Snow on roads and on sidewalks can teach us a lot about how we use our road ways. The popular urbanist hashtag #sneckdown always pops up on social media after a big snowstorm. A Sneckdown is essentially a neckdown or curb extension created by unplowed snow. It creates instant traffic calming, narrowing lanes, shortening pedestrian crossings, and slowing turning traffic.

It also shows how little space cars actually use. Even when snow is plowed, often you can see that the travel patters are much tighter and smaller than how we build out our roads. This is an important point considering that often people opposed to building more bike or pedestrian facilities on roadways point to scarcity of space.

When You Eliminate or Calm Traffic, Streets Become Places For People Again

One of my favorite outcomes of the blizzard was how many people I saw out walking both during and the days that followed. With cars still buried, side streets unplowed, and MTA service suspended if folks wanted to combat cabin fever they had to use their feet. With cars mostly off the road, folks felt free to walk in groups down the center of the street, people chatted with neighbors as they shoveled. All of sudden people were hanging out outside again--together.

While some businesses reported being negatively impacted by the snow, some other businesses hit record sales as folks looked to leave the house. It would be really interesting to look at sales numbers of those businesses in more dense walkable neighborhoods, versus those that require you to drive there. What implication does that have for our future zoning decisions? What really drives economic growth? Is it really the number of parking spaces, or is actually the number of people who can easily access the space?

We know that activating public spaces with people walking and biking can improve public safety. We also know that communities that make it easier and safer to bike and walk places have improved public health outcomes. But the solution--restricting or calming traffic is often met with opposition. In the snowy days following the blizzard when traffic was light, we got a glimpse of what could be.