Ever notice where they put the guardrail on busy roads? 🤔
They think protecting drivers cars from scratches is more important than protecting pedestrians from getting hit, so they make the sidewalk part of the "clear zone"
Physical design is not neutral.
Physical design is an expression of our values.
I think people don't understand how a guardrail works. If it were on the other side, it still likely wouldn't protect any pedestrian. They're made to collapse if you run into them, not stop you instantly. If you hit this, it's going to go outwards several feet, to slow the vehicle down slowly instead of instantly. This means if it's on the other side the vehicle is still going onto the sidewalk.
Concrete barriers can protect a walking path, but not a guard rail.
Ill take getting hit by the deforming guardrail and being pushed away over being pinned between the car and the guardrail. They could also design a guardrail that is more rigid. We protect drivers enough already, we shouldn't comepletely throw away pedestrian safey because some driver cant keep their car on the pavement.
I've also seen many bent guardrails from traffic accident and unless hitting it at one of the ends, the deformation is 2-3 feet max for most cars unless going excessive speeds. There would still be room for a pedestrian to be safe if we provided that space between the guard and the sidewalk.
They could also design a guardrail that is more rigid. We protect drivers enough already, we shouldn't comepletely throw away pedestrian safey because some driver cant keep their car on the pavement.
Again, yes. Concrete barriers do this. I'm not disagreeing we should be protecting pedestrians, just that a guardrail isn't the answer.
Well, this was surprising. I looked on Google images to see if it was the norm(it is) and as a bonus, found out that the guardrail exists only to protect the motorist with no consideration for any pedestrians( src ):
Looking at the 2006 Guidelines for Traffic Barrier Placement and End Treatment Design Ward referred me to, I learned that “the function of a roadside barrier is to shield the motorist from impacting an obstacle along the roadside.”
They are designed to crumple on impact, absorbing energy by bending - quite a bit actually. You would die if you stood behind a crash barrier in a crash. So it's a good thing they're not being put right next to sidewalks, in addition to the accessibility issues.
The actual thing wrong here is that sidewalks go on streets (slow speed, pedestrian traffic) and crash barriers go on roads (high speeds, no expected pedestrian traffic). If you need pedestrian access between two points only connected by road, build a separated path.
No pedestrian should feel unsafe due to the lack of a crash barrier, because no pedestrian should be expected to walk next to car traffic going so fast that curbs aren't enough of a deterrent.
The problem is North America in particular is infected with stroads, roads with street-like characteristics (i.e. lots of houses, businesses, intersections) but retaining the throughput and speed of a road. This design is fundamentally dangerous, to road users and in particular to pedestrians. There are ways to rehabilitate stroads into streets, but that requires actual thoughtful urban planning and not a bandaid solution like "encase sidewalks in concrete".
They're usually put on highways where pedestrian and bike traffic wouldn't be, anyway. OP is an exception because of the ditch right next to the sidewalk.
Yep.
In this case, and I'm guessing in many cases like it, it looks like the rail's there to prevent the vehicle from driving into a ditch or other obstacle.
This is the correct answer. Guard rails are to prevent vehicles from going down steep embankments or other hazards. They can be used for separating traffic from walkways, but I don't think there's been any studies into the efficacy of doing so.
The guardrail can serve the don't-drive-off-embankment function equally well positioned before the sidewalk. The problem is when an out-of-control car strikes the guardrail at a glancing angle, it takes a long time (by design) to grind down to a stop. This creates a bowling alley effect. The guardrail keeps the speedy car centered right on the sidewalk. Any human bowling pins are toast. Some of the most horrific traffic death videos I've seen involve that. Whole families wiped out.
More often than not I've seen these metal guard rails put between the road and the footpath, to be honest.
The curb protects pedestrians from vehicles. The guardrail protects everyone from the drop-off. Neither is 100% effective.
The curb doesn't protect shit. It's only purpose is for drainage.
it also protects cyclists from the same cliff/hill
there really should be 2, though. a proper impact-absorbing guardrail between the road and the sidewalk, and a normal railing on the edge of the sidewalk.
I feel like getting hit by a car is a bigger hazard than choosing to walk/bike down a hill.
In general yes, but if you have to put a barrier between the road and the footpath to keep people safe the problem isn't that there are no barriers
Much more tragic on average per occurrence, of course. But, I'd be willing to bet that the chance of falling down that slope is way higher than being hit, and thus the "average damage over time" is far greater for falls than collisions. People are really bad at comprehending risk. (See: dying from a shark attack or lightning strike being more common fears than dying from falling down the stairs.)
