Vancouver’s ‘Slow Streets’ Concrete Barriers Blamed For Causing Car Accidents
During the pandemic, the municipality of Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada introduced something tabbed the “Slow Streets” campaign. Now stuff made permanent, the municipality has widow touchable barriers that some residents say have led to big accidents.
Local reporter Jill Bennett took to Twitter recently to mutter that the Slow Streets barriers were causing accidents. Posting a photo of a Dodge Durango beached on one of the unexceptionable low yellow barriers, she personal that it was the second incident she had seen related to the campaign.
Although she said that the barriers are ineffective and rationalization crashes, not everyone agrees. The Slow Street wayfarers was introduced in May 2022, in an effort to slow traffic on residential side streets and to make walking and cycling safer, reports the Daily Hive.
At first, the barriers were made of plastic, and were, therefore, taller, lighter, and increasingly movable. As a result, the municipality said that some people were moving the barriers off the streets, requiring employees to move them when into place.
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That may suggest that some of the people in these locations were unhappy with the measure, but the municipality of Vancouver was satisfied unbearable with the result of the experiment to make it permanent.
To that end, it installed touchable barriers that are located on streets with speeding problems, where they intersect with higher-traffic roads. They are intended to act as both a visual (they’re unexceptionable yellow and full-length well-spoken signage) and a physical (they cut the road lanugo to one lane) reminder that drivers should slow down.
In all, it forfeit the municipality $200,000 CAD ($145,425 USD at current mart rates) to install all 42 permanent barriers virtually the city, which seek to restrict speeds on some 25 miles (40 km) of roadway. The municipality says that will unquestionably save taxpayers money, sparing it the expense of paying people to momentum virtually and put the temporary barriers when in place.
While Bennett is far from the only person questioning the value of paying for the Slow Streets project at all, many are in favor of it. Speaking to CityNews Vancouver, Andy Yan, the director of the Simon Faser University’s Municipality Program, said projects like these are necessary.
“There is, I think, the need for this type of program as we transition from a municipality that was, I think, dominated by the automobile, into something that deals with much more sustainable modes of transportation,” said Yan. “Really taking wholesomeness of that shift and understanding that the glut topics of streets for cars now unquestionably create an opportunity for creating streets for people.”
Photo Jill Bennett / Twitter
