Downtown intersections are now a microcosm of life in the city, with everybody getting into the act - not just drivers, bikers, buses and pedestrians, but "Squeegee Kids", poor "homeless" solicitors and monitors from the presiding "ruling class". The basic rules are observed, ignored, debated, stretched to the limit or violated by all, but remain inevitable nonetheless. It all seems complex but it's really simple.
The basic pulse of the city is regulated by traffic signal timing. Green and red lights cue every actor in the street drama to move in and out of the action. Downtown street life in Baltimore is divided into discrete 110 second cycles in peak periods which each contain a green, yellow and red light for each direction.
The 110 second cycles provide some green time for traffic in each direction to move, but also quite a bit of time to stop. There's red light time when you're supposed to stop, plus additional time when you must stop because traffic is blocked.
Everybody uses this extra time for whatever they can. Through traffic must sit, or perhaps proceed into the intersection and block it. Bikes and scooter riders can swing onto the sidewalks and become pedestrians. Pedestrians can jaywalk. Some drivers may check their cell phones. And "Squeegee Kids" and panhandlers can go to work.
The city touted the benefits of its upcoming downtown traffic signal timing improvements which were supposed to go into effect before enforcement of the new "block the box" traffic violation rules, but has now apparently given up on that. So this week, $125 fines for motorists who find themselves stuck inside an intersection began, without the aid of new better signal timing. City officials merely whimpered when their timing tweaks failed this summer, so then they said they'd put it all back the way it was. That's no progress.
The problem is that in a tight urban street grid, traffic signal tweaks are a zero-sum game at best, much like most other programs that attempt to slice up the urban pie. Giving more green time to one street means less green time for the other street, and all streets carry users of all modes. It can't be done on an individual intersection basis either, since traffic flow must be measured by the capacity of the system as a whole.
But what really happened is that the city officials remained quiet until city drivers started to speak up in protest. That hadn't happened in a while. Bike riders, transit riders and pedestrians have all raised their voices - but not the "cagers", as the bike lobby calls people who sit in cars surrounded by a ton of protective "shiny metal boxes" (as The Police sang - not the Baltimore Police, but Sting and his band on the "Synchronicity" album).
At worst, many "cagers" reacted against the bike riders. That was not a smart move. Everyone is in this together. And on the Pratt/Lombard one-way couplet where traffic demand is heaviest and tempers are shortest, bikes are only allowed to use the bus lanes and are not given lanes of their own. Big buses win on the intimidation factor, while many bikers have become adept at weaving in and out of the bus and car lanes and sidewalks, as have riders of the new motor scooters, while the "cagers" can only seethe with envy.
There was also a plan to eliminate the connector from Light to Calvert Streets adjacent to Harborplace and replace it with a wider Light Street south of Pratt. This did lead to the demolition of the McKeldin Fountain, but no traffic changes. To the contrary, the mandatory left turn lane on Pratt from Light to Calvert was recently eliminated and converted to a thru lane, coupled with the widening of Pratt downstream from Calvert by eliminating the flag court and taxi stand. This has in fact resulted in some improvement in traffic flow at some expense to pedestrians, but not enough to quiet the irate motorists.
The best way to think about long range planning is to realize that what we have now is the result of all the city's previous long range plans. One previous generation's school of thought was that pedestrians should be shifted from streets to their own "skywalks". So much for that. More than ever, signalized intersections remain the tableau of urban life.
Yes, people will still get stuck inside the intersections when signals say they shouldn't be there. A pedestrian won't make it all the way across the street. A solicitor will try to do his business in less time than he does now. For all that, like other conflicts in life, we should not rely on whether a traffic light says green or red. We don't really always rely on traffic signals right now anyway. People violate the rules simply because they can.
