If lights are red in all directions, what do pedestrians do?


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On Saturday, April 8, 2023, 2:00 PM, Greg Weirs via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm@mailman.swcp.com> wrote:

Hi Ben,

I'm not sure what the crew you saw was doing, but we did get more information following our Rest-In-Red outreach meeting that you attended.

As of Wednesday April 29th, the hardware was installed, and the equipment was in a testing and traffic characterization phase for a couple weeks. If no issues came up during that phase, Rest-In-Red would go into operation on the week of April 3rd or April 10th. (Sorry, it is not clear in my notes.) 

Rest-In-Red will not operate 24/7. For higher traffic periods, like commutes, signals will operate as they do now, with timing of signals set for 30mph. Rest-In-Red will operate when traffic is lower. Part of the testing phase is to determine the times Rest-In-Red will operate.

During Rest-In-Red operation, by default all signals at an intersection will be Red. When traffic approaches, if it is approaching at less than the speed limit, the signal for that direction will change to green. If it is approaching at greater than the speed limit, the signal will remain red until the vehicle has stopped at the intersection, and then change green. (When traffic is coming in the other directions that factors into whether and when the signal changes.) 

We did get clarification that it is the posted speed limit (30mph) that determines whether the signal will change green for an approaching vehicle. There are other situations where a triggering speed is greater than the speed limit, but not for Rest-In-Red.

The Lead-Coal Working Group is not looking at citywide positions or recommendations. But with a traffic study, we aim to get an analysis that will cover beyond the immediate Lead-Coal corridor so that any behavioral adjustments drivers make will not just shift speed and safety issues to a different residential street in our neighborhoods.

Thanks for your follow up questions and interest!

Greg

On Fri, Apr 7, 2023 at 3:36 PM Ben Garland via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <neighbors_nobhill-nm@mailman.swcp.com> wrote:

I saw a crew working on the traffic lights at Girard and Lead a couple days ago. Was this to install the RIR? If not, do we know when they will be installed? If so, did the city ever tell us exactly how the RIR will be programmed to work? There was some confusion about whether it's going to 1) Give a red light to vehicles going 39+ mph or 2) Only give a green light if approaching vehicles are doing 39 mph or less.

I also think we should continue to ask DMD to set the RIR to the actual speed limit of 30 mph and not 39 mph as they said at the meeting. I know they are concerned about maintaining the daily traffic volume, but in this corridor the speed limit has no bearing on the total volume whatsoever. The same amount of cars are going to go through Lead and Coal whether the speed limit is 20, 25, or 30 mph.

Long term it would be useful to advocate for a citywide ordinance of 20 mph speed limits on all road segments where the adjacent properties are more than 50% residential (or are residential facilities like parks, schools, churches, libraries, community centers, etc). There's no reason to have speed limits above 20 mph in residential areas, especially with the crazy drivers that we have here in ABQ and the greatly increased chance of fatalities to pedestrians and cyclists when vehicle speeds are above 20 mph.

Thanks!
Ben
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Greg Weirs

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vgweirs@gmail.com

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