gdp's Comments

Daily Camera.com: : Guest opinion: Safety and statistics - Boulder Daily Camera

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:10:19 +0000

I suppose the real question is whether enough members of our city council are capable of doing math. I don't know the answer to this, but I am not optimistic. Even if they can do the math, I suspect their ideologies will trump the math. But the really good point here is how misleading the statistics the city gives are, much more so than the bit about calculating the accident rate. Gee, if you found fewer accidents in crosswalks we have far fewer of, and more accidents in crosswalks we have more of... Well gosh, that finding just must mean the flashing crosswalks are relatively safe and the community shouldn't be worried about what the city is doing with them. Move along folks. Nothing to worry about here. (Sarcasm alert over.)

Daily Camera.com: : Guest opinion: Safety and statistics - Boulder Daily Camera

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:56:53 +0000

Foremost: What part of-- > "Ideally that would be calculated on a per crossing basis, but the report doesn't contain per crossing data. An imperfect but simple way to calculate the accident rate.." --did you fail to read? It seems to me that this editorial is an honest attempt to do the best available calculation given the poor quality of the information the city report contains. The city is the one that should be doing this better, and in the first place. I think the article is an admirable job of deconstructing the spin the report gives in an effort to whitewash the flashing crosswalk debate. "Not a valid community debate", indeed!

Daily Camera.com: : Virtual Editorial Board: Traffic safety in Boulder - Boulder Daily Camera

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:13:58 +0000

1. Can anyone really tell whether flashing crosswalks are actually more safe than other crosswalks from the information in the report? A recent letter to the editor suggested that you have to compare the accident rate per pedestrian crossing. Would that be a better measure? 2. Are flashing crosswalks more or less safe just because they flash, or because the city has put a crosswalk in a dangerous location for pedestrians to cross a highway? Or are there other reasons? 3. Does the fact that it seems to cost about $70,000 more to put in a crosswalk with a full traffic light imply that the city has determined that that is the value of a human life or limb lost to an accident in a flashing crosswalk? 4. The city just added a couple more flashing crosswalks on 30th street. Is it time for a moratorium on constructing more flashing crosswalks?

Daily Camera.com: : Superior considers safer crossing for Monarch students - Boulder Daily Camera

Tue, 7 Feb 2012 14:33:36 +0000

Superior appear to be a small outpost of sanity in traffic planning in Boulder County. >"Vehicles come across that bridge (over U.S. 36) at a pretty good clip," said Martin Toth, Superior's acting public works director. "We're trying to pre-empt a crisis situation." .... >The town staff looked at several other options for slowing traffic or enhancing pedestrian safety at the crossing, including installing flashing beacons or building an underpass, but rejected them due to perceived ineffectiveness or excessive cost. >"A pedestrian-activated light is what gets you to that proper level of safety," Toth said. Compare that to the city of Boulder, where the planners install more flashing crosswalks every year that CREATE crisis situations, when their own data has shown that when they replace a flashing crosswalk with a traffic light the accident rate drops to ZERO. All I Want for Crosswalks is a sane city government, sane city government, sane city government (sung to the tune of All I Want for Christmas...)

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder study sheds light on bicycle, pedestrian accidents - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 04:18:00 +0000

I've not been able to read the report yet as it does not seem to be available on the city's website. But so far, everything I can find ( www.bouldercolorado.gov/files/Transportation/TAB/... ) seems to indicate that the "study" is pure spin and not science. For example, in neither the article nor the powerpoint presentation does the city ever bother to give a breakdown as to what percentage of the 8500 collisions fall into which category--crosswalks at signalized intersections v. flashing crosswalks and so forth, but we are told (in both documents) that "only 6 percent of the [ped/cyclist-vehicle] accidents actually took place in a flashing crosswalk." Of course, that percentage means nothing without knowing whether the flashing crosswalks are more or less than 6% of the total number of crosswalks of all types studied. If either the city's powerpoint or the article gave that percentage you might be able to infer something about whether the flashers are more, less or about as safe as other types of crosswalks. If anything the article makes me wonder whether the flashing crosswalks are in fact more dangerous than city is claiming, since the presence of 2 flashing crosswalks in the top 15 means that they comprised just over 13% of the most dangerous crosswalks in the city. While that might sound twice as bad as the 6% accident rate for crosswalks, none of these percentages can mean much of anything until we know more about the entire dataset. If (for example) the number of flashing crosswalks make up a far smaller percentage of total crosswalks than 6% (and I suspect that is likely to be true), then actually the study would show that the accident rate is higher in the flashing crosswalks than in all the other types, not lower. All I come away with so far is that the city wants us to believe that the flashing crosswalks are safer, but I can see only spin when I try to make sense of their numbers. I hope the report has some real content, but I fear Don Wrege is correct.

