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October 18, 2005
Traffic wizard offers solutions to Snelling Ave. traffic issues
David Engwicht, author of Mental Speed Bumps: The Smarter Way to Tame Traffic, offered information to community members on creating a more pedestrian-friendly environment on Snelling.
Engwicht, an expert on “mental speed bumps,” which are psychological solutions of making our streets safer, gave a two-hour presentation on October 13. His goal is to create safer streets without having to physically change the street itself. With intrigue, uncertainty and humor, motorists will slow down without being told with signs or traffic signals. This is not only cheaper for the community, but also puts the power into the citizens’ hands.
Engwicht said there are five ways to create a safer street environment, which he highlighted in his presentation. The first is socializing: showing the motorist that the area is an active location for pedestrians, not just motorists. In other words, this is not a street but an extension of someone’s front yard.
The second is called move gently, or that all people make an effort to stop at pedestrian crossings to let people cross and, for themselves, to go the speed limit.
The third is to intrigue motorists. Stick a big teddy bear on your dash when you park your car on the street. The point of intriguing the motorist is finding something to get their attention that will force them to slow down.
The fourth is way is linger nodes. Examples of linger nodes would be to plant flowers, put out benches, or to hang around local shops or stores. Pedestrians will attract other pedestrians and make people more safe.
The fifth and final step is to take the street from corridor to a room. Make the neighborhood feel homey, leave your curtains open, have an inviting yard. Let the drivers know you live there - it’s your neighborhood.
According to Engwicht, to achieve safer streets, we need to create a “positive social virus.” By this, he means changing the environment created by people, such as the attitudes being lived out and the living spaces people create. This is important because not only do we need to create safer neighborhoods for ourselves but also our successors. “You have to get out of your car at some point,” Engwicht said.
Samantha Henningson, a Hamline-Hancock collaboration worker states that one of the collaboration’s goals was to make Snelling safer for students and the tutors that frequently cross the street. Statistics show that the intersections of Englewood and Hewitt Avenues have 34,000 cars drive by each day and there are over 300 crossings that take place as well, Henningson said.
The pedestrian timer by the admission buildings was one thing Hamline-Hancock was happy to see, but there are many more things the school would like to see happen.
Says Henningson, Engwicht has come to campus again for the third time because, as a community, we “can’t [just] go to the city for all our problems.”
Posted by msveum at October 18, 2005 11:12 AM
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