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Cones, Coning, and Fixing Junctions, And How And Why

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“Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty

This post is probably best viewed on desktop, with some links opening new tabs, viewed, closed, and then this post returned to. There’s a lot of videos farther down, some of them are tiktoks (sorry) and some of them are youtube videos (that’s not my stuff) and then some of my stuff is also embedded via a service called “Wistia”. I hope you watch at least some of the videos below. maybe the piece still stands up well enough without the videos. maybe.

Introduction #

Here’s a new word, I am introducing to the lexicon:

Coning, verb

to place traffic cones at specific points in a road or junction to shape how people travel through the intersection. Simplifies and smooths complexity, increases safety for everyone. Dramatically reduces the four types of vehicle emissions: engine exhaust, brake dust, tire rubber microplastics, and noise.

I wrote recently about this seperate-but-related-ish ‘traffic bean’ concept. Consider the following information about coning to be coherent with, perhaps would be used in conjunction with, the traffic bean idea.

A few times I’ve had the priviledge of stumbling into an idea, act, or articulation that, while firmly rooted in banal phenomena in one domain, feels quite novel when applied to a new domain. This thing I’m discussing in this post is one of those novel things.

‘coning’ a road, street, or junction.

I’ll explain below, and I hope you might try something similar some day for yourself, the next time you see a junction that isn’t as safe as you’d like, and there’s a pile of otherwise unused traffic cones nearby.

Examples of my own coning adventures #

Here’s one of the very first traffic cones I set out, in my whole life, with the goal of creating/providing safety in mind.

1. South Denver, a pedestrian crossing of a residential road #

One rainy day, I observed from my bedroom these traffic cones floating down the street. The rain literally delivered them to almost exactly where I ended up placing them. I’d not had this idea, but I’d been chafing at the problem for a time.

this video tells the rest of the story:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7240202349451595054

I started with what most traffic planners in America would start with: Bulb-outs

As you can see in the end of the video, nothing really seemed to change. I ended up with a small change in placement (instead of bulb-outs, I placed the cones where the lane divider would be), and a HUGE change in behavior:

here’s the first of many videos showing the the CONES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!

👉 https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7240611295966268718

please notice in all these timelapses that people are walking down the street, the length of it. See how they scurry out of the road when a car is present, and how confidently they walk when there is no car.

Here’s a reminder of what the street looks like without any cones: https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7250134620694482218

As I say in that video, the mom who walked by was wise to warn her kid about the dangers of the road. Isn’t it a bummer? She’s using the road exactly like a car would, why does she have to be threatened with horrible violence continuously by passing cars? 1

here’s another view of the cones, from the POV of cars, looking down the street:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7250134620694482218

another view of the same treatment:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7240680684472274218

These cones remained in place for weeks. No one moved them for such a long time.

Now, the above videos all highlighted the placement of the cones. Here’s views from a drone, in which the cones are nearly invisible.

I think the drone perspective is very interesting. From most points of view, the cones are almost invisible. I wish cars could be rendered so invisible. I resent how much of the visual landscape is filled with cars and asphalt for cars, in the world today.

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7240668293420322091

another view:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7240665861508402478

another view:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7240639996917632302

At this point, the satisfaction I derive from this kind of stuff is undoubtedly similar to what some people experience with public art, graffiti, etc.

Here’s the lightest-weight intervention I’ve ever did, that worked shockingly well:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7249134328502947118

2. South Denver, noise reduction on an arterial going past cafes, breweries, lots of outdoor seating #

This treatment was excellent, I’m pleased with the results, the noise level came down by so much, AND things were made way safer.

The cones were taken away after a few hours

That idea gave birth to the second iteration, sorta on the same walking path two blocks down:

Another intersection, later in time:

The way one might use this phrase/concept is like so:

Ick, this street is loud and dangerous, I wish someone would put some cones down.

or

that person almost hit that other person with their car - if that intersection was properly coned it wouldn’t have happened.

or

The noise along this road is wild. if the area got well-coned, it would be way quieter.

Here’s another denver-area coning, very close to a few different climbing gyms, schools, parks, apartment buildings. I was very pleased with this one. All of these intersections by the way are STILL INADEQUATE even with these cones:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7249752983481732394

A fully complete intersection would have something like a built-in ‘traffic curve’, either a traffic bean, or if that is a bit too big, the ‘coning’ of the intersection could cause a small deviation in vehicle path.

The big issue is: if the intersection accommodates vehicles passing through it fast, say, 35 mph, without any change in direction, even a slight wiggle/deviation, it’s not fully fixed.

In all these intersections, I didn’t place any cones that wasn’t delimiting what is already theoretically delimited, It’s a good enough proof of concept, though, and shows that with a tiny bit of work, any unwanted speed can be filtered out, by these cones, and building little gates, defined curves, turn radii, etc.

