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Showing posts from November, 2013

A Treatise on Raised Crosswalks

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One of the major concerns I have noticed in many residential neighborhoods is the lack of awareness around intersections, especially in regards to obeying stop signs. Too often drivers view stop signs as a suggestion rather than traffic code. For instance, recently in Hampden, stop signs were added at 36th St. and Elm Ave. and at 34th St. and Chestnut Ave. While many looked at this as a great example of traffic calming, many resident complained because it interfered with long standing driving patterns. Clearly it's hard to win. Now this brings me to my point: raised crosswalks. Baltimore has already invest in speed humps, which are effective at traffic calming, but can still be abused since one can run a car over them above the posted speed with little inconvenience.  However, as far as I know, Baltimore has not taken the next step of integrating this at crosswalks. stepping stones in Pompeii  The concept of these go as far back as Roman antiquity. Where stepping stones wer

Swing and a Miss, Chase Brexton

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When Chase Brexton moved to their new location, they added a nice flashy sign denoting their location. However they didn't exactly get it right. First it advertised "1111 Charles" forgetting that there is actually a difference between North and South Charles streets. 1111 South Charles is an empty lot in Federal Hill 2 miles away. Strike One.  I guess they realized their error and got a new sign. This one now advertises the address of the former Monumental Life annex but says "1125 Charles North".  Now they are either trying to make a connection with the growing neighborhood above Penn Station, or they didn't hire a good sign company. Strike Two.