April 19, 2011
How we could actually improve our roads
If you’ve ever driven from Newtown to Kilbirnie, you’ll know how godawful the intersection with State Highway One is. The problem is that in order to cross the constant stream of traffic, you are forced to rely on the kindness of strangers giving way to you of their own accord. One enterprising young man had an idea about how to improve the situation.
He built his own professional-looking sign, and with the help of a friend, installed it at the intersection, as you can see in this video. Alas, the sign only stayed up five days before it was removed. But really, wouldn’t it be great if we did perhaps try to be good humans when driving? And perhaps be such good humans that maybe we could think about taking public transport more often, even?
That’s brilliant. It reminds me of artist Richard Ankrom who made a few lookalike freeway signs to help clarify the information the signs were giving to motorists.
His add-ons were eventually taken down, but not before officials redesigning the signs with his suggestions.
Most of Wellington’s traffic problems are human. If people drive as a system, there is tons of capacity. The problem is that every merge and lane-change is hyper-competitive. Build bigger roads and you just get larger scrums. RoNS will fail and we’ll only have achieved cutting Wellington into halves.
This sign improved my life for 5 days! I would have thought that even a man with a clipboard could see the good in this!
I always go slow up the hill from the Kilbirnie lights and let a few through
heh… you think motorists are inconsiderate to each other? try riding a bicycle in wellington and see how courteous, and safe, the motorists are.
that intersection amuses me when i walk or ride past it. cars on SH1 will hurry through the intersection as quickly as they can, only to get 10-20 metres past it and then come to a stop in bumper-to-bumper traffic. why do people do that?