That’s a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don’t stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.
If you want people to stop, you’ve got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won’t do shit. You’ve got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.
That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don’t feel like they’re losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.
Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes’ walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes’ bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.
The gap isn’t as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.
That’s a very outdated view of traffic engineering and psychology. People (and animals in general) don’t stop doing things in response to punishment unless they have a very high chance of expected punishment, way higher that any society could afford in case of traffic control.
If you want people to stop, you’ve got to build the infrastructure in a way that makes it psychologically natural to stop. Some paint on an otherwise Amercan road won’t do shit. You’ve got to visually and physically narrow the space for drivers to make it uncomfortable or even damaging for them to pass through at unsafe speed.
That low speed is also slow enough that drivers don’t feel like they’re losing as much by stopping, making them feel like stopping for pedestrians is a lot more fair.
Look at Dutch traffic engineering standards for pedestrian crossings. They’re a car-centric country that puts a lot of effort into getting cars everywhere in a relatively safe way.
Are they now?
Yes. Amsterdam pays more money to build parking for 300 people in the middle of the city in 5 minutes’ walk from a dozen tram stops with trams every 5 minutes and 5 minutes’ bike from a train station with trains every minute than it does on its entire bicycle network in a year.
The gap isn’t as big as in the US, but in the Netherlands cars still come first.