Readers not impressed by St. Ann’s new speed camera

In the poll last week (post: St. Ann’s speed camera begins February 1st) readers were clear: a speed camera in the school zone is not the best way to make the street safe, it is about revenue for the municipality.  In this case the suburb of St. Ann.  For the most part I’m not bothered by speed & red light cameras because I tend to follow traffic laws to the letter.  However, safety on the streets, especially for pedestrians, is a high priority for me.

Q: This week St. Ann begins school zone enforcement using speed-zone camera technology. These are:Bad: will only increase revenues for St. Ann: 35 [40.7%]

1. Good: will increase safety in the school zone: 21 [24.4%]
2. Other: better solutions exist to slow traffic: 21 [24.4%]
3. Neutral: won’t have much of an impact on safety but it doesn’t bother me: 5 [5.8%]
4. Other answer… 2 [2.3%]
5. Unsure/no opinion. 2 [2.3%]

The two “other” responses were:

• compensating for taxes lost from NW Plaza Foreclosure/Wal-Mart leaving
• need mass transit not more speed traps this is bs

For me the question comes back to performance.  If the cameras are successful then fine.  But do they? Trying to find unbiased information is impossible. On the pro-camera side is the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety:

“Do speed cameras reduce travel speeds?

Institute studies show that automated speed enforcement can substantially reduce speeding on a wide range of roadway types. Institute studies in Maryland, Arizona and the District of Columbia found that the proportion of drivers exceeding speed limits by more than 10 mph declined by 70, 95, and 82 percent respectively. Research conducted outside the United States also shows large effects of speed cameras on traffic speeds. For example, in Victoria, Australia, speed cameras were introduced in late 1989, and police reported that within 3 months the number of offenders triggering photo radar decreased 50 percent. The percentage of vehicles significantly exceeding the speed limit decreased from about 20 percent in 1990 to fewer than 4 percent in 1994.

Are there other technologies that could aid in enforcing speed limits in both urban and suburban areas?

Yes. Roadside electronic signs that display vehicle speeds to warn drivers they are speeding may reduce speeds and crashes at high-risk locations. Institute research found that mobile roadside speedometers can reduce speeds at the sites of the speedometers as well as for short distances down the road.16 When used in conjunction with police enforcement, the effect of speedometers can last longer. Signs warning truck drivers that they are exceeding maximum safe speeds on exit ramps also show promise, as they reduce the numbers of trucks traveling greatly above maximum safe speeds.

Two emerging technologies are being used to enforce speed limits. Intelligent speed adaptation links a position of the traveling vehicle via Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and computerized maps with speed limits to determine if the vehicle is speeding. The system may work as an advisory system for the driver or an intervention system that automatically reduces the vehicle’s speed to comply with the speed limit. Point-to-point speed camera technology records the time it takes a vehicle to travel between two camera locations to compute an average speed and compare it to the posted speed limit. This system uses optical recognition technology to match the two photographed vehicle license plates. Point-to-point speed cameras are being used to enforce the speed limit on the Hume Freeway in Victoria, Australia. In the UK, point-to-point speed camera systems are known as “Distributed Average Speed” camera systems and have received government approval.”

Cities that have tried speed cameras offer a different perspective.  One community in Arizona has removed speed enforcement cameras:

“Pinal County supervisors Wednesday bid goodbye to photo enforcement.

Their vote to terminate their contract with Redflex, the company that operates the cameras, came at the recommendation of the county’s top law-enforcement official, new Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

“I’m against photo speed enforcement completely,” Babeu said, walking the three-member panel through a detailed PowerPoint presentation. “Here in Pinal, it’s failed miserably.”

Babeu said speed cameras created dangerous road conditions and offered little financial benefit for the county. He plans to boost traffic enforcement through additional manpower.” (Source: Pinal County shelves speed-camera program)

To me these cameras are more about revenue than safety.  Better ways exist to slow traffic and raise awareness of the presence of school children.   Ticketing was to begin on February 1st but the Post-Dispatch reported on the 4th that warnings will continue through at least the end of the month.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Do you give money to the homeless on the street?

“Do you have any change?” Most of us have been approached by a homeless person asking for money.

The poll this week asks how you respond when asked for money.  Next week when I present the poll results I’ll have some expert views on the subject.  In the meantime please vote and share your thoughts below.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: readers mostly in unison on green living

A majority of readers in the poll last week seem to be well matched with mates who feel as they do about living a green lifestyle. (Poll: Your household divided by a green line?)

Poll: Does a green line divide your household? Between those who choose to live green and those that don’t?

1. No problem, we’re on the same page: 52 [57%]
2. I live alone: 20 [22%]
3. Mildly irritating: 11 [12%]
4. Other answer… 8 [9%]
5. Divisive with resentments and arguments: 1 [1%]
6. I want an eco-divorce, our values aren’t the same anymore 0 [0%]

The first two “other” responses represented a couple of readers who are probably expressing  “green fatigue,” the U.K. term for the eco-backlash to a barrage of green moralism. While other comments divided evenly between support for a diversity of opinion and certain resentments:

• I’m tired of being told to be green.
• Get over it, never been green.
• They are willing to go along as long as I do the work.
• I’ve been green for years.
• Live with lazy parents.
• We respect each other’s opinion and live accordingly.
• We have eco-tension.
• Platonic homeowners here – with a divide. Non-divisive.

