A car became stuck on a neon-yellow “slow street” concrete barrier in Vancouver, Canada, as shown in photo posted Thursday by local radio show host Jill Bennett, who complained that the highly visible traffic measures were creating “chaos” on the city’s streets.
“Hey @CityofVancouver this is second incident I’ve seen caused by these useless ‘slow street’ barricades installed last month. They don’t slow down traffic; they cause crashes and traffic chaos,” Bennett tweeted.
Hey @CityofVancouver this is second incident I’ve seen caused by these useless ‘slow street’ barricades installed last month. They don’t slow down traffic; they cause crashes and traffic chaos. pic.twitter.com/A4xZOwMCGi
— Jill Bennett (@jillreports) March 23, 2023
Multiple Twitter users disagreed with Bennett, with one suggesting that the motorist whose vehicle ended up teetering on top of the barrier deserved that fate: “This is the best endorsement of slow street barriers I’ve ever seen. Just delicious!”
Another user expressed a similar sentiment. “Hi Jill, what you see in this picture is ‘consequences’ and ‘someone who should have slowed down’ and ‘someone who WAS slowed down’ and ‘a potential pedestrian life saved.’ Hope this helps!” he wrote.
Hi Jill, what you see in this picture is “consequences” and “someone who should have slowed down” and “someone who WAS slowed down” and “a potential pedestrian life saved.” Hope this helps!
— Philip Bunn (@PhilipDBunn) March 24, 2023
A third user questioned how fast the driver would “need to be going to get that far over a barrier” before coming to a stop. “Asking for the roughly 8,000 pedestrians that get killed in crashes every year,” the user added.
The City of Vancouver began installing “slow street” barriers during the pandemic, City News Everywhere reported. The original orange, plastic barriers were installed on local streets as a safety measure, so that drivers entering from a busier street were forced to slow down, according to Katherine Glasgow, branch manager of Community Transportation for the City of Vancouver. “This is kind of a new traffic calming tool, in our toolbox, so to speak,” Glasgow continued.
In January, the city announced that the temporary plastic barriers would be replaced with permanent concrete ones.
Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, told City News there is a need for this program as Vancouver transitions from a city “dominated by the automobile into something that deals with much more sustainable modes of transportation.” (RELATED: Tucker Carlson Rips Justin Trudeau For Using Covid-19 Pandemic To Push Social Controls)
The new barriers are also expected to lower road maintenance costs, Glasgow told City News. The city planned to spend $200,000 to install the new concrete barriers on 42 local streets throughout Vancouver, the outlet reported in January.