🟥

tl;dr summary: Instead of more police and fire responding to crashes at Pearl/Calhoun, please send Public Works staff with red paint.

As I neared home yesterday evening, the flashing lights of a police cruiser and an ambulance were visible at the end of the block. I was glad to see my kids and spouse had just arrived themselves, and I went inside to help them.

My wife's commute back to Alameda had been delayed by a major crash approaching the San Mateo Bridge, so they were all arriving home later than usual. On the upside, she and our kids hadn't been rolling through the intersection of Pearl St. and Calhoun St. when that crash had occurred:

PulsePoint app report indicating that, according to my novice interpretation: a battalion chief, an engine, a medic (ambulance), and a truck from Alameda Fire Department all responded to the crash at Pearl/Calhoun. (TAC03 just refers to the radio channel they all used to communicate during the response.)

Our auto-oriented ground transportation network sure produces a startlingly large number of "accidents" on a daily basis — so many, that they don't seem accidental at all. Not to say that they are deliberate. It's as if we've designed our streets and freeways to simply assume and excuse a baseline amount of danger.

This morning, as a neighborhood's worth of kids walked toward Otis Elementary School and Lincoln Middle School, a smashed car remained at Pearl/Calhoun, along with plastic gloves and some other detritus from first responders:

While I do not know what exact combination of driver behavior led to this crash, the analysis and potential improvements in this blog's previous post about Pearl/Calhoun titled Zooming into one intersection — and zooming out to the network are almost certainly still relevant:

mini neighborhood traffic circles to add "horizontal deflection" in the middle of the expansive pavement of intersections like Pearl/Calhoun
extremely targeted edits to connectivity of the overall street network, such as a planned turn restriction at the northern end of Pearl St

Since those changes are beyond the city's capabilities at the moment, this pattern of crashes at Pearl/Calhoun does call for an immediate response:

Alameda's Public Works department should paint red "no parking" curbs approaching the intersection of Pearl/Calhoun
By "daylighting" the intersection, the city will better ensure that drivers can see oncoming traffic — as well as see shorter kids on foot or bike

The city has an ongoing project to perform daylighting at intersections throughout the Alameda. The intersection of Pearl/Calhoun is now asking to be on that list.

I hope the person transported in that ambulance makes a full recovery. And let's stop thinking of accidents as purely random occurrences, but rather as crashes that can — and should — be addressed through proactive and systematic efforts.