The experience of everyone NOT in a vehicle goes up enormously in these situations. It’s almost dedignifying to enumerate the ways.

I am extremely aware of how dangerous roads and junctions are. 2 Cars feel to me as dangerous as guns, and I’m accutely aware of when a car is pointed at me, if it is in motion and when it’s stationary, if there is someone in the driver’s seat, same as I’d be aware of a gun being pointed at me.

The driver of that car could kill me with the press of a foot with a car, just as the user of a gun could kill someone with the press of a finger. Check out my piece on bollards for more: Bollards: What and Why.

I am unable to dissociate from shit roads and dangerous dynamics created by those road designers, and the people who use them. I’ve slightly unusual points of view, but I am aware of feeling something similar about roads my whole life. I am sensitive, sometimes extremely sensitive, and in ways that unavoidably inconvenience others. If you talk to some former partners, you could get long lists of ways my sensitivity and emotional delicacy has been experienced as extremely inconveniencing.

Cars, even when the engines are idling or the vehicle is electric are so loud, and one can infer so much about a vehicle and its driver from things like:

  • relative ratios of accelerating, coasting, braking. (In a 100 second segment of driving, what is the ratio between accelerating, coasting, braking? How quickly does the driver cycle between the three, and how smoothly or sharply?)
  • speed in many different ways - speed through curves, speed through turns

this list is simply some of the things one can infer about cars from the noise. Just the noise.

3. Centeral Denver, reducing noise, improving awareness #

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7249752983481732394

My friend and I did this, as we rode our scooters past, a few blocks from his house, a few blocks from two climbing gyms, grocery stores. There’s a school directly adjacent to the intersection. It is not tolerable, the speeds that can be accessed by people going straight through the intersection, and how crossing it requires one to deconflict with so much space, in both directions.

The cones we put down obviously changes the turn radii for cars, and created little ‘protected pockets’ for passers-by, without causing a foot or bike barrier for anyone not in a car.

4. Loveland, pedestrian crossing of a four lane road with sometimes 50+mph traffic, I got to plan a project with the local city engineer #

I later spent some time living adjacent to this intersection, which had a whole fascinating saga. Here’s what happened.

First, I lived next to this wildly unsafe junction that feels both rural and urban. Rural, in terms of how fast/straight the roads are, and the spacing of lights, lane widths, etc. Most people driving through this intersection are coming from ‘rural’ points of origin.

Eventually, in talking to neighbors, I heard stories of many car accidents, deaths, vehicles bouncing into yards, fences, trees, etc.

I found a bunch of traffic cones a short walk away, and the ideas started to emerge.

I planned where I’d put cones, and then did so, and got the whole before/during/after on video via drone. The improvements were magnificent.

Unfortunately for all of us, this was an event witnessed almost exclusively by me. No one else was there to agree with me on how much better it was, besides the people using the junction. Most drivers simply let off the gas and coasted straight through the intersection.

Those that turned reduced their speeds appropriately to turn.

It was glorious. Eventually, I went back out with more cones, and city employees followed me, and tried to get me to take the cones down. (using implication, never threats or demands).

I simply did my normal word-vomit when talking to authority figures: I flood them with polite, relentless, technically-laced monologue. References to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, street typologies and the implication on sightlines, speed calculations, grief (over all of our loved ones killed on/by american roads), ‘we are all out here, together, united by our desire for us and our loved ones to continue to survive’.

Usually they glaze over, like a dog that licked a toad and now wants the taste out of its mouth.

They left, and returned with a member of the local deputized slave patrol.

She did the threatening and provocative “I need your name and ID, any prior arrests or anything I should be worried about?” routine. (Isn’t it funny how slave patrollers will weaponize their own discomfort, in a way that makes it obviously a threat?)

Again, I did the verbal vomit thing, as only a wealthy-enough-to-have-access-to-lawyers-passing, white-passing american man can do. I have the privilege of treating the deputized slave patrol as a tool for people just like me. I can embody this energy, as I was raised by a person who was also a preacher and a doctor and a military pilot and a supremacist and a military officer and had a penis and was white-passing. He huffed hard on the ‘authority and patriarchy/supremacy’ pipe.

Me:

How often do you deal with car accidents? Lots, really? Isn’t that annoying? Here’s a way to make for less car accidents, obviously this shouldn’t be your problem, it’s an engineering thing, maybe you can help me find the person in the city responsible for the road right here?

she gave me a hint (“talk to {so-and-so} in the city admin office”) which I kept ‘privilege escalating’ until I was wandering around the city of loveland department of works office building, and found my way to the city engineer’s office, Matt. The admin person gave me his email address, phone number, his physical address. It was a few blocks away in a different building so I popped over and the door I parked my scooter next to was unlocked, so I wandered inside. I’ve never been inside a municipal streets authority building before, and having read the power broker I was attending to every detail.