We should rely instead on basic social rules. Let a slow pedestrian cross the street. Let a panhandler get out of the way. What else are you going to do? Run him over? Let social rules evolve based on peer pressure. Squeegee Kids know not to clean windshields when traffic is actually moving. People will get the message.
 |
| Lombard Street looking west from South Street through downtown. "Do Not Black Intersection" sign is overhead. All signals say green, but traffic is blocked enough so that pedestrians are jaywalking. |
The life cycle is the traffic signal cycle
The basic pulse of the city is regulated by traffic signal timing. Green and red lights cue every actor in the street drama to move in and out of the action. Downtown street life in Baltimore is divided into discrete 110 second cycles in peak periods which each contain a green, yellow and red light for each direction.
The 110 second cycles provide some green time for traffic in each direction to move, but also quite a bit of time to stop. There's red light time when you're supposed to stop, plus additional time when you must stop because traffic is blocked.
Everybody uses this extra time for whatever they can. Through traffic must sit, or perhaps proceed into the intersection and block it. Bikes and scooter riders can swing onto the sidewalks and become pedestrians. Pedestrians can jaywalk. Some drivers may check their cell phones. And "Squeegee Kids" and panhandlers can go to work.
The city touted the benefits of its upcoming downtown traffic signal timing improvements which were supposed to go into effect before enforcement of the new "block the box" traffic violation rules, but has now apparently given up on that. So this week, $125 fines for motorists who find themselves stuck inside an intersection began, without the aid of new better signal timing. City officials merely whimpered when their timing tweaks failed this summer, so then they said they'd put it all back the way it was. That's no progress.
The problem is that in a tight urban street grid, traffic signal tweaks are a zero-sum game at best, much like most other programs that attempt to slice up the urban pie. Giving more green time to one street means less green time for the other street, and all streets carry users of all modes. It can't be done on an individual intersection basis either, since traffic flow must be measured by the capacity of the system as a whole.
But what really happened is that the city officials remained quiet until city drivers started to speak up in protest. That hadn't happened in a while. Bike riders, transit riders and pedestrians have all raised their voices - but not the "cagers", as the bike lobby calls people who sit in cars surrounded by a ton of protective "shiny metal boxes" (as The Police sang - not the Baltimore Police, but Sting and his band on the "Synchronicity" album).
At worst, many "cagers" reacted against the bike riders. That was not a smart move. Everyone is in this together. And on the Pratt/Lombard one-way couplet where traffic demand is heaviest and tempers are shortest, bikes are only allowed to use the bus lanes and are not given lanes of their own. Big buses win on the intimidation factor, while many bikers have become adept at weaving in and out of the bus and car lanes and sidewalks, as have riders of the new motor scooters, while the "cagers" can only seethe with envy.
"Squeegee Kids" graduate from a short to a mid-term issue
The big benefactor of recent events will be the "Squeegee Kids" who wash windshields while drivers are stopped waiting at intersections. According to the law, these kids are illegal solicitors who violate traffic laws, as are the increasingly present panhandlers. But also starting this week, the Downtown Partnership plans to place security guards at intersections to "monitor" the actions of these solicitors at a cost of approximately $3000 per week (according to the Oct 12 Sun).
This should be of great benefit to those who conduct their solicitations in an orderly and friendly way, legitimizing their activity which until now has taken place outside of the law. The threat of arbitrary, capricious and apparently random law enforcement, including vigilante "road rage" by offended drivers, should now be curtailed. One may argue that the $150,000 per year might be better spent on more constructive employment or other activities, but paying this money to the security guards is essentially just that.
Since the city also spends a lot of money on traffic enforcement personnel, one may also contend that all these costs are getting too high. One could also add the fact that downtown businesses pay extra taxes above the city's already sky high property taxes to support this as well. Running Baltimore is expensive.
Now we can also add more traffic enforcement to these costs. The new "block the box" campaign will keep motorists waiting at the intersections even longer, giving the panhandlers and "Squeegee Kids" even more time for their solicitations. For motorists, staying out of the intersections isn't easy. It is difficult to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you in bumper-to-bumper traffic, especially when it's a bus, truck or SUV. You may also see a traffic gap fill up quickly by someone switching lanes or turning right on red, which although mostly illegal downtown, is less enforceable than blocking the box.
