Chris Hardie's Blog

I was struck by 2 aspects of this article.

The first was Doug Bennett's comment on the state standards for the placement of traffic signals. He notes that it took 50 years of lobbying for the colloge to get the signal placed, and the big obstical was IDOT's adherence to the "federal standards" which focus on the amount of vehicle crossing/entry at an intersection to determine whether signal placement is justified.

Doug made the point that this standard takes no acount of pedestrian crossing traffic, so the actual rate of risk - not just the rate of pedestrian traffic - drives the decision: a very morbid meathod of protecting the public.

It is clear that these standards are baised towards the motoring public - which is not really surprising from a culture that has not had any economic idea besides automobiles in 100 years. Nor is it likely to change, as the federal government is set to bail out the auto industry and spend billions on roads and highways.

Earlham is one of the community's largest, longest standing, and most stable employers. Founded in 1847, it was here before the auto industry and its many affiliate manufactorors, and it is still here and going strong - long after the auto industry has all but left town.

It strikes me as odd that such a valuable component of this community had to struggle for years to get some accomodation from the state for its paying "customers" while the town bends over backwards to accomodate any other industry.

Clearly, the folks in Yellow Springs, Ohio could tell us something about how the loss of such a private college can impact a small community. The city, county and state take Earlham for granted - maybe the college should adopt a more "modern" view of the importance of bricks and mortar, and shop itself around to other communities like so many other businesses - I'm sure the folks in Yellow Springs would offer the college big incentives to make the move.

I'm not advocating that stance, but certainly Doug would have had faster reuslts years ago by forming a "relocation committee" to force the issue.

I saw that PI article when it came out, and it upset me greatly. I had not made any great commitment towards expressing my opposition to this idea, because I felt that INDOT would never agree to it. Unfortunately, it appears that Earlham was finally able to get the right politician on its side who knew how to exert pressure. Where was this guy when they got robbed by the Connor Prairie people?

I agree that some treatment of the intersection was needed. My opinion however is that a light is the wrong treatment. I had read earlier that INDOT had previously decided on a pedestrian refuge in the center of the road, so people would be able to cross two lanes, safely wait for traffic to clear, then cross the other two. This is a typical design for this type of road, one that is used successfully here at Purdue for vastly larger volumes of crossing students than Earlham could generate if it moved all the dorms across US 40. In fact, I applied this design for a very similar situation on a road I was designing this summer adjacent to Northwestern University.

The volumes of pedestrians crossing this road are minor and infrequent compared to the large traffic volumes passing along US 40, which is why INDOT has been so adamantly against this idea for so long. Additionally, lights may not make the intersection any safer for pedestrians, especially when compared to the pedestrian refuge. Pedestrians may no longer pay as much attention to traffic, assuming blithely that traffic will yield the right-of-way when instructed to by the light. However, Richmond drivers will likely become accustomed to waiting at the light for little or no traffic and start to run the yellow or even the red. An inattentive pedestrian and a careless driver are more likely a tragedy than a driver that need not care and a hyper-aware pedestrian.

Lastly, I believe the Earlham administration is aware of these arguments and knows the 'refuge' concept will solve the problem of crossing at least as well or better than a light. Therefore, it is my hypothesis that they really want the light to improve vehicular access to and from the main entrance, especially the left turn out of the entrance. They use the 'pedestrian' argument since they know that the vehicular volumes do not come close to meeting a signal warrant, but that there is a special case allowing a light to be installed when there is a (paraphrase, my apologies) "history of crashes causing injuries to pedestrians", especially when the intersection is near a school or other educational institution.

I don’t think there’s any evidence or even hint of bad faith here. It’s simply my cynicism toward all institutions. Here, they could protect students crossing, OR they could protect students crossing and improve their access. It’s a simple calculation; they can have one thing they want or two things they want. Of course they want two! Anybody would. A DOT’s job is to balance the needs of all the users of the road, and here some extra political weight was applied on the ‘Earlham’ side of the balance. It’s what makes traffic engineering such a simultaneously interesting and maddening field- its one part engineering, one part art, and one part political science.

Are Earlham students the only people who cross US 40? I remember having to cross US 40 when walking to and from Dennis Jr. High many years ago. Many a time my friends and I crossed half the way, waited on the double yellow line, then finished crossing. No one was killed or injured--that I know of--but standing in the middle of a federal highway while waiting for traffic to pass is not one of my fondest childhood memories.