Daily Camera.com: : Xcel watchdog, Boulder resident back in the battle at the PUC - Boulder Daily Camera

Sun, 5 Feb 2012 14:52:17 +0000

What bothers me about the Office of the Consumer Counsel's position that every individual's intervention should be judged on a case-by-case basis is that it exemplifies a typical bureaucratic strategy to kill off quietly the individual's right to intervene. By making you constantly fight, over and over again, for just a chance to speak at the table, they hope to wear out their opposition--a classic big government/big corporation move. I may not always agree with Leslie's views on what the PUC should or should not do, but I am going to Max Tyler and thank him for introducing this bill. All of us should have the right to make cogent arguments at such hearings.

Daily Camera.com: : Letters to the Editor - Feb. 5 - Boulder Daily Camera

Sun, 5 Feb 2012 14:31:58 +0000

Since the city has apparently arm-twisted the Camera into turning off comments on the front page article in which Heath Urie repeats the city's spin on the purported safety of the deathtrap crosswalks, and today's letters to the editor include one about traffic planning idiocy (ie a proposed traffic circle at McCaslin and 36th), I'll comment on both here. Our traffic and transportation planners, at both the city and county level, have totally lost touch with reality. The traffic circles along Pine in Boulder don't work because Pine is an arterial and the cross streets are not; drivers know this and disregard the circles. Their primary effect is to make cars swerve into the bike lane and crosswalks of the cross streets, making bicyclists and pedestrians less safe--or precisely the opposite of what they are supposed to do. LaRocque's letter accurately points out that the result with McCaslin and 36 is likely not to be different. In the name of traffic safety and efficiency, the planners will likely install something experimental that doesn't fit, is poorly designed and won't work as intended. And later, we will pay to have them--AGAIN--to engineer a fix. That's precisely what has happened with Boulder's deathtrap crosswalks. In a puff piece on today's front page, the Camera uncritically repeats the city's spin concerning how the flashing crosswalks are among the safest in Boulder. But a little careful reading shows that that sentence is 100% spin, or what grass comes out of the bull as. Consider: "He [Cowern/city traffic engineer] said the city removed the most dangerous flashing crosswalk -- on Baseline Road just east of Broadway, now scheduled to receive an underpass -- which has helped improve the overall safety record of the flashing walkways." Well of course the safety record improves when you finally start to fix your mistakes! In fact, the safety record for many of the crosswalks has been so poor that the city has had to replace not just that crosswalk with a traffic signal, but also the ones along Broadway by the university as well. We taxpayers have had to pay twice for work that should have been done correctly the first time! The second point the Camera article fails to note is that the city's spin presented only raw numbers of collisions, without mention of how many pedestrians, bike, or vehicles use these intersections, or what the accident rate was relative to the number of peds and vehicles. Without norming the data, an apples-to-apples comparison isn't possible. The Camera article swallows this sort of spin whole, even to the point of repeating the city's "theory" that Colorado and Regent has a high number of ped-vehicle accidents because there is a lot of pedestrian traffic there. Of course, the raw numbers at one intersection will be higher where there is more traffic than one with less traffic. That's trivial and utterly uninformative. What would be interesting is if one compared the rate of accidents at different intersections and found that the rate was abnormally high (or low) at one type of crosswalk v. another. Then we might be able to conclude that one type was safer than another. But making the statement that the study finds that flashing crosswalks are safer than crosswalks at traffic signals based on raw numbers alone is just mathematically foolish. If we need a "midblock" crosswalk across multiple lane highways, we need one that has a proper traffic signal. The best test of that would be to compare the accident rate at such multilane crosswalks without proper signals with those that do have them--ie the ones on Table Mesa between Broadway and Moorhead (roughly at 39th & 42nd), the ones on Broadway (roughly at Elder and at High). I'm willing to bet than in a proper apple to apples comparison, the accident rate at signal-controlled crosswalks is significantly less than for other multilane crosswalks, with or without the flashing nonsense. Please, city council and planning staff, quit wasting our money constantly redoing intersections and starting PR spin campaign. No amount of Orwellian whitewashing by studies presenting bad math is going to make us believe that black is white, or that the deathtrap crosswalks are safe.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder Library Commission \'blindsided\' by Judy Volc\'s dismissal, urges reconsideration - Boulder

