Sophee Langerman was on her way to a bicycle safety rally in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood in June when a car turning right rolled through a red light and slammed into her bike, which she was walking off the curb and into the crosswalk.
The car was moving slowly enough that Langerman escaped serious injury, but the bicycle required extensive repairs. To Langerman, it’s another argument for ending a practice that almost all U.S. cities have embraced for decades: the legal prerogative for a driver to turn right after stopping at a red light.
A dramatic rise in accidents killing or injuring pedestrians and bicyclists has led to a myriad of policy and infrastructure changes, but moves to ban right on red have drawn some of the most intense sentiments on both sides.
Washington, D.C.'s City Council last year approved a right-on-red ban that takes effect in 2025. New Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s transition plan called for “restricting right turns on red,” but his administration hasn’t provided specifics. The college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, now prohibits right turns at red lights in the downtown area.
You’ve got that entirely backwards: driving must become painful in order for people to support funding alternatives.
Edit: downvote me all you like, folks, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been trying to do it the other way for decades and it doesn’t fucking work.
You’re being downvoted, but that’s exactly what many europeans cities have been doing for many years now. When going into the city center by car is the worst option, people choose other ways to go.
Did those cities already have good mass transit set up to facilitate a better option, I legit don’t know? I like this plan but I wonder if it will be successful with how absolute dog shit this country’s mass transit is.
The difference is that those cities are denser, better laid out for walkability, and have tremendously better public transport.