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”
There are bollards around the quarter during events. Reports are that the truck. Intensionally avoided and drove through barriers
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
Not possible. The French quarter is very small with narrow streets which are used daily when there are no events
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
If you’re really determined to plow into a crowd of people, you’ll do it on the rims.