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 05:41:25 +0000

Volc said "It's not that I don't have offers, but the library is my first love," she said. "I support what the library is trying to do. I just don't understand why it excludes me." Because, Judy, the new library director made a mistake and is too proud to admit she made a mistake. She didn't listen to her staff, who advised against it and don't support it; she didn't listen to the public, who let her know she had made a mistake. It's the same problem throughout city government. When a city official makes a mistake, whether it is with the deathtrap crosswalks across multiple lane highways or firing volunteers at the library, the city doubles down and makes matters worse. Hypocrisy and hubris seem to be our main exports these days.

Daily Camera.com: : Letters to the Editor - Jan. 25 - Boulder Daily Camera

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:53:22 +0000

Tony, I checked with my local PLAN-Boulder guru and she said you will have development in East Boulder because building homes out east is in the Comprehensive Plan and its attendant Master Plans, floodwaters be damned. But of course we can't allow any homes to be built in west boulder, on the junior academy land, wherever. Because the Plans are written by, and for, west central boulder residents. Your opinions don't count, because of where you live in town.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder - Boulder Daily Camera

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:39:06 +0000

I'd gladly pay the tax ONLY IF it was earmarked for removing the crosswalks across multiple lanes of traffic, or upgrading them to a full traffic light where they are really necessary. Those deathtrap crosswalks just saw another pedestrian injury a few weeks ago--this time, in a crosswalk across multiple lanes without blinkers. Haven't the city's experiments toying with human life gone on long enough? It's high time we, peds and motorists alike, storm a city council meeting to demand the city remove or replace these multi-lane crosswalks before another person is hurt in them. The signup for public comment is always possible at and just before the start of the meetings on Tuesday.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:28:20 +0000

I agree with you here on physics alone, but behaviorially speaking I think running a red light at a crosswalk is still something most US/Boulder drivers won't do. Most Boulder drivers treat yellow, however, as gun it and hope I make it through before the red-light camera goes off. I don't have a problem with bringing traffic to a (temporary) standstill with a red light pedestrian crossing, if that's safer. (And it is.)

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:16:03 +0000

Sorry Bill, but that's not how the crosswalk studies, MUTCD or other technical literature defines "signalization." If you leave the traffic uncontrolled, you haven't properly signalized an intersection. But that's just semantics--your point is apparently that the blinkers do in fact make the multi-lane crosswalks safer. I apologize for taking a day to get back to you with citations, and walking you through the fact that that 6 out of the 8 studies cited there, in the official US govt guidelines, show that marked crosswalks (of varying kinds) are often/generally less safe than marked crosswalks--particularly in multi-lane situations (look at the table at the back of the FHWA study). The real question is whether blinkers are more like a traffic light or more like another crosswalk marking, and the data so far suggest they are just another species of crosswalk marking that don't actually control traffic or make the crosswalks safer. Apparently you aren't conversing in good faith, since you won't back up your claim that there are any studies that actually show the blinking crosswalks are safer. As best as I can tell, and I have been tracking this process for a few years now, there are NO such studies showing this to be unequivocably true (or even just generally true) for multi-lane crosswalks. I don't doubt your anecdotal evidence might be true, but one datapoint does not an analysis make. Again, I'd love to be shown wrong, but you'll have to give me at least one citation to do that--and I'm beginning to think you just don't have any. Until then, I'll continue to try to get Council, the TAB, Cowern, and our local political lobbies to actually support doing the right thing: Spending the money to remove them or, better, upgrade these to traffic-light-controlled intersections and actually make them safe. We won on Broadway near CU, and 28th street is in my sights next. How many kids on bikes must die before you'll come around? How many injuries to CU students are enough, Bill?