It feels wrong to reduce human lives to a numbers game, but that's what traffic engineering is. If there's a budget, it has to be a numbers game at some level.
To be fair, if pedestrians existed on those roads, they might want to cross it.
And stroads shit the bed on all possible metrics.
It's to protect the trees from the cars, just like zoos contain tiny enclaves of wild nature to protect against the humans who are behind the wire.
nope.
Une glissière de sécurité, parfois appelée « rail de sécurité » ou « garde-fou » (ou encore « bertrame » en Suisse), est une barrière métallique, en béton, ou en bois, disposée le long d'une voie de circulation routière pour amoindrir la gravité des accidents, en évitant notamment les sorties de route.
garde-fou in french is a more interesting name than "guide rail".
A guide rail is a system designed to guide vehicles back to the roadway and away from potentially hazardous situations. There is no legal distinction between a guide rail and a guard rail. According to the US Federal Highway Administration, the terms guardrail and guiderail are synonymous.
Several types of roadway guide rail exist; all are engineered to guide vehicular traffic on roads or bridges. Such systems include W-beam, box beam, cable, and concrete barrier. Each system is intended to guide vehicles back onto the road as opposed to guard them from going off the road into potential danger.
Traffic barriers (known in North America as guardrails or guard rails, in Britain as crash barriers, and in auto racing as Armco barriers) keep vehicles within their roadway and prevent them from colliding with dangerous obstacles such as boulders, sign supports, trees, bridge abutments, buildings, walls, and large storm drains, or from traversing steep (non-recoverable) slopes or entering deep water. They are also installed within medians of divided highways to prevent errant vehicles from entering the opposing carriageway of traffic and help to reduce head-on collisions. Some of these barriers, designed to be struck from either side, are called median barriers. Traffic barriers can also be used to protect vulnerable areas like school yards, pedestrian zones, and fuel tanks from errant vehicles. In pedestrian zones, like school yards, they also prevent children or other pedestrians from running onto the road.
I mean, I get where this post is coming from, but they didn't build guardrails along every single street and deliberately put them behind the sidewalks. They put it there because behind it is a steep dropoff.
It was never about "pedestrian bad", the guardrail wouldn't be there at all if it wasn't for the hill. Same thing with the parking meters others are mentioning. It's not because the meters are more valuable or whatever, it's because replacing them is expensive. Could they have put it in front of the sidewalk? Sure. But I'd bet the sidewalk was there for a while before the rail (plus the fact that there's a sidewalk at all is surprising, in the US)
I get the point this is going for, but don't forget, narrative manipulation can, and is, done by anyone.
The bigger issue I see here is that pedestrian access received exactly 0 minutes thought when this road was built, even though there's clearly enough foot traffic to form a desire path on the patch of grass on the left side of the picture. That doesn't happen without foot traffic, but not only is there no pedestrian crossing of any kind, but there isn't a foot path on the island on the left, even though there's a footpath leading up to it that just ends without anything to connect to.
What do they think people would walk there for? To just stop at the intersection and turn back?
"they" actually dont think, protecting vehicles from scratches is more important than protecting pedestrians.
The protection of uninvolved persons or areas next to the road, as well as oncoming traffic, is literally in the guidelines of how to build guardrails (RPS).
I'm as much 'fuckcars' as the next guy here, but please don't post a picture from any random place on earth and blame "them". Who's them? The world ministry of transport?
The FHWA guidance on guardrails (https://highways.dot.gov/safety/rwd/reduce-crash-severity/guardrail-101) is very clear that the guardrails are there for drivers and in fact makes exactly zero mentions of pedestrian safety. Many states have specific guidance that guardrails should be placed behind sidewalks. Here is an example from NCDOT: "The preferred treatment is to place the face of the guardrail 12 feet from the face of the curb. The 12 feet width provides ample sight distance for any intersecting streets or driveways near the guardrail installation. This placement method will also accommodate for sidewalk installation. The guardrail will be placed behind the sidewalk" (https://connect.ncdot.gov/projects/Roadway/Roadway%20Design%20Manual/03.%20Guardrail,%20Barriers%20and%20Attenuators.pdf). "Them" is the institutionalized practice of traffic engineering that treats safety of those outside of a vehicle as an afterthought and not a primary purpose of road design elements in the US (and to varying extents, other countries)
This would likely only be changed in this particular location when someone gets killed from it.
Too many dangerous situations are only fixed after someone is seriously injured or killed. Or as is often said "regulations are written in blood."
Y-yeah..?
