roads (and a staggering number of slip lanes) in town center Greenville that are oversized, car-happy death traps completely inhospitable to bicycling, walking, and transit.
This is not rocket science.
That we have not figured this out for a century is disgraceful.
Dom Nozzi
Greenville
The writer holds degrees in environmental science and town and transportation planning. For 20 years, he served as a senior town and transportation planner for Gainesville Florida, and was briefly the growth rate control planner for Boulder, Colorado.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: It's past time for Greenville to act to make pedestrians, cyclists safer