Lots of interesting stuff inside (a sign making shop, feeds from traffic cameras) and implications for anyone who’s read seeing like a state, like… I see why big ugly rural intersections seem so important to municipal people. They have billboard-sized TV’s displaying dozens of feeds of intersections. It was one of the ugliest and most depressing things I could imagine looking at all day.

traffic beans, remember? Breaks my heart to see an intersection empty, with cars sitting around waiting to go through. The rate at which people’s time is being wasted is stunning

Anyway, Matt had time, and was thrilled to nerd out about road junctions. hardly sixty seconds of conversation elapsed, as I gave him a short version of how I ended up in his office, before he had google earth open and we were zipping around Loveland ‘looking’ at intersections. We spoke for a while, it was all interesting. He seemed to obviously want at least some of the same safety outcomes I wanted. What I soon ran into is the very american assumption that ‘fast vehicle movement’ correlates at all with ‘good enough trip time’, among other assumptions.

He and I swapped emails, and eventually met up again at a few different intersections within loveland, him in his city pickup truck, me on my scooter, to walk around and look at different bits of ‘pedestrian infrastructure’. I kept gently pushing my goal along (a coned-and-traffic-bean’ed intersection) and eventually got permission from him to treat with hay bales a connected series of road segments/junctions, including the one directly next to the house I was living in, that I could see from my front window.

The plan was:

  1. using hay bales, the smallish rectangular ones, I could build roundabout/traffic-bean-type junctions, defining the inner and outer edges of the junctions with hay bales, leaving the open space free to people walking/biking, and shaping the flow of traffic to that traffic-bean-vibe
  2. We were going to treat a series of connected intersections, including the ones closest to where I was living at the time, NOT including, in the first pass, the intersection I had first treated

I was thrilled, even as it was the smallest definition of the experiment. My plan was, upon my return to that house, try to obtain a pile of hay bales and then, while he stood next to me, start arranging them on the various junctions. I obviously had a plan in mind for where bales might go on each junction.

I’d ended up travelling out of contry while he and I was discussing it, was gone for a while, ended up moving, and i returned to loveland only for a few hours to collect my stuff. That hard-won project never moved forward. I am still proud of how far I got with my hay-bale traffic bean plan, though.

5. Humboldt & 16th #

I moved back to Denver. Soon ended up living where I currently live, as I write these words. Near this intersection at Humboldt and 16th ave. Colefax is the name for 15th ave, so this street is but a single block from Colefax. If you live in the Denver area, you know Colefax.

This street-level video shows a family driving on bicycles, then a bunch of passing cars. Can you see the obvious danger? I sometimes fear I’m belaboring the point, yet I still encounter people that can look at obviously dangerous interactions and not see them.

another view of the same intersection:

Misc other intersections #

Long ago, around the time of my first ‘coning’: this drone video of this walk with someone using a wheelchair is interesting to me. Explains why I don’t always hew to sidewalks like some people would want me to, as if they expected me to act obedient to their entitlement.

  • another video from the above walk. Again, I think the minimum reasonable starting point is close most roads to vehicle throughput, and can you see how an arterial functions as a wall?

General complaints about inadequate and dangerous and inefficient American intersections #

Oh, I have beef with American intersections. I hate to use them, to even witness them, so I don’t travel much by car, and when I do, it feels emotionally expensive. Feels like I’m walking on the graveyard of evidence of ethnic cleansing, and I cannot help but feel affected by the weight over the years of the death, bloodshed, misery, destroyed places and humans, that this whole regime represents.

Intersections in america are as consumptive as any other part of a colonial culture. They perform unimaginably inefficiently.

I wish all junctions could be evaluated by the vehicles per square meter per second standard. Here’s a bit more about that, on my/this substack

Common complaints/FAQs: #

But Josh this is non traditional and I don’t think it will work or should work.

How interesting. Here’s another video for how land is modified in expensive places to accommodate cars

I contend that any modification or change to the norm is, in principal, possibly worth entertaining.

Footnotes #

  1. some people might say ‘well the danger from cars is a fact of life’ and I’d retort that just as cars have streets that connect them to places, a sane mobility network would have a similar level of ‘street ennervation’ via car free streets, as well. If even one out of five of every north/south and east/west streets was shut down to cars passing through via modal filters, and slight traffic bean type treatment at the junctions where cars pass, the network would be transformed. It’s not ‘complete streets’ it’s ‘connected car-free streets’. Linear park type vibes would be the obvious upgrade to car-free streets. ↩

  2. Many, many people seem disconnected, emotionally, physically, with something about the experience of being in/around personal vehicles. I could rant/rave about americans, but it’s really american-ness, which is a certain form of supremacy thinking. How many of your friends need to have been killed by a person driving a car, for you to have some unenjoyable emotional experiences with aspects of being around anyone who is driving? How many people that you know need to have been hit by someone in a car (but not killed!) for you to sorta not be down with the whole thing? How about animals killed? ↩

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