A car may have plowed into a crowd on Bourbon Street early on Wednesday, the New Orleans Police Department reported, according to ABC News affiliate WGNO.
Bollards save lives. All pedestrian areas should be protected from cars by some kind of physical barrier. This protects against intentional attacks and drunk driving incidents.
The French Quarter has retractable bollards in that area. They had been temporarily removed for upgrades ahead of the Super Bowl. At least that’s the story circulating here.
I agree with you that bollards save lives, but this appears to be a situation where normally drivable streets are closed off for a street party. Is there a feasible way to temporarily block those streets with something that would stop these incidents and also not damage the road (and also not cost taxpayers a ridiculous amount, obviously)?
I was thinking of blocking every street between Canal to the West, Rampart to the North, Esplanade to the East and Decatur to the South. I’ve been to the NOLA French Quarter before and know how busy it gets around event nights. The streets I mentioned surrounding the french quarter are wide enough to bring a massive truck in. The spacing will be wide enough for the mounted police the city employs, or motorbikes where needed, but not enough for cars.
Fire departments need to quit insisting on buying the most massive trucks they can possibly find in every situation. Places outside the US get by just fine with much smaller fire trucks than we use (especially for lower density / low-rise areas). We’ve got to quit turning our residential streets into freeways by building them so wide, and the trucks’ bulk and turning radius needs to stop being an excuse.
If you build high buildings, you need more ladder as a rule of thumb. You can either have more stations, some with smaller gear, or you can economically consolidate.
At this point they’re often doing more harm (in terms of wide streets with channelized intersections making pedestrians less safe from traffic) than good (in terms of providing truck access in the event of a fire), especially for stations serving single-family neighborhoods.
They need to pay the slight extra cost to have different kinds of appropriate equipment for different areas; it’s worth it. It doesn’t happen because the fire department isn’t considering the traffic effects and nobody’s really looking at the big picture.
I wonder how cost-effective doing that would be and also what the damage potential to the street would be? I realize those are callous things to talk about when you’re talking about protecting people’s lives, but unfortunately American cities run on whether or not people think their taxpayer dollars are being spent properly.
They would do far less damage to the roads than the normal traffic rolling over them would over the same period. Damage to the road occurs primarily through point loads. These are distributed area loads that only exert a modest pressure on the ground.
For street parties in my city, they have used concrete “Jersey barriers” or other off the shelf large concrete blocks to temporarily block the ends of the street.
I’m sure New Orleans will get on that right after they put solar panels on every building, a windmill on top of every skyscraper, and free food and education for all.
Bollards that can raise/lower aren’t that expensive and they don’t need to be mechanized. Back at my university, they’d raise them when they’d close off driveable areas for events and there’s just a hook to lift them up and secure at a higher height with a lock. They were made of solid metal and concrete so I assume they had some sort of counterweight underneath to help raise them.
In Austin they commonly block off all roads to 6th Street with at least a cop car, if not two or three. I think this was something overlooked by whoever planned the event, leaving an unprotected street.
In my college town they would use the municipal snow plows to block streets for festivals. I don’t care how much redneck shit you’ve done to your F350, it isn’t beating a snow plow.
NYC uses garbage trucks, in conjunction with cement bricks and pedestrian fencing at large events like NYE. The garbage trucks are easy to move in case emergency access is required.
I’ve seen moveable anti car barricades. I think they work the same as those anti tank things. If someone runs into it the car is lifted off the ground. Something like this https://barriers.miframsecurity.com/products/
I mean, not as many though, and could possibly disable the car. Minimal damage to infrastructure, easy to clean up, doesn’t really affect pedestrians. Spike strips are used to disable cars all the time in car chases. And have you ever tried to drive on a rim, let alone four of them? Control and speed will not be your greatest strengths, less likely to still be at large after the crime. Better than nothing, evidently.
I don’t know that control or speed are really big concerns when barreling toward a large crowd of people. And good luck getting a huge crowd of drunk partiers to stop spilling over toward the caltrops.
Lack of speed and control would hinder any plans they may have had, may have made a mistake, may have been taken into custody. It’s not perfect. But neither was the system they were using to secure the street.
Bollards save lives. All pedestrian areas should be protected from cars by some kind of physical barrier. This protects against intentional attacks and drunk driving incidents.
The French Quarter has retractable bollards in that area. They had been temporarily removed for upgrades ahead of the Super Bowl. At least that’s the story circulating here.
If that’s true I hope they get the shit sued out of them. “Oh sorry we decided to risk you all being murdered for a while”
New Orleans government is legendarily inconmpetent and corrupt, especially law enforcement.
Yeah, and my understanding was there was some other kind of blockade up and he just went around it.
Including bike lanes and bikeways!
There are bollards around the quarter during events. Reports are that the truck. Intensionally avoided and drove through barriers
Reports ARE that the truck.
I agree with you that bollards save lives, but this appears to be a situation where normally drivable streets are closed off for a street party. Is there a feasible way to temporarily block those streets with something that would stop these incidents and also not damage the road (and also not cost taxpayers a ridiculous amount, obviously)?
A simple solution to me would be to place concrete blocks like this
Using a truck like this
That’s what my city does when there is a street party.