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:50:10 +0000

Thanks Mike. Re "logical" : In fact, they have thought of that--it was an early objection to some of the first studies. But you can control for that by adjusting for pedestrian (and vehicle) volume, and the emprical results don't always gybe with what logic might lead us to hypothesize. I haven't read a study (and I've read lots, but not all) where they have looked at a marked crosswalk v. an unmarked one "down the street". The Herms study, for example, did look at a related issue of marked and unmarked within the same intersections, but was so early as not to gather ped frequency data. (But I am unsure if by "unpainted" you really mean a before and after study of the removal ("un-"painting) of one crosswalk down the street from the other crosswalk, and then a comparative study of pedestrian volume and its effect on accident rate in the two crosswalks.) As stated above, I have no problem upgrading marked crosswalks to traffic light controlled ones, if we truly want to make walking easier. But "easier" isn't the same thing as "safer", and I am realist and that probably won't work everywhere. There are some crosswalks, I fear, that may have to be removed outright because they are too dangerous given how a proper signal might affect traffic patterns.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:26:44 +0000

Bill, First, you are getting more nearsighted. I linked to the entire document first, and then to the relevant lit review chapter second. Second, blinking crosswalks are not signalized, in the normal sense of the term. Signalization means traffic-controlled, such as we have had for years with the traffic light controlled pedestrian crossings for years at 41st and Table Mesa, or at Broadway and Elder; or the ones we replaced with real lights on Broadway near the CU current tunnel project. Third, the problem I have been harping on is what happens when the city installs a marked crosswalk, whether it has blinking lights or not, across multiple lanes of traffic. By the normal definition of a controlled v. uncontrolled traffic intersection, these are unsignalized EVEN when they have blinking lights. Those are the really dangerous, downright stupid ones. Fourth, the "chapter" to which I referred you of the FHWA discusses 12 studies on marked v. unmarked crosswalks with a wide variety of methods and intervening variables. If you actually bothered to read it, rather than going off half-cocked, you'd see that some of the variables involve comparisons between marked crosswalks at signalized ie traffic light controlled intersections and non-signalized intersections. You can't have a comparison without discussing more than one style of crosswalk anyway. Fifth, the FHWA was cited by Cowern (Boulder's traffic engineer) in his draft guidelines for crosswalk installation. That doesn't mean he applied the FHWA guidelines correctly, or read it or the underlying studies closely. In fact, if you read those draft guidelines, it is clear that with the blinking crosswalks he (and the city's Transportation Advisory Board) have undertaken a set of experiments for a whole range of crosswalk styles. Sixth, even Cowern's own city of Boulder data--which is poorly reported and oversimplified as presented in the draft guidelines appendix--actually shows an increase in ped accident rate after installing the marked crosswalks for several locations. The data presented apparently wasn't normed to traffic volume (or at least it wasn't reported), and I can find no information as to how he calculated its statistical significance. Seventh, can you, or TD, or any of those who blindly believe that marked crosswalks at uncontrolled intersections are safer give me a citation? I think that's what you mean by "The crossings we are addressing have been shown to be much safer than either marked or unmarked crossings..." in your original post. Once again, citation please? Finally, I'd like to point out that I'd like see safer crosswalks at these multi-lane locations--I am advocating for replacing them with lights, not keeping them in some bizarre cost-benefit analysis where the expense of installing a real traffic light is traded off against the risk to human life and limb, all in the name of better traffic flow. And yes, in the cases where a full traffic signal won't work, we might have to rip them out and redirect peds to a safer crossing. Let's just stop pretending to do something in the name of ped safety when there is a real, proven alternative. These crosswalks don't make crossing multi-lane highways safe. We seem to have a engineering dept and city council and transportation advisory board that wants so badly to believe that they are making our multi-lane crosswalks safer for peds, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary that they just aren't spending the money to actually make the crosswalks safer. But wishing alone won't make it so.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:44:57 +0000

Now you are bluffing. They weren't there on intensedebate. If you have citations, please provide them. You are often reasonable in these forums, TD. Why not on this issue?

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:09:39 +0000

Btw, I checked your comment stream. 293 pages of it, so I only looked back a little way before using google. A google site search for TDSeven and "crosswalk" turned up nothing, nor did "pedestrian," "safety" or any other relevant search terms I tried.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:40:29 +0000

Those who remain ignorant of history are condemned to repeat its mistakes, TDSeven. The Swedish studies are from 1996 forward. Only the Herms study is from 1972 and only the LA study is from 1967. The FHWA study, for example, is from 2002. While I discussed the lit review, it too concludes that in many situations marked crosswalks are more dangerous than unmarked ones. High-volume, multi-lane roads are one such place. Can you give citations or links to any of these "recent studies" you claim to have read? Because as a scientist I would love to be proved wrong. Even Cowern's studies here in Boulder, which are not very well reported, showed an increase in the pedestrian accident rates for the blinking crosswalks in several locations. It is counter-intuitive, I know, but the interesting science often is counter-intuitive.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:30:13 +0000

You are absolutely correct, but only in reference to the solid yellow in a three light traffic signal. However, flashing amber or yellow warning lights on the blinking crosswalk signs do not necessarily mean stop. Flashing red does mean stop, however; it is similar to a stop sign.

