Stop Chicken Little: The Truth about Traffic in Portland, Maine |
Welcome |
raised
crosswalk design from Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices
2005
This is the "Stop Chicken Little"
traffic calming information site for Portland, Maine.
What's the
"Chicken Little" reference?
The Stevens Avenue Traffic Calming
Project : One of the top three traffic Franklin
Arterial Redesign 2014 : One of THE major
arterial / gateway roads of Portland is being narrowed to
make the road safer?.... or not. Maybe easier to cross by making
it twice as wide?.... or not. To eliminate green space?....
Maybe not. Not really sure.....A gorgeous pathway to
Portland gets tarred under.
The
Capisic Street Speed table project 2002: Four more speed tables :
illegal, but
Median installation : a spreading cancer
of vehicle damage and expense.
Covered here in some detail are the Woodfords
median, Vannah Avenue / Baxter
Blvd. median, and the Dartmouth St. /
Baxter Blvd. median. Miscellaneous
Medians has a little on the Preble St. median by the Hannaford, and
some medians on Washington Avenue extension.
All of the information here has been gathered from official Portland DPW, Maine state and federal government sources, and from other local and state traffic engineering offices from around the nation and world I say this because people sometimes think I am making this stuff up. I'm not.
Since 1997 the city has installed traffic calming illegally on other
streets, in violation of its own ordinances. Dangerous
medians, traffic circles, illegal stop signs, and stanchion projects
have been installed. The latest big fiasco by far has been the
All of this has been done by the City Council as an effort to keep their friends happy. Agenda-driven, the friends know what they want to have done, but not what they are talking about. They think they do but unfortunately they don't, and they don't care. Consequently, the general populace sees bad calming techniques of one sort or another being installed on others streets. They also assume that this is a good thing for their neighborhood , and start clamoring for their own calming project, especially once the traffic from the first project starts rolling through their neighborhood in an effort to avoid the first project! And so it spreads.
People ask me : "WHY DO you DO this?" I research this material because I
am SO tired of politicians lying to the public, by omission or
commission. They really have to stop. It's too dangerous in too many
ways. (Chicken Little illustration by David Peterson, age 10) |