In NYC they put parking meters on the sidewalk behind metal bollards. Note that they do not put bollards on street corners at pedestrian crossings. Even in the modern intersection redesigns with the wider sidewalk cutouts, the DOT still only ever uses collapsible plastic bollards at best, if at all. Every time I wait for a crossing light as a pedestrian in one of those brown-paint-only sidewalk cutouts at street level, I look over my shoulder to one of these parking meters up on the curb behind their bollards and awe at how much more protection a dumb piece of metal street furniture gets than the squishy me.
Saw an example of correct guardrail usage today, with the overgrown path that some other commenters were worried about.
(Lincoln Highway Hackensack River Bridge in Newark)
Let me tell you one thing, I would 100% rather ride on this overgrown sidewalk than on the shoulder of the 55mph highway without a shoulder. This is the official bicycle/pedestrian bridge crossing. I wasn't sure whether the bridge path is even open or exists, but it does and there were even other people using it. (There is a second mesh fence on the embankment side, more so to protect the bushes than to stop you falling over.)
And then take a look at this other beauty today:
(Weequahic Park Drive, New Jersey)
Correct guardrail usage AND perfectly maintained path! Alas, pedestrian only, but not a problem to ride on 25mph street. Proof that putting the guardrail before the sidewalk is perfectly possible, both legally and practically. (There is a lake down the embankment. Don't walk into the lake.)
seriously i should be allowed to take my 2 ton machine and smash it into those stupid trees
And what story does this tell?
Is that a bicycle path and a dirt running track, or is the desire path in the dirt the official bicycle route and the side road behind the guardrail is for horses or golf carts or something?
The path closest to the road is the footpath. The other path is the cycle path. They put the guardrail in between for some reason.
Consequently the footpath isn't used and pedestrians and cyclists need to share the cycle path.
It's Stevenage, a town in the UK that was designed and built in the 50s and 60s with cycle paths along most major roads, pretty unique for that time. It was championed by one person during construction. The decades after haven't been kind to the cycle network. The footpath is closest to the road because the designer thought that would be the most convenient for bus stops (it isn't).
Attacks OP by calling them stupid multiple times
"Don't bother with personal attacks …"
Good explanation but no need to behave like an asshole.
I mean, you're not wrong, except it's not to keep the cars from getting scratched. It's there to keep the car from going off into the ditch. It also prevents pedestrians from walking off the edge. If there was no slope there, then there would be no guardrail at all. We don't typically put rails between roads and pedestrian walkways because it would prevent pedestrians from crossing the street. If the rail were closer to the road, the foliage would probably overtake the walkway.
I agree that we should make our communities more walkable, and I agree that safety measures should prioritize the safety of people over inconvenience or the damage of property. But we should understand and accurately describe the reason for the current system, lest we be dismissed entirely.
The problem is once you put people on this path of playing the victim, they see everything through the lens of being personally wronged. They incorrectly attribute all attributes of everything, eventually, to someone attempting to harm them in some way. Thankfully this community still has their wits about them, but I see this happen everywhere on the internet.
The internet also just has a general problem of burying nuance in preference to big simple opinions.
The foliage thing is nonsense. The guardrail does nothing to stop plants from growing. And the guardrail ends at the crossing area anyway. So I think OP has a point here.
Agreed, and with the design of some of our roads, maybe its a good thing to discourage certain pedestrian crossings. It isn't fair pedestrians may have to walk a significant extra distance to cross, but there are also some sections of road like curves and merge lanes that are more dangerous to cross illegally.
Right, but a mower isn't going to go on the other side of a guardrail to clear it, and people aren't going to walk there if it's all overgrown.
Now do the stoplight post in the background.
They mean that they put the guard rail on the other side so it's less likely a car with get scratched by accidentally rubbing up against the rail by getting too close if they aren't paying attention. Instead they will just run over a pedestrian. Of course the rail is there to prevent them from going into the ditch, but it would do that either way whether it's on one side of the walkway or the other.
And the foliage would take over the walkway no matter where the rail is, there's no root barrier or anything, so they still need to maintain the vegetation with landscape crews anyway.
Rails preventing pedestrians crossing the street would probably also be a good thing because usually they are on a corner/curve which would be very dangerous area to cross with low visibility, they can easily make a gap in the rail at a crosswalk when the road straightens out.
They very much meant to protect from the branches scratching the cars
Maybe pedestrians shouldn't be crossing busy roads unless at designated crossings. Additionally, if they are going to jaywalk, having the barrier would at least ensure they have some kinda bare minimum physicality in order to hop over the barrier.
And seriously, how often has a vehicle guard rail been the deciding factor in a pedestrian falling down the ditch?
Zoom in.