In New Orleans, it isn’t cars or hills that are the bicyclists main enemy, it’s potholes and poorly paved streets. On a route that I often take, I have to navigate and joust to the left and right to avoid running into bumps in the road that have, in the past, knocked my feet off my pedals.
While potholes persist as the number one enemy, the city’s effort to repave roads is a bittersweet solution. Recently, my street was repaved: prior to last week it was bumpy and uneven, but by New Orleans standards, in pretty good shape. Now, it is smooth and the blacktop so fresh that it still shines under the streetlights. As I ride my bicycle down my street I feel as if I’m sailing. Unfortunately, cars apparently have the same sensation. Since the repaving, I’ve noticed many more cars driving at higher speeds that were impossible when the street was harsher.
As an urban planning student, I’ve always thought of traffic calming in certain terms: speed bumps, decrease street width, etc., but now I see that disrepair and neglect are just as effective, if not more so. This isn’t an endorsement of city government leaving streets in bad shape, it is simply a notation on the fact that repaving a road, which seems like a win-win, has negative repercussions of its own.
Dan O’Connell, legendary Albany political boss and policy maker, also realized that potholes are effective traffic controls…