Springfield Delays Redesign of Deadly Street To Prioritize Traffic Flow
State Street, Springfield, MA. (Source: MassLive.)
After years of pleading from Springfield residents and Strong Towns members, the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, finally took action in calming their deadly downtown stroad, State Street, with promises to have the section between the library and its parking lot redesigned by this fall.
“Congratulations, Springfield, in taking this first step, for being leaders in building safe streets,” stated Strong Towns President Chuck Marohn in a celebratory video message. This first step has been a long time coming. In 2014, Marohn first wrote of the tragic death of a 7-year-old girl, Destiny Gonzales, who was crossing State Street with her mother. Over the years, we’ve held up State Street as something of a symbol of the awful consequences of the engineering profession’s disregard for the safety of people who walk. Yet Springfield was slow to take action to fix the street. In 2017, Marohn wrote an open letter to the state, and would later feature the poor street design as a prominent subject in his book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. In just two years (2020–2021), 39 individuals lost their lives on Springfield roads. With the city finally taking steps toward permanent redesign, it seemed like the community could take a breath in their victory of creating safer streets for all.
We may have rejoiced too soon, though. Now, only a few months later, the promised permanent redesign of the stroad is being delayed to prioritize traffic flow. MassLive covered in a recent article that Department of Public Works (DPW) officials were concerned they did not have traffic data while school was in session, and that traffic had been strangely low while the temporary design test using cones and barrels was in place. Engineers added to the reasons for the delay by stating they would not receive the needed traffic lights until the spring, anyway.
“This is not anything yet to celebrate,” stated Betsy Johnson, president of the Downtown Counsel, WalkBike Springfield convener, and Strong Towns member.
Even before the delay to the much-needed redesign of the section on State Street, Johnson felt the entire plan was like placing a Band-Aid over a bullet hole.
“It will be an improvement, but it's also not,” she said. Johnson went on to explain how the plan to transition from a four-lane stroad to a two-way street only covered a small section on State Street, and questioned why the city doesn’t add plans to redesign the entire stroad.
“[Cars] will barely slow down,” she said. “Then they'll pick up speed toward the river, where they already killed a teenager last year.” Betsy said that while not being able to receive the traffic light equipment needed for the project was a legitimate reason for some delay, there was no reason why the DPW couldn’t begin working on the pieces they have available. “They could be moving ahead by at least putting in the speed hump,” she said.
This project is meant to slow cars, not improve traffic flow. It would seem the DPW is getting its priorities mixed up—a not-uncommon occurrence when looking at engineering values, which tend to clash with the values of the general public.
According to Chuck Marohn, “This is one of those very clearly immoral situations where the engineering profession is doing a drastic disservice to society by focusing on [the engineering profession’s] priorities—traffic speed and volume—over the safety of people.”
The design of a roadway should reflect its intended use: streets should be designed for safety and building community wealth, while roads should be designed for fast travel. Here’s an example of safe road design and how you could apply it to a stroad.