Equiteness and SBC discuss the contraception of traffic crash deaths, part 2: How do we convince the residents and Alders to support safer street designs?

Read Part 1: “Can the automated enforcement of 25 km / h take the speed limit as well?” Here.

As I discussed yesterday, José Manuel Almanza, director of Advocacy & Movement Building for the non -profit non -profit -equitiMity of local mobility justice, led me to have a long conversation about efforts to reduce deaths in Chicago. Read the intro for the previous post to the background to what has inspired this discussion.

Yesterday's contribution shared the first part of our conversation, discussed Speed ​​cameras and recent efforts to pass a standard emphasis. I weakened ideas to make the traffic enforcement and the lower speed limitation more fair. This included income-based traffic fines and the restoration of the ticket threshold from 6 miles per hour to 11 miles per hour and the speed limit. Read the post on Wednesday for further details.

Almanza generally supported my suggestions. But he said: “If we only make it more affordable for people to pay these fines, if it is only, it is simply not enough … The true equity comes when they are punished with a fine because they go through the speed limit or the stop sign runs.

However, it is easier than done to maintain the approval of residents and Erleberne for street redesigns who hold a dangerous driving and priority of waling, cycling and transit amount. This applies in particular in part of the city with access to below -average transit, large distances between the goals and other factors that lead to people driving vehicles more frequently. This includes color communities on Chicagos south and west sides that have the highest accident ceiling rates.

In this part of the conversation, we also talked about strategies to convince the locals that projects such as road diets, pedestrian improvements, lanes will only be an advantage for bus and protected bike paths for you and your neighbors.

John Greenfield: Studies have shown that road diets help reduce speeding. Things such as sidewalk extensions, increased crosswalks and speed humps on side streets. The city of Chicago does not really make them on the main streets. And other changes in the infrastructure, as you used to say, they can help reduce serious and fatal accidents.

I think a really good way forward is somehow … I'm sure [a group working to improve sustainable transportation in the Midway Airport area]Present correct?

José Manuel Almanza: We have.

JG: You have made a lot of advocacy together with the Active Transportation Alliance to try to make Pulaski Road safer. This is a street where there were a few deaths in pedestrians and some deaths from drivers last year. It seems that this is a good example of trying to get a buy-in from the community to improve infrastructure improvement in a deadly major street.

You can tell me more about what is going on with that on the south and west sides to try to get more local support for infrastructure changes that reduce serious and failed accidents. Were you involved?

JMA: We have. And I use it quite often and noticed the new improvements that the city recently added, where they added these yellow cones to prevent people from driving on the median, for example, and a few bumps added.

Friends and family members know that this is my work and addressed them. And we talk about how well these things see. Some time later, however, we see some of these posts that are put down because a driver passes over, or we see the burnout markings of cars that carry out donuts at a broad intersection, for example. So we still see signs that it is not enough.

One of the things we are currently working on is to carry out a public commitment project and to speak to Community members around the bus rapid transit, and the Pulaski Road is one of the corridors for which the city of Chicago is considered.

And when we talk to people in Pulaski here in the west side and in some of the south side and talk to them about this idea what this BRT pilot program would look like. And as soon as I mentioned it is like the 'l', but for a bus on the street, your eyes become wide because you know that the advantages of the 'L'. Now you can see it here on the street, and when we talk about Pulaski on the southwest side, especially where it is about a four-lane and the median, it may be like five and a half, six lanes, they imagine this BRT track in the middle.

And then there is more pedestrian infrastructure, more cycling infrastructure. It makes it denser so that the drivers do not feel: “Oh, this is a large open space, and I can only accelerate this corridor. They see it. To tie everything together, I bring it back into safety. Your bike.

All of this, to say that we are more secure with Community members, especially in the vicinity of Pulaski, the street, the lens to bring the resource of the bus rapid transit to our community.

JG: Okay, interesting. Well, you know that the problem with many physical changes to improve security is that if you suggest things that could make it a little more difficult to drive quickly or convert some of the alleys for drivers, there may be a lot of pushback. You know people think that this is not fair for the driver.

This has played into the problem of traffic safety. A really good example that was on the Stoney Island Avenue. As you know, this is an eight -track street on the south side, and the Ministry of Transport of Chicago suggested converting two of the car tracks into protected bike paths. The local Alders were really against it. They basically picked up the plan because they said that he would create traffic jams during the rush hour.

And not long afterwards, two African -American men were killed by accelerating the drivers in this part of the West. These were tragedies that could have been prevented by a better street design.

The real take away is that many of the Alders are against things that they believe that they would make life less comfortable for drivers, even in predominantly African-American quarters that we see so many accident deaths. Many of the city council members in these parts of the city voted against the 25 miles per speed limit.

So this is the 10,000 dollar question if we want to make things like road diets, BRT and a safer speed limit: How do we get more basic support for this stuff, which becomes aldermanic support for these things. What role do shares play?

SMA: That is a great question. And this intersection at 79. And Stony Island and South Chicago is a crossing that we tried together with CDOT to reinterpret this intersection, but in a similar way not only a pushback, but there is never enough means to go around.

A big picture, one of the things is that we will not all make you happy, especially when it comes to civic services, public services, politics in general, the government in general. I think that puts a burden on us to organize the lawyers, the organizers, our communities and to do it in such a way that city council members or only legislators in general have to listen because we are the majority. We are the ones who need the service and pay our taxes to get the service. So we deserve it and should ask better. This is with us to organize our communities to achieve this.

Apart from how I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, Alders are against something, but are also against the alternatives of the other solutions that help to address this problem. And that comes back to us, we have to better point out the members of the community and city council members to go this way. The status quo has been suitable for the drivers for a long time, but times change and we have to be the ones who have the front of this change.

Read Part 1: “Can the automated enforcement of 25 km / h take the speed limit as well?” Here.

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