Part 2 of 3

If Hartford is to ever inch into the 21st century, those within the local government are going to need imagination, drive, and courage. Private investment can only be part of the equation, and even then, that can be stalled by those in power.

Here are a few concepts that have been proposed and met with a surprising amount of opposition.

Crosswalk Art

Archer art found on the Internet

Sometimes, useful and funky ideas are promoted by those who are not Generation X or younger, yet, still get dismissed because they are believe to be against the rules. The thing with rules is that they can be amended when no longer useful.

In the United States, the Federal Highway Administration has taken out its claws on the occasions when locals have used bright paint to draw attention to pedestrian crossings. Angie Schmitt of Streetsblog says, “there is no rigorous empirical evidence that crosswalk art reduces safety for pedestrians,” yet here we are, being limited by a problematic study from 1972.

Several cities have gone ahead and installed colorful and creative crosswalks regardless, aiming to reduce traffic fatalities to zero.

Paint is one of the least expensive ways to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists, and Hartford offers many opportunities for such improvements. Intersections near schools and parks are obvious starting points.

If we, as a city, are unwilling to adopt attention-grabbing fixes for our streets, then we must — at minimum — maintain the standard white stripes, refreshing paint as needed and installing crosswalks where people have shown strong preference for them. By the looks of it, we are currently doing neither.

Liability is typically cited as the reason for why we “can’t” try different approaches, but one wonders what liability the City of Hartford opens itself to by doing nothing.

Electric Scooters

With several hundred bicycles now deployed in Hartford by Lime, their electric scooters may not be far behind.

These are not the toy scooters you see kids riding; nor are they the ubiquitous mopeds. Lime allows only adults with a driver’s license to ride. The electric scooters have automatic headlights and several brakes.

Their maximum speed is 14.8 MPH, and that speed increase is gradual and controlled by the user. For perspective, the average car can exceed 100 MPH even though it is illegal for cars to operate at that speed on any of Connecticut’s roadways. The average cyclist rides 12 to 18 MPH on flat terrain, faster downhill. When we look at which vehicle (auto, electric scooter, or bicycle) strikes pedestrians most frequently and with the most severe consequences, well, go search that.

You will find that in the top articles decrying injuries and deaths related to e-bikes and electric scooters, none mention catastrophic injuries and deaths related to automobiles. Omitting this important point of comparison is strategic at worst, and indicative of our cultural norms at best. A 2016 journal article describing a study from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2015 in Israel reveals that in all, there were five fatalities caused by e-bikes and motorized scooters. Five. Though that article does not bother to mention it, there were 356 traffic fatalities in Israel in just the last year of that study period. An article out of Singapore described five fatalities related to hoverboards, electric skateboards, and scooters. Scratch the surface of that, and you will see that these were spread out over several years. In 2016, there were 37,461 traffic fatalities in the United States; 30,632 of those were motorists.

Now, search for information about fatalities related to electric bicycles and scooters specifically in the United States. You won’t find much. San Francisco is experiencing its own freakout over scooters, and according to The Bay City Beacon, the “City Attorney’s office could not find a single example of a serious injury coming from powered scooters. The worst it could cite was ‘a report of an injury of a broken toe after tripping on a scooter that was lying on the sidewalk.‘”

It is curious why legislation was passed regarding electric bicycles and why people get nervous about electric scooters when we know, statistically, which mode far surpasses the others in causing serious injury and death. It is curious that even with speed limiters in place on electric scooters and electric bicycles, these have not been applied to cars with their greater capacity for serious damage. How is it that insurance companies do not require speed limiters as a condition of maintaining coverage?

Safety is important, which is why we need to carefully evaluate the most dangerous and prevalent mode. Those pedestrian fatalities? Those were not the result of people tripping over their own feet, but of collisions with motor vehicles. If we’re going to claim to be safety-conscious, Hartford needs to become a Vision Zero city and address the top threats to residents’ safety.


Dog Parks

Why is this one so difficult?

If managed well, the fears about dog waste and noise should be diminished.

Would it not be easier to maintain and enforce poop removal for a relatively small, fenced area than for when people illegally let their dogs roam an entire park? Waste left behind can be discarded by a “poop patrol,” or if we must be more polite, a Friends of the Hypothetical Dog Park. Creative and sustainable measures could encourage compliance, such as installing a methane digester. The so-called poop problem is a silly reason to drag our feet on this. We have not stalled on creating playgrounds because toddlers are roaming with loaded diapers that might be tossed on the ground instead of in proper facilities.

Just as people are not supposed to be in parks from dusk until dawn, there can be hours for the dog parks to cut down on noise, though most people would not be taking their pups out very late anyway because who ever even does that? Plus, if we want to apply some feelings to this one, some of us prefer the sound of barking dogs over that of leaf blowers and car stereos on a Saturday morning.

How is it that Hartford has stalled on this?

When we rely on intuition and anecdotes, eschewing facts that don’t confirm feelings, we get in our own way.
Do we let the city evolve or do we send it to hospice in an Uber?

Read part one and three