Bypass the excuses and create a better built environment

Everybody wants to be the manager until angry customers want to speak to the manager.

No American city or county is immune from dangerous street design, because it’s baked into modern land use planning and transportation engineering industries. White collar professionals tweet “that’s not my job” defenses for their role in infrastructure even more furiously than their threats to leave Twitter. 

When it comes to lousy infrastructure, planners blame engineers, engineers blame planners, planners blame politicians, politicians blame voters, and voters blame whoever looks guiltiest in their social media feed. It’s human nature, and nothing I do is going to stop it. But this whole back-and-forth about expertise and responsibilities…

Andy Boenau @Boenau

The sign says 25. The design says floor it. Civil engineers should learn about psychology & human factors before they get near AutoCAD.

Ignore the fact that I have a civil engineering degree from Virginia Tech, a university known for dabbling in transportation. And don’t be distracted knowing my 25-year career includes working as a traffic engineer, transportation planner, urban planner, bike share hype man, and mobility startup advisor. 

Sometimes it helps to look at your industry with childlike curiosity to see there are fewer adults in the room than you thought.

• Is a parent with a stroller allowed to cross this street? Why or why not?

• Do people ride bikes around here? Why or why not?

• Do people drive fast around here? Why or why not?

• Are most people in cars or out in the open? Why?

• Are there interesting things to see and do around here? Why or why not?

• Who decides how much space is given to cars? Do they ever walk around here?

• Who decides what kind of businesses and shops are allowed? Do they ever walk around here?

• Does the location of streets and buildings have any influence on how people drive?

• Does the size of streets and buildings have any influence on how people drive?

• Do the people in charge of this area want more people to ride bicycles? Why or why not?

Look at the images below and then jump back up to these questions.

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There's flexibility built into all modern road design guides, even the much maligned AASHTO Green Book. (And look, I dish out plenty of criticism towards that car-oriented guide.) But the industry peer pressure is to engineer for speed. Industry, as in highly educated human beings, not a book on a shelf.

Licensed engineers and certified planners fear for their jobs instead of for travelers' lives. A book (that tells readers to use engineering judgment!) takes the fall along with pedestrians and bicyclists mangled on racetrack neighborhood streets.

I’m not judging the pursuit of a steady paycheck. But you’ll rarely hear a white collar professional admitting that’s the bottom line. “Look, I saw the webinar about how to design safe streets. But my boss thinks roundabouts and bike lanes are stupid.” That’s real life. 

You might be one of the professionals who has to keep a low profile. My ire is directed at the highly educated pros who make a point to broadcast how their department is blameless and “we don’t have any real power or influence, actually.”

Extreme road diets are practical on most American arterials, whether it’s a city or county suburbs. Planners and engineers wield much power and influence, actually. Neither controls all the decisions, but each plays a major role. 

A normie looks at the image below and thinks, "There aren’t any bicyclists on this 55 mph road, proving once again that bike lanes are always a waste."

You’ll never see a family riding bikes to the park because it doesn’t feel safe. But you will see a man below the poverty line struggling down this road with grocery bags hanging on the handlebars of his bike. 

After you wrestle with that first batch of questions above, ask yourself some questions with a better future in mind. Then hop on the internet to collect some answers and inspiration. 

• Have any other cities found a way to safely accommodate walking and bicycling? 

• Are there any examples of suburban neighborhoods with interesting places to walk or bike?

• Have any cities or counties been able to make streets safer by changing land use regulations or street design or both?

• Are there some ways I can help my local politicians play the role of hero by improving our public space?