Not possible. The French quarter is very small with narrow streets which are used daily when there are no events
If a garbage truck or delivery truck can get there, then so can a forklift bringing the blocks in from an adjacent street or staging area.
FFS
I was thinking of blocking every street between Canal to the West, Rampart to the North, Esplanade to the East and Decatur to the South. I’ve been to the NOLA French Quarter before and know how busy it gets around event nights. The streets I mentioned surrounding the french quarter are wide enough to bring a massive truck in. The spacing will be wide enough for the mounted police the city employs, or motorbikes where needed, but not enough for cars.
I hope you also will leave room for fire trucks
Fire departments need to quit insisting on buying the most massive trucks they can possibly find in every situation. Places outside the US get by just fine with much smaller fire trucks than we use (especially for lower density / low-rise areas). We’ve got to quit turning our residential streets into freeways by building them so wide, and the trucks’ bulk and turning radius needs to stop being an excuse.
If you build high buildings, you need more ladder as a rule of thumb. You can either have more stations, some with smaller gear, or you can economically consolidate.
These two fire trucks have pretty much the same ladder length, despite one truck being nearly twice as long:
The wheels are presumably similar sized by the way.
At this point they’re often doing more harm (in terms of wide streets with channelized intersections making pedestrians less safe from traffic) than good (in terms of providing truck access in the event of a fire), especially for stations serving single-family neighborhoods.
They need to pay the slight extra cost to have different kinds of appropriate equipment for different areas; it’s worth it. It doesn’t happen because the fire department isn’t considering the traffic effects and nobody’s really looking at the big picture.
Certainly, an event emergency plan would include one or two service entrances with the blocks placed slightly further apart.
I wonder how cost-effective doing that would be and also what the damage potential to the street would be? I realize those are callous things to talk about when you’re talking about protecting people’s lives, but unfortunately American cities run on whether or not people think their taxpayer dollars are being spent properly.
A minor sized town near me uses these types of blocks regularly to block off the main street for pedestrians.
I’ll also say I’ve seen Philadelphia just park garbage trucks to block off roads.
Now a garbage truck sounds like a good, cost-effective solution.
They’ll need the garbage truck there at the end of the party anyway.
And if you get too drunk and pass out on the sidewalk, you don’t wake up in the police dunk tank. Instead you wake up in the city dump!
They would do far less damage to the roads than the normal traffic rolling over them would over the same period. Damage to the road occurs primarily through point loads. These are distributed area loads that only exert a modest pressure on the ground.
For street parties in my city, they have used concrete “Jersey barriers” or other off the shelf large concrete blocks to temporarily block the ends of the street.
Yes, block them permanently. Fuck cars.
I’m sure New Orleans will get on that right after they put solar panels on every building, a windmill on top of every skyscraper, and free food and education for all.
You forgot all cops getting fired because there will be no crime there
They have them. The is one wasn’t up for some reason I have not ascertained yet.
What are you adding to the conversation ?
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Bollards that can raise/lower aren’t that expensive and they don’t need to be mechanized. Back at my university, they’d raise them when they’d close off driveable areas for events and there’s just a hook to lift them up and secure at a higher height with a lock. They were made of solid metal and concrete so I assume they had some sort of counterweight underneath to help raise them.
They have them on every street leading into the busy part of Bourbon. This one was down for some reason.
In Austin they commonly block off all roads to 6th Street with at least a cop car, if not two or three. I think this was something overlooked by whoever planned the event, leaving an unprotected street.
In my college town they would use the municipal snow plows to block streets for festivals. I don’t care how much redneck shit you’ve done to your F350, it isn’t beating a snow plow.
NYC uses garbage trucks, in conjunction with cement bricks and pedestrian fencing at large events like NYE. The garbage trucks are easy to move in case emergency access is required.
That sounds more fun than cop cars also. It’d be cool to see that.
Cops still do that here for large street events. One of the streets does it often and they eventually installed retractable bollards.
I’ve seen moveable anti car barricades. I think they work the same as those anti tank things. If someone runs into it the car is lifted off the ground. Something like this https://barriers.miframsecurity.com/products/
Caltrops
If you’re really determined to plow into a crowd of people, you’ll do it on the rims.
I mean, not as many though, and could possibly disable the car. Minimal damage to infrastructure, easy to clean up, doesn’t really affect pedestrians. Spike strips are used to disable cars all the time in car chases. And have you ever tried to drive on a rim, let alone four of them? Control and speed will not be your greatest strengths, less likely to still be at large after the crime. Better than nothing, evidently.
I don’t know that control or speed are really big concerns when barreling toward a large crowd of people. And good luck getting a huge crowd of drunk partiers to stop spilling over toward the caltrops.
Lack of speed and control would hinder any plans they may have had, may have made a mistake, may have been taken into custody. It’s not perfect. But neither was the system they were using to secure the street.
I know. We’ll just use anti-vehicle land mines instead! That will keep the cars at bay and make everyone feel safe!
They have them. There are bollards and retractable mechanical devices to block off the busy part of Bourbon. One was down for some reason.
Ostensibly the bollards aren’t on the sidewalk so the assailant drove around them