Right-sized streets in Austin may be good for pedestrians and cyclists but not so much for vehicular traffic. That sometimes means first responders vehicles like ambulances and fire trucks. Some in the emergency community like Austin Firefighters Association President Bob Nicks says Austin streets that are supposed to encourage walking and cycling are hampering fire and EMS response. “It’s happened in several neighborhood areas where they put in a traffic calming island and different types of devices; and particularly downtown where they purposefully limited the size of the roads to disincentivize vehicle traffic.” Nicks says response times suffer. “It makes it much more difficult for fire apparatus to navigate those streets.”
Nicks says this could have been prevented. “You know, rather than engaging the fire department early on, they started making some of these changes particularly in the neighborhoods.” He adds, “It’s had a negative impact on our mobility and our response times.” Nicks says some neighborhoods are removing some of the impediments to first responders but says downtown streets are still their biggest problem.
