Mikel Murga is the co-instructor of Urban Transportation Planning, a course I’m taking this semester that is packed full of great information. Actually, if you want to be technical I am not taking the class but am listed as a listener do to time constraints. At least that is what I keep telling myself, but I still manage to watch a healthy dose of football each weekend. Not sure how that works…but heh, Boomer Sooner!

Anyhow, in Friday’s class he did a presentation on traffic calming techniques that he has successfully employed around world. Fascinating stuff and I now have a list of ideas I can’t wait to see happen in OKC! Still, one particular diagram – one that explains the reason we need traffic calming – is what really stuck out:

It is abundantly clear that pedestrians and cars traveling over 30 mph do not mix well! Doesn’t necessarily matter what the sign says if the cars are traveling faster. Not sure if OKC keeps data on marked speed compared to actual speed, but it would be interesting to see what the speeds are in areas that are commonly used by pedestrians (e.g. Bricktown, Downtown, Western Ave, etc).

Anyway, I am sure that I will post more from this class, but If this type of stuff really interest you then you have to check out MITOPENCOURSEWARE, which makes available presentations, lecture notes, assignments, etc, from a number of courses including this one – which you can find here: 11.540J Urban Transportation Planning!