Mar 1, 2022
This week on Streetsblog, we looked at two communities who each
planned to calm an ultra-wide, ultra-dangerous road with the
support of the vast majority of the residents they asked, only to
have those plans scuttled in the face of vocal opposition.
In
San Antonio, Texas, that opposition is coming from the top
down, as state DOT leaders and the governor himself step in and
insist that 7-lane Broadway Avenue must continue to prioritize
motorist speed over local safety; in
Philadelphia, Pa., it's coming from the bottom up, as a
coalition of business owners and residents of color claim
that cutting five-lane Washington Avenue down to three would
eventually result in their displacement, successfully persuading
the city to rethink their plans.
Both stories, though, prompt the same thorny questions: why is
redesigning killer roads so difficult in American communities? Who
should get the final say on how safe — or fast — a road through a
neighborhood should be? And which structural changes could make it
easier for road diet projects to actually make it across the finish
line — and make sure that new dangerous, car-centric roads are
never built in our neighborhoods in the first place?
On today's episode of The Brake, we sat down with Beth
Osborne, director of Transportation for America, to tackle those
tough questions, and talk about what strategies could get road diet
resisters on board.