Defy the arrogance of status quo transportation planning & engineering

Every industry has members who don’t abide by the mainstream. If you're stuck in middle, work your way to the fringe.

There’s an arrogance in the transportation industry that the status quo methodology remains because it’s objectively good. It makes sense that experts in a field would defend each other from outside attacks on the profession. 

The whole point of transportation analysis and civil engineering is to serve the traveling public. The profession exists to figure out how mobility and accessibility is working for all types of road users and look for ways to make improvements. Noble work. 

But it’s disappointing that so many educated and credentialed people refuse to consider the foundational claims made against the industry. Experts call their own expertise into question when the best line of defense is “That’s not the engineering department’s job, it’s the planning department’s job” or “Go talk to the politicians.”

Land use and transportation are intertwined, and Americans love to play political games. So in a sense, any one group will find a legitimate reason to point the finger at another group. But for purposes of controlling my own attention deficits, I prefer addressing them separately. 

Transportation status quo virtues and vices.

“Status quo” can be used as a dismissive slur, but without context it merely refers to the way things are. Sometimes existing conditions are great, and sometimes they’re miserable. Sometimes the methodology of transportation professionals serves the traveling public, and sometimes it puts us through a meat grinder. 

Be skeptical of the status quo, not for the sake of being rebellious but to protect the human race. There’s far more gray than black/white in professional work. Here are a few examples of how status quo methodologies can be just fine or just awful.

VIRTUES

1. Functional classification. Not all streets serve the same purpose. An interstate highway is for long-distance high-speed trips. It makes sense that planners use some sort of classification system so engineers know the intended outcomes of a particular road before designing it.

2. Origin-destination modeling. Without understanding where people live, work, and play, transportation authorities would constantly build bridges to nowhere. Models help make sense of macro people movement.

3. Roadway design speed. Engineers use design features like lane width, slope, intersection turning radius, and clear zones to keep traffic speeds under control. 

VICES

1. Functional classification. Busy roads need to be wide and fast roads. The map will show a network of arterials as if there’s no difference between driving through a suburban development and a desert.

2. Origin-destination modeling. Rather than making human-scale design decisions based on travel patterns, the traffic models are used to justify more car infrastructure. 

3. Roadway design speed. Engineers use design features like lane width, slope, intersection turning radius, and clear zones to let traffic speed out of control.

The easy path is the dangerous path.

The partial truth is that the status quo can at times be virtuous. The full truth is that the vicious outcomes of the infrastructure status quo far offset the good that comes from it. Planning and engineering are in desperate need of reform. 

Highly educated and credentialed professionals take the easy path for a variety of reasons. They worry about standing out from the crowd, disagreeing with the boss, missing out on the next DOT contract, or just looking like a utopian radical. They go with the unchallenged methodology, and the result is dangerous-by-design transportation systems.  

Think of the classic American arterial as the poster child for functional classification, traffic modeling, and design speed.

It’s six lanes wide with a stop light every half mile or so. The intersections have at least one turn lane in each direction, sometimes two, making an even larger footprint. Strip malls and big box stores line the corridor on either side, with driveways everywhere. Sometimes there are sidewalks on one or both sides. There’s a row of woods or retention ponds shielding and isolating the residential neighborhoods behind the retail strips. The speed limit is 45 mph.

Even if you’re driving the speed limit on the standard arterial, everyone else is flying past you. That’s because the road was engineered at 55 mph. We all know speed kills, but status quo planning methodology guides the engineering department to treat community roads as highways. Of course it’s dangerous to walk along those roads, much less cross them.

Your DOT will commission a study to determine how many new lanes to add to a road. (Not if they should, but how many.) The standard procedure will be long-range forecasting based on the level of importance as determined by functional classification. They’ll expect a traffic modeling analysis of existing rush hour and report of vehicle delays measured in seconds. They’ll extrapolate those results 20 or 30 years into the future, assuming the number of cars will increase 2-3% every year (at a minimum). 

Naturally, the final report will conclude that the community needs to widen the Great American Arterial once again to hold all those cars.

The alternative—which is totally legit—is to say…

• “We want our retail boulevard to remain two lanes in each direction. Can you help us figure out how to improve walking and bicycling conditions?” or

• “This is a rural community, and we want to preserve that. We don’t want more than one lane in each direction. Can you help us figure out how to slow down pass-through traffic?” 

That’s what transportation planning and engineering should be like.

The harder path is the rewarding path.

Safe and delightful networks can be engineered even while using status quo tools like functional classification, origin-destination modeling, and design speed. 

If car traffic should be 35 mph, then engineer for 35 mph. That means more obstacles and tighter corners are totally acceptable. It means roundabouts and other traffic calming measures should be encouraged. 

If you’re a planner, struggle through engineering details later. The first order of business is exploring big ideas like “what if our suburban neighborhoods were bike-friendly, since all the retail chains would be within a 15-minute ride?” Or “where can we install convenient parking hubs for electric bikes?”

These are local challenges with local solutions. Public agencies don’t need to wait for a national referendum on roadway expansions or the next trillion dollar infrastructure bill. For starters, admit that the current networks are bloated and need to be right-sized. Then, create works of art out of all that extra space that prioritize the fundamental modes of transportation. Make wider sidewalks buffered from the car traffic. Make bike lane networks separated from car traffic. 

There’s so much potential in the enormous public right-of-way bandwidth. 

The tricky part of institutional reform is that being labeled as a member of the status quo feels derogatory, so not many professionals will accept responsibility for the harms and horrors. But any industry has members who don’t necessarily abide by the mainstream. If you find yourself stuck in middle, work your way to the edges. You’ll find the most promising work on the fringe.