Is Takoma Park becoming a gated community?
Recently I received a proposal from the City of Takoma Park for “traffic calming” in my neighborhood. One option called for building “bump-outs” in two paces on Glenside Drive and two places on Wildwood. These bump-outs would block one lane of traffic in order to divert traffic from Wildwood to Glenside and back again (west-bound) and from Glenside to Wildwood and back (east-bound). The purpose of this proposal would be to improve traffic on the affected streets by discouraging “cross-through” traffic, i.e., traffic traveling from one side of the neighborhood to the other without stopping.
I have been trying to figure out why I am so opposed to this proposal, and I think I have identified issues unrelated to the specific proposal that should be considered. Specifically, “traffic calming” seems to be part of a trend toward something that has been called the “fortressification” of America, which I see as a form of NIMBY that is inconsistent with the character of Takoma Park.
Diverting traffic cannot solve traffic problems, it can only move them around. The streets we want to block are public streets. If they allow through traffic, it is because they were designed to do so. People who want to live in a gated community, should move to a gated community. Discouraging traffic on side streets increases it on other streets, which will lead to more demands to block off side streets.
If people who live on Wildwood can keep strangers from using their street, why shouldn’t people on Carroll or Flower have the same right? And there are residential areas on Piney Branch, University, Philadelphia, and Ethan Allen. Maybe we should divert all non-local traffic to the Beltway. But then, how would we get to the Beltway?
I have other concerns (the aesthetics of the proposed traffic barriers, the hostility they suggest toward our neighbors, and interference with emergency vehicles) but it is the underlying philosophy that I think we need to question. Does Takoma Park really want to join the gated community bandwagon?
— Sara Kaltenborn, Takoma Park, MD