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Why does nobody talk about how one small curb radius change fixed my whole street's crossing problem
I used to think curb radius was just a boring engineering detail nobody needed to care about, until our block in Grand Rapids got a redesign last fall and I watched it play out in real time. The old corner had a big sweeping turn, like 40 feet, so cars took that right turn at full speed and barely slowed for anyone in the crosswalk. Then the city tightened it to about 15 feet, and the difference was wild. Drivers now have to actually slow down to make the turn, and I saw a mom with a stroller cross there on Tuesday without doing that little half jog people used to do. I got stubborn about this for a while because I figured it would just make traffic back up, but the backups never came. The thing that really got me was standing there one morning and realizing I wasn't bracing myself before stepping off the curb anymore. Has anyone else watched a small design tweak like this change how a whole intersection feels, or is this just a Grand Rapids thing?
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