Dangerous Roads newsletter: A layman's guide to engineering safer roads, with bumps and humps, strips and stripes

I learned recently there’s a difference between speed bumps and speed humps. The former is the kind you’d find in a mall parking lot. It’s short and sudden and will give you quite the jolt if you don’t take it very slowly. The latter is more gradual, and designed for vehicles moving at higher speed. You're more likely to find it near a school or residential area.

Similarly, I found out the difference between rumble strips — which are typically placed along a shoulder of a road to keep drivers from veering out of their lane — and rumble stripes, which stretch across a road and are used to slow cars down.

I learned something else at Vision Long Island’s Complete Streets Summit: No matter what strategy is proposed to make streets safer for Long Island pedestrians, cyclists and drivers, somebody is bound to have a problem with it.

At the Deer Park seminar held earlier this month, Vision Long Island traffic guru Elissa Kyle bounced one idea after another off a panel of engineers. And, one-by-one, each encountered a potentially fatal stumbling block.

Bollards erected at intersections to protect pedestrians? Highway departments will raise concerns about them being knocked over like bowling pins by cars and sent hurtling through the air as projectiles, Stephen Normandin, managing director of engineering consulting firm NV5 in Melville. "Hardened" bike lanes with physical barriers to separate cyclists from auto traffic? Those "won’t fly here," in part because there aren’t enough cyclists to warrant them, said Normandin, pointing out the obvious chicken-and-egg dilemma.

How about traffic circles in downtown intersections? That might require losing some parking spots, and, "God forbid you take away parking," said Sarah Oral, traffic engineer for consulting firm IMEG, which has an office in Woodbury. Kyle confirmed that "if you proposed losing six spaces for the entirety of downtown Huntington, which has hundreds and hundreds of parking spots, there would be riots in the streets."

Eliminating some traffic lanes to create "shared use" paths for cyclists and joggers? "You’d have to be willing to accept" slower traffic in downtown areas, said Frank Pearson, director of transportation safety at GPI, another consulting firm, with an office in Babylon.

What of those rumble strips and stripes and speed bumps and humps? They, too, are bound to draw complaints, including about damage caused by snowplows and the noise of cars accelerating after being forced to slow down, the engineers said.

And, of course, there are also the myriad issues of regulations, maintenance and funding that could doom every proposal.

It may all seem like enough to cause traffic engineers to throw up their hands in defeat. But there was also plentiful optimism from the panelists, who said they’ve seen some novel traffic-calming strategies take hold in municipalities throughout New York and other states. All agreed that the key is to do the necessary outreach to communities at the outset to convince them that a project’s lifesaving benefits outweigh its inconveniences.

"Once you have community support, it helps a lot," said Ankita Rathi, transportation planning manager for VHB, an engineering consulting firm in Hauppauge.

Even some of the most transformative proposals, such as "protected intersections" where cyclists and pedestrians are separated from cars, "definitely could be done on Long Island," Oral said. "I think you just need to find a municipality to be the first. ... Often people will fall in line once they see something new that is successful."

The message: Red tape need not be a stop sign for lifesaving ideas. It could be just a speed bump.

Or is it "hump?"

What are some novel ideas you’ve seen or heard of to make roads safer? What about your own ideas? Share them with us at roads@newsday.com.

A few ideas to make dangerous roads safer:

• Bulb outs: These are a kind of curb extension near crosswalks to slow traffic and give pedestrians more space to safely cross the street. As a cheaper, and quicker, alternative to pouring concrete, some municipalities are simply painting asphalt in the shape of a curb extension. It can be a way to get pedestrians and drivers used to a new street design before implementing more permanent changes.

• Pedestrian hybrid beacons: Also known as HAWK (high-intensity activated crosswalk) beacons, the traffic signals remain dark until a pedestrian activates them — allowing traffic only to be stopped as needed.

• Neighborhood slow zones: Some municipalities reduce speed limits along particularly narrow residential streets or ones where children tend to play. While officially changing speed limits can require state approval, residents often take it upon themselves to put up signs, sometimes with balloons, to get drivers’ attention and encourage them to slow down.
• Colorful crosswalks: Rather than sticking with the traditional white or yellow paint, some planners are adding a splash of color at crosswalks by painting designs in a rainbow of colors, both to catch the eye of drivers and to beautify downtowns.
• Chicanes: Often seen in motor racing tracks, a chicane is a serpentine design element that creates curves in an otherwise straight road, forcing drivers to slow down. One Pennsylvania township took this idea to the extreme, causing one observer to wonder, "Was the road crew drunk when painting this?"
• Road diets: Just as it sounds, a "road diet" is the term used for slimming down a road by reducing the number of lanes, sometimes to create dedicated lanes for cyclists, pedestrians or buses. Given some planners’ aversion to the term, engineers at the seminar wondered if a rebranding was in order. An audience member shouted out one suggestion: "Road Ozempic."

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.