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There is actually a way to reduce speeding on the
River Road.
A highway is a limited access road. You
close off cross streets, allowing faster speeds because you don't have to worry
about cross traffic. Think about how much faster you drive say when
crossing a bridge than you do on a city street for this exact reason.
When they reconstructed the Parkway, they shut off
many of the access points. This was done due to some desire to give people
a "pastoral" experience as they drove along the river. But in
shutting off many of the access points, they created, in essence, a
highway. It isn't surprising that people drive fast, much like they do on
highways or across bridges because that is what we built. This has, of
course, been exacerbated by the Park Board posting the Parkway at 25 mph in a
fairly ineffective way of slowing down traffic. 25 mph
is a speed below that that posted for any
other city street. You then ask drivers to drive at a speed that "feels"
slow to them both because the road is constructed for higher speeds and because
they are unaccustomed to driving that slow. You have essentially created
the same problem as the 45 mph posting on I-35E south of downtown St Paul, with
a road which was constructed to carry traffic at 55 mph, a driving public
expecting highways to be 55 mph, and no barriers to make you feel like you
should slow down?
The solution? Or I wouldn't say the solution
but a way to improve the situation? Rebuild the parkways. Treat them
like they are a regular part of the street grid. Bring back all the access
points so people have a reason to slow down. Have stop signs at regular
intervals, even like is done with regular city through streets. Build
parking along the way so there can be cars along the side and pedestrians coming
out to give a reason to go slower. Also a wider roadway would be
substantially safer for bikers and rollerbladers, not to mention
pedestrians.
I don't expect this to be implemented soon, but
hopefully someday these changes could be made as the River Road is a very unsafe
road currently.
Carol Becker
Longfellow
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