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I was running an errand the weekend before last and ran into a planner in Oakland. We got into a conversation about the new protected intersections, speed humps, and road diet on West Street in Oakland. "I don't even think it's such a big deal that it didn't get protected bike lanes," the planner told me.
If MLK had protected bike lanes, separated by concrete and/or a row of parked cars, I don't see how the cyclist would have been killed. And the pedestrian crossing at MacArthur and Piedmont would have had a much better chance if there were protected bike lanes because they shorten crossing distances. Moreover, with the installation of protected intersections backed up by robust bollards or other obstacles, the driver who killed him would have been forced to slow down or she would have wrecked before hitting Tonken.
Despite the speeches and Vision Zero commitments, the Bay Area is well on the way to yet another year of record traffic violence. The physics of what happens when a two-to-five-ton machine slams into a delicate human body doesn't change because of speeches or outreach and it can't be rationalized away. Cities need to make protected bike lanes and intersections the default design now on all but the quietest residential streets. To do anything less is tantamount to murder.
No other field would tolerate this level of death and destruction. The tragedy of West Portal is more evidence that the traffic engineering profession is fundamentally broken