With Blizzard Mania ’16 reaching a fever pitch up and down the Eastern Seaboard, it looks like we’re in for the first serious sneckdowns of the season. For the uninitiated, sneckdowns are neckdowns created by driving patterns in melting snow or slush. Sneckdowns highlight excess asphalt that could be repurposed for streetscape improvements to slow motor vehicle […]

The #sneckdown is now a phenomenon, with nature’s traffic-calming gaining international media coverage and photos popping up from across the U.S. and Canada. “The snow is almost like nature’s tracing paper,” Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson told the BBC. “It’s free. You don’t have to do a crazy expensive traffic calming study. It provides a visual cue […]

New York City was spared the brunt of winter storm Juno, and with streets in better shape than expected, there are already enough photos out there for our inaugural #sneckdown round-up of the season. A portmanteau of “snow” and “neckdown,” a sneckdown occurs when driving patterns delineated in snow reveal excess street space that might be […]

Since our last round-up, the sneckdown has drawn attention from publications as varied as The Economist, The Week, Fast Company, Village Voice, Atlantic Cities, and Treehugger. With coverage and photos piling up like so much traffic-calming slush, sneckdown emissary and archivist Clarence Eckerson posted a detailed explainer, dating the concept back to the 1990s. Meanwhile, the city […]