This interactive report describes Needham’s pedestrian safety program in general, and includes a detailed section on street lighting analysis done by the GPI planning firm.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/51db1cace81a4e2884de5c2268429cef
My initial snarky thought was to ask if they put flashing lights around the report. So far, Needham’s toolbox seems to have held a single hammer: add always-on flashing lights at problem areas. Flashing stop signs and ped signs seem like a really bad idea to me, since they effectively normalize inattentive driving and suggest that non-flashing signs aren’t as important. I wonder if there’s any consensus on this in the engineering world.
Turns out, the report is mostly about lighting, which is good, but it is surprisingly thin on intersection design.
It’s interesting to see that different temperature lighting was used for main streets, as opposed to different power levels. Is that a good approach?
Actually, from the title I thought it would be about street lighting, so I was initially surprised they even put the intersection stuff in there at all.
I think color temperature should be constant and warm. Can’t wait to see what West Newton Sq will look like; they have installed the new poles already.
I’m happy to see that Needham acted. To be fair, the problems had been known for years, but it took the deaths of teens to do something.
Now, if we can get them to consider bikes as somewhat important.
So far, their action has been to put up flashing ped warning signs at the site. I’m not impressed.
I’m sort of impressed with the work GPI did for them. I haven’t heard of this firm before.