There are many things that may have affected the outcome of this poll. City dwellers are probably a little more eco-conscious to begin with since the decisions that lead to an urban lifestyle (walkable neighborhoods, commutes by mass transit, and multi-family housing) are in and of themselves environmental choices.

Age may also play a role as younger couples may have taken eco-values in consideration during their courtships, while older couples may have more conflicts since eco-values weren’t a part of the equation when they originally selected their partner.  At any age, eco-conversions can be painful when one partner adopts a green lifestyle while the other partner clings to the same-old ways of living.

Then there is the bias of geography. Eco-tensions would be dealbreakers in Seattle or Portland; a violation of strong, commonly held social norms. Here in St. Louis, not so much.

Given all the other things that can drive a wedge in a relationship—money, children, unemployment, ill health—eco-concerns pale in comparison. The bottom line is that most people don’t consider a difference of opinion about green living as a serious enough breach to jeopardize their partnerships. At least for now.

– Deborah Moulton

Stroke recovery as a model for cities

Two years ago today, at a month shy of age 41, my life changed dramatically:  not long after 4pm I had a hemorrhagic stroke – a vein in the right side of my brain burst and began bleeding in my skull.  Within 10 minutes I had to lower myself to my floor so I wouldn’t fall.  I was unable to get to my phone to summon help and my left side was quickly paralyzed.  I wasn’t sure what was happening.  One thing I knew was I was likely to die if I didn’t get help.   Somehow I managed to live and fifteen hours later a worried friend came to my loft and found me curled up in a ball on my floor.

These past two years I’ve had an amazing recovery although I am still disabled and I still have setbacks (such as falling 2 weeks ago).  As I’ve worked to rebuild my left side I have thought how my process can be applied to cities such as St. Louis.

St. Louis, like many older cities, hemorrhaged population for decades. In the last decade (2000-2009) the population bleeding stopped but the total loss has been steep.  Like me, cities could no longer function as they had before.  Time to begin the urban therapy.

Two years ago I was left handed, now I’m right handed.  The portion of my brain that controlled the left side of my body was lost forever.  In therapy I learned I had to rewire my brain so the surviving cells would take on the function of controlling my left side.  At first I awkwardly used my right hand to eat and brush my teeth. Like cities that look back and think “if only” I thought I’d one day get back the full use of my left hand as a left handed person.  I was so wrong.  I do use my left hand now and I push myself to do as much as I can with it as I know that is the only way it will get stronger.

Cities have been in the same situation, a stroke of massive population job losses.  This lost left cities unable to function as they had before.  But our therapy for cities has been hoping they’d regain lost function.  As I know function does return.  I can walk again but I can’t run, skip or ride a bike – yet.

Cities need to start with the basics, one step at a time.  Cities need to examine what no longer works and what can come back first.  In stroke therapy they leg returns before the arm.  Fingers come back very late.  I can barely move my left ankle and I still can’t move my toes on my left foot.  Cities, I think, have been trying to move their big toe rather than get their leg back first.

The therapy I would suggest for cities is to focus on minimal basics needed to function, focus on what makes a city a city.  Walkable.  Parking is on the street or behind buildings. Density higher than the edge.

By design a core city is very different than the ex-urban fringe.  One is old and one is young.  Age does matter.  I’ve met older stroke survivors that have a harder time regaining function.  Another factor is how quickly you get help. Older cities that haven’t had help for a long time are more a challenge.

It has been a long & hard two years — considerable effort on my part as well as many others.  I have years of work remaining and so does St. Louis.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Readers not keen on open enrollment in public schools

A majority of readers in the poll last week were not keen on the idea of open enrollment for Missouri schools (Post: State Senator pushing legislation for open enrollment in Missouri’s public schools).

Q: MO State Senator Jane Cunningham wants “open enrollment” for Missouri’s public schools. For St. Louis this would be

1. a bad idea: 41 [41%]
2. a good idea 35 [35%]
3. unsure 16 [16%]
4. a neutral idea: 6 [6%]
5. Other answer… 3 [3%] 1) Didnt this fail with deseg?  2) Something worth exploring.  3) A good idea IF school funding was only from the state. But its not.

The last “other” response may have hit on the key — the source of funding.  But many see open enrollment as removing students from the St. Louis Public Schools.  Parents chimed in via the comments:

• Wouldn’t such a thing help attract suburban families to city living, since their children could attend schools in the county?
• Having open enrollment will not get the right parents involved in their children’s education.
• The city is totally unsustainable without schools that middle class, educated people will send their kids to.
• Any changes should only include a regionally unified district not the ability to pick and chose districts.
• I doubt I am long for the city for the schooling reason.
• Children are not to be used for “social experiments”.
• My children attend a racially & economically balanced school with high academic achievement, and I live in the only neighborhood in the St. Louis area that offers the walkable, urbane lifestyle I want to have. I believe by virtue of this choice, my children will have a better understanding of the realities of the world than they would if I lived in a typical suburb.

I think the last comment is one of the best on the schools issue.  Middle-class white kids need to learn from an early age how to interact with non-white kids and those from different economic classes.  Their future is one where they will be a minority.  Those who grow up in diverse neighborhoods and attend diverse schools will be better prepared for the future.  I don’t know that open enrollment is the best solution but I know our region needs to have some serious discussions about how better educate all our children.

– Steve Patterson