A stylist was barely starting his shift in a salon in Kansas City, Missouri, when a car broke through the storefront window and landed a few feet away.
These types of crashes were so common on the 5th street that business owners regularly studied each other that showed the damage caused by the four-lane roads lined with shops, bars and restaurants, which drivers were used as shortcuts on the main highway.
“A wide road forces people to think, ‘As fast as we drive on it, the faster the car is driving,” “a bookstore above and apartments, the owner of the salon housing property, said Ryan Ferrell.
When concrete pavement barriers did not work, Ferrell and other business leaders preached to keep the road in a “road diet”.
Some Republican governors have become an equipment that has been removed as a tool that uses numerous cities to calm traffic for many years. President Donald Trump’s administration does not like it.
Federal transportation officials once healed the road diet to cut the crashes from 19% to 47%, but the upcoming road protection grant criteria states that the projects should be considered less favorable, “the project to reduce the capacity of the lane”, the administration said.
The US Transport Department’s Associated Press said in an email statement that “forced travelers to restricted space” can cause crash, irregular techniques and a false feeling of protection. “” The update reflects the category anxiety about the risk of security related to traffic. “
Kansas City saved some money when converting the 31st Street in 2022 because a gas line was going on the way. It has been re -opened with a lane on each direction instead of two, a shared turn lane near the signal intersection, the better pedestrian crossings and street parking spaces.
Whenever the roads are ready to rebuild a road, the road diets are now an automated part of the process in Kansas City. For years, federal guidelines have said that less than 25,000 vehicles a day were appropriate to reduce lanes on the streets. Most four-lane roads in the city do not meet that margin.
Bobby Evans, a city planner of the Central-America Regional Council, working on the road diet in Kansas City, has called Bobby Evans strategy a “smashing success” and one of the most effective tools for speed, crash and injury.
“In the architectural world you would call it environmentalism,” Evans said. “You want to make it so they don’t feel comfortable to go too quickly you’re
Numerous cities have submitted a road diet with the improvement of security.
Philadelphia quotes a 19% decrease in injury crashes. Portland, Oregon, has dropped to at least 10 miles (16 km) traveler vehicles over the speed limit. The average speed of Fort Lodder in Florida has dropped by 5 miles per hour (8 km) on a few roads in a few months.
However, Jabber, the executive director of the Advocacy Organization for the drivers, JB Bieber, said most road diets represent a bad suggestion effort to force vehicles out of the road. He said the number of vehicles on the dietary roads could decrease, but then the surrounding roads need to be absorbed, he said.
“These cars have to go somewhere,” he said. “Cars are like water. They look for their own level.”
Leya Shahum, who directed a non -profit Vision Zero Network for street protection, said road diets are expensive and supported by research for years. The cities of the Republican-leading states are among converters and Shahum is not sure whether the new guidelines of the Trump administration will revisit them.
Shahum said, “I certainly hope that there will be no bleeding to indirectly discourage the use of this proven protection.” “It will be a real damage.”
Trump’s Transport Department quoted the distribution and emergency vehicles in its concerns.
When researchers at the University of Iowa surveyed first-reactivists in Cedar Rapids, their research published last year did not find any significant differences during any street diet. However, when an ambulance used the center lane to pass an ambulance, the drivers needed to be educated about what should be done.
Kara Haman, associate professor of epidemics composed this survey, said he could not remember any major examples of EMS or fire trucks.
“Road diet does not create a dimension that slows them,” he said.
Before Trump, some red states were in doubt.
San Antonio spent several years of the state -owned part of the Broadway Street removed the vehicle lanes and improved the expansion for bikes and pedestrians. However, Texas suddenly recovered the road in 2022, and the project naked, GOP Governor Greg Abbott ran to re -election and called for the closure of anti -car policies.
“They originally used BroadWe as a political football,” said Brian Martin, owner of the electronic bike repair shop, the owner of the Bronco Bike.
The Republican Governor of Florida. Ron Dessantis signed a bill of 180 days in a bill last year and the local government signed the bills that could remove an alley. He said that they would prevent staff from being deliberately preventing the roads.
Not all pushbacks come from the Republican -led states. During the epidemic, California’s Culver City applied a road diet to walk, ride bikes and prioritize transit. But when the cars come back and the traffic backs up miles, the city overturns the plan.
Some residents sued Washington Vancouver, saying that the city should have been kept its road diet for public votes.
One of the opponents said, “I have seen people go to the shoulder or bike lane,” said Justin Wood. ” “It creates more opportunities for conflict.”
Kansas City planner Evans says Road Diets cannot stop all the reckless drivers.
“If you are obliged to go 12 miles away from the speed limit on the three-lane road, you have to be determined, you need to be involved in some stupid, dangerous driving,” Evans said.
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