Letter: Proposing ‘Vision Nonzero’
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Dear Editor:
For decades and decades, West Hartford drivers were somehow able to navigate the wilds of Boulevard with only their good sense and a line painted down the middle of it.
Now, the brainiacs at Vision Zero have transformed that once-beautiful road into a crazy funhouse of crooked lines, strange markings, and distracting yellow monoliths.
Evidently, the learned driving skills that have served us so well must be replaced with a brand-new system of driver micro-management. No longer can we rely on the basic rules of the road, the natural rhythms of driving and our ingrained muscle memory.
We’re told that Vision Zero will reduce traffic injuries. Unlikely. May I instead propose Vision Nonzero that returns to proven methods of law enforcement to target the obvious culprits (impaired drivers, distracted drivers, speeding drivers) without destroying the natural beauty of our town?
Anson J. Glacy Jr.
West Hartford
Hi! Thanks for your letter. Vision Zero includes enforcement as one of its chief tenets. Enforcement, education, engineering. I’m absolutely loving the recent increase in enforcement and I hope to see more.
We cannot return to the status quo, business as usual. The status quo means several of our fellow citizens dying every year on the roads. The status quo is the United States having the highest road death rate in the developed world. What we were doing before wasn’t working. I know that Connecticut is the land of steady habits and we hate change, but if someone close to you is hurt or killed, you might see it differently. In my job as an addiction doctor I see people who were maimed by the car injuries every single day. Car crashes are an extremely common path to addiction. I see the status quo every single day and it is soul crushing. That’s why I fight to change it.
As for Boulevard, sometimes you just gotta use your eyeballs and steering wheel. There’s nothing in the Constitution that guarantees straight roads. I don’t think the wiggles were intentional, but they have inadvertently created slight chicanes, and chicanes are one of the most basic and effective types of traffic calming. Literally one of the purposes of traffic calming is to push people a little bit out of “muscle memory” and a little into active thinking. So yeah, if you’re using a little less muscle memory and a little more of your frontal lobe, that’s intentional.
As for destroying the natural beauty of our town, you’ve really lost me there. You’re talking about asphalt???
Bottom line no one wants vehicle related injuries. Unfortunately even with the yellow markers on our streets, once the buildings along Trout Brook/Farmington Ave are fully occupied, traffic will become unsustainable. Drivers will continue to run red lights, not pay attention to the flashing cross walk lights – I have literally seen at least 10 cars go by as I wait to cross at N. Main by ASD .
Jason- Thanks for an informed, rational response, as always.
As a former member of the West Hartford Pedestrian and Bicycle Commission, I have this to offer regarding the lines on Boulevard-
When the Town first proposed adding painted bike lanes to Boulevard, there was a lot of concern over the elimination of parking on both sides of the street. After much consideration, the solution was to maintain as much parking as possible. The reason for the curvy lines are to allow for both vehicle lanes and bike lanes of sufficient width. The lines curve to allow for the “bump-outs”, which were an earlier attempt to protect pedestrians and calm traffic. The lines also curve to provide parallel parking spots, where practical, on the north side of the street. The curvy lines cause automobile drivers to pay more attention and to drive slower, which is an additional traffic calming benefit. As a 16 year resident of Boulevard, I can attest to the increased vehicle speed over that time period. Continuing the status quo is, unfortunately, an unsafe choice.
To imply that people who question Vision Zero are thereby accepting of more traffic deaths is demagoguery. It is an untested system of distracting visual cues that creates confusion and indecision, especially among older drivers. There are things that can be very much worse than the status quo.
The problems are clear: stoned or inebriated drivers, drivers who are distracted by texting or Tik Tok, and those who willfully speed or drive recklessly.
There is a simple, effective and well-known way to “calm” traffic: police presence and activity. Position a cruiser along the median of Boulevard and see what happens.
In any event, I suspect the statistics on Vision Zero, when compiled, will either glorify its remarkable success or more likely be quietly buried.