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:07:35 +0000

One last thing, since intense debate doesn't seem to be taking my last edit: Note that if you try to tot up the four (ped AND driver) behaviorial studies cited in the immediately subsequent lit review section, it doesn't tot up properly as the accident rate was not studied. However, one of those four studies--and only one--seems to support the view that more markings help change driver behavior much (the Van Houten study).

Daily Camera.com: : Boulder council lays out goals for 2012 - Boulder Daily Camera

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:48:46 +0000

TDSeven, Unfortunately, then, your reading on this issue hasn't been very deep or thorough. I'm back to fast internet today, so here are some links and citations to US studies showing that marked crosswalks are frequently less safe than unmarked ones. First, the one I cited yesterday: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/saf... Safety Effects of Marked Versus Unmarked Crosswalks at Uncontrolled Locations Final Report and Recommended Guidelines The review of past research is at: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/saf... and some particularly interesting quotes: Herms, in the 1972 San Diego study that kicks off the debate, stated: "Evidence indicates that the poor crash record of marked crosswalks is not due to the crosswalk being marked as much as it is a reflection on the pedestrian's attitude and lack of caution when using the marked crosswalk." Gurnett described a project to remove painted stripes from some crosswalks following a bad crash experience This was a before-after study of three locations that were selected for crosswalk removal because they had a recent bad crash record. After removing the crosswalks, crashes decreased. It is also not clear whether pedestrian crossing volumes may have dropped after the marked crosswalks were removed. Another study of marked crosswalks at unsignalized intersections was reported by the Los Angeles, CA, County Road Department in July 1967. The county reported results of a before-after study of 89 intersections. Painted crosswalks were added at each site, but the basis for selecting those sites was not mentioned. Pedestrian crashes increased from 4 during the before period to 15 in the after period. The before-after design in this study is preferable to a treatment-control model in this instance, and better takes the selection effect into account. All sites that showed crash increases were intersections with an ADT rate above 10,900. Thus, at sites with a lower ADT rate, no change in pedestrian crashes was seen. Also, rear-end collisions increased from 31 to 58 after marked crosswalks were added. The report stated that rear-end collisions increased as traffic volume increased. Nevertheless, the study showed more pedestrian crashes after painting the crosswalks than before for the sites with ADT rates above 10,500.... As for studies from Europe: In 1996, Ekman conducted an analysis of pedestrian crashes at zebra crossings compared to crossings with traffic signals and also to crossings with no facilities. (9) Zebra crossings in Sweden (figure 2) consist of high-visibility crosswalk markings on the roadway, accompanied by zebra crossing signs (figure 3). The study included 6 years of collected pedestrian crash data from crossings in five cities in southern Sweden along with pedestrian counts, traffic volume, and other information for each of the three types of pedestrian crossings. The rate of pedestrian crashes was found to be higher (approximately twice as high) at intersections which had zebra crossings, compared to locations that were signalized or had no facilities. Further, pedestrians age 60 and above were most at risk, followed by pedestrians below age 16 (see figure 4). The author also controlled for motor vehicle traffic and found similar results. Of course, I am highlighting the parts that support my position. The authors of that document conclude that: "there are no clear-cut results from the studies reviewed to permit concluding with confidence that either marked or unmarked crosswalks are safer..." and of course "needs further research" (science loves to identify needs for more funding and more study.) However, if you total up the number of studies they cited in the first section of their research section, comparing those which found that marked crosswalks increase the pedestrian accident rate versus those that decrease it and those that showed little to no difference, you get 6 of 8 studies on the subject noting an increase in the pedestrian accident rate, an additional 1 study with mixed results that showed an increase in some conditions and no difference in others, and only 1 of 8 studies showing a decrease in traffic. Of the ONLY study showing a decrease in the pedestrian accident, it included both crosswalks at intersections that are controlled by a full traffic light and crosswalks that are uncontrolled intersections. In other words, the decrease is likely attributable to the fact there was a TRAFFIC LIGHT. Ok, TD, I've said enough, even though I could go on. Can you produce any of the studies that show that "show that marked crosswalks dramatically reduce accidents .... the more markings the better"? Because I think you are just repeating the party-line BS in Boulder. The only case in which I agree with you is when the marked crosswalk across multiple lanes of traffic is controlled by a proper signal; then indeed, the marked crosswalk is safer than an unmarked one.