MyWHaT

As the city moves forward in collaborating with MDOT for a redesign of Division St., will the redesign be just another way to move automobiles or will they apply the needed political will to design the neighborhood as a space that attracts people and still provides transportation choices (photo/Gary L Howe).

After a reschedule, the Traverse City city commission study session on Division St. is tonight, Tuesday, at 7PM at the governmental center. The Record Eagle covered the story on Monday, including this image by Jan-Michael Stump capturing Dugan Dubois doing his best to cross Division St.

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I overheard this idea the other day: maybe we need to hire ‘life guards’, like at the beach, to monitor the city’s worst streets while they redesign them.

Yesterday’s post mentioned the idea that reducing speeds along Division St. could actually increase the number of cars able to pass through it at any given time. There are some really technical explanations, but this diagram makes an attempt to dumb it down.

Basic diagram illustrating that reduced speeds can often increase traffic flow, while still calming the streets. Diagram by David Engwicht, Reclaiming Our Cities & Towns.

What do you think? Make sense?

Is Northern Michigan ready for stepping out of the box? Does that really matter?

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Engwicts Handbook is available at TADL.

Reclaiming Our Cities & Towns: Better Living with Less Traffic is the more in-depth edition of Engwict’s more accessible handbook. Engwicts’s, who is a bit of an eccentric, premise is that why we choose to live and visit cities is for the opportunity to increase our ‘social exchanges’–culture, economics, friendships, ideas.  Automobile travel has gradually taken over many cities in both the need for roads and parking space, as well as taking over people’s front yards as they no longer feel comfortable out front with the increased traffic.

The more cities provide solely for the car & limit people’s choices, the more they destroy the purpose of a city: a place for free and spontaneous exchange of ideas, and the efficiency of traveling without a car.