Each additional expense and cost added to the operating budgets further solidifies the status quo and makes all this a middle term rather than short term issue. It's no longer just reactive. The panhandlers and "Squeegee Kids" are becoming further entrenched in the city's culture and have their own subcultural identity. This then adds to the city's "Two Baltimores" image - black vs. white, rich vs. poor, visible vs. hidden, and the semi-segregated "White L" geographic zone.
It's all on display. For whatever reasons, the "Squeegee Kids" are far younger and overwhelmingly black, while the panhandlers are much older and surprisingly much whiter for a city that is two-thirds black. There seem to be differences among the panhandlers between appearing positive versus looking pathetic, although "God Bless You" is a favorite catch phase among both. (Religion emerges in any morality play.) On the other hand, the "Squeegee Kids" may be expected to convey more of air of entrepreneurial professionalism and legality under the watchful eye of the security monitors.
Long range plans were a joke
The long abandoned long range plan for Pratt Street, celebrated by the urbanists at the time, was to convert it to two-way traffic. This would have made things far worse for everyone, despite including some widening which would have made the sidewalks narrower and prevented the current construction of new retail frontages on some blocks. Traffic patterns and flow were barely even a consideration.
There was also a plan to eliminate the connector from Light to Calvert Streets adjacent to Harborplace and replace it with a wider Light Street south of Pratt. This did lead to the demolition of the McKeldin Fountain, but no traffic changes. To the contrary, the mandatory left turn lane on Pratt from Light to Calvert was recently eliminated and converted to a thru lane, coupled with the widening of Pratt downstream from Calvert by eliminating the flag court and taxi stand. This has in fact resulted in some improvement in traffic flow at some expense to pedestrians, but not enough to quiet the irate motorists.
The best way to think about long range planning is to realize that what we have now is the result of all the city's previous long range plans. One previous generation's school of thought was that pedestrians should be shifted from streets to their own "skywalks". So much for that. More than ever, signalized intersections remain the tableau of urban life.
Making intersections work: Lead, follow or get out of the way
So it all simply comes down to how to make signalized intersections work. The basic principle won't change: East-west moves, then north-south, then east-west again. It's not a matter of who you are - a car driver, pedestrian, bike rider, solicitor, squeegee kid or presiding representative from the Downtown Partnership. Even driverless cars are still cars. Sure, they'll be smart enough to not block the box, but that just increases the opportunity for drivers of old cars to do it.
It's not who you are, it's where you're going. And it's all up to the traffic signal to dictate when you'll be going there: Go on green, stop on red, and transition on yellow.
The basic problem is that the transition time has gotten far too long, stretching out far beyond the three or four seconds of yellow time between green and red. Transition time now includes any time the intersection box is blocked and any time the light says green but it might as well say red because we can't move anyway.
Our windshields are too dirty only in a metaphorical sense.
The resolution of all these intersection conflicts is far more basic than any of this. It's simply a matter of reducing green time to what is actually usable. And then reducing red time to that which is actually necessary to move everybody who's going the other way. Relative allocations won't change much.
Yes, people will still get stuck inside the intersections when signals say they shouldn't be there. A pedestrian won't make it all the way across the street. A solicitor will try to do his business in less time than he does now. For all that, like other conflicts in life, we should not rely on whether a traffic light says green or red. We don't really always rely on traffic signals right now anyway. People violate the rules simply because they can.
We should rely instead on basic social rules. Let a slow pedestrian cross the street. Let a panhandler get out of the way. What else are you going to do? Run him over? Let social rules evolve based on peer pressure. Squeegee Kids know not to clean windshields when traffic is actually moving. People will get the message.
The basic solution is to shorten the signal cycles
The solution to all this is simple. Simply reduce the city's traffic signal cycle lengths from the current peak standard of 110 seconds. Center City Philadelphia does it all - stop and go - in 60 second cycles. Baltimore can too. Shorter greens and reds would make everyone more purposeful.
Thanks for the information. I really like the way you express complex topics in lucid way. It really helps me understand it much better way. kids play zone in Owings Mills
ReplyDelete