Easy solutions do not exist for making our roads user friendly all at the same time for drivers in a hurry, bicyclists and pedestrians.
In less than 100 years many roads in Montgomery County have evolved from dirt lane through two lane black top into six lane with median and the bigger the road the more likely that people need it to get where they need to go.
Kensington is an example of this evolution and today there is a busy stretch where pedestrians, if they obey the crosswalks, must go north before than can go south and vice versa.
See illustration above.
Where 2 roads cross you have four crosswalk choices, but at Connecticut Ave and Plyers Mill only three are painted and have walk/don’t walk blinky signs. Same deal two blocks away where Knowles Ave. crosses Connecticut.
The kicker though is that between them at Howard and Connecticut there are no cross walks at all despite bus stops, and shops. Hang out there a bit and see how many people risk life and limb jay-walking to save time. I know many people who have asked the powers that be to address this intersection, but they see cars still winning in Kensington though other areas think the bicyclists are pulling ahead.
Kensington has long been a place for re-doing traffic flows and after decades of changes it seems that bikes, pedestrians and cars cannot be equally satisfied. I suggest though that pedestrians be given priority. We see that insurers now offer discounts for auto drivers who agree to have their driving monitored. Maybe now we need to create a civic rewards program so that positive incentives encourage busy drivers to yield or stop more often and in more places for pedestrians. The negative incentive of traffic tickets seems inadequate so let’s listen to the behaviorists who say positives work better than negatives for incentivizing. A cursory review of the world wide web shows that the technologies already have been created. Why wait for 2030 as our too patient public servants are plodding along with their Vision Zero.
Let’s have a contest to create the best rewards for the most courteous drivers. Let’s give courteous drivers real bragging rights.
Let us prevent deaths and injuries ASAP! I stoop to the cliche that we got to the moon already so surely we can do this
