As transportation regulations increase, so does the suffering
Modern street networks are dangerous by design. We're wrapped in red tape that benefits a few at the expense of many.
Calendar-makers seemed to have invented thousands of holidays. Not stay-home-from-the-job holidays, but recognition days. Pointless.
It's like when I used to get the participation ribbon on swim team. "Andy, your butterfly looks like a man-child drowning in 3-foot deep water. You didn't win, but here's your ribbon for being a good sport and wearing that little suit in public."
Highway-makers are like calendar-makers because they always have a new reason to celebrate their product.
The lobbying side of infrastructure hardly gets the spotlight it deserves. Historians like Peter Norton have done fantastic work looking at the development of propaganda campaigns in the 20th century.
I wish people were aware of what’s still happening today. When it comes to lobbying efforts, a few themes routinely emerge:
We need more government spending on our product.
We need more government rules to guarantee the private sector also buys our product.
We need more government rules to protect our monopoly by keeping out small business and startups.
Big corporations want a standardized, cookie-cutter process to speed up their delivery of more product. That makes sense, it’s not evil. But you have to identify their bias because it has a direct impact on the planning and design of infrastructure.
The larger a corporation gets, the more lobbying power it wields. Of course it’s going to look for ways to limit or outright squash competition.
What's the track record of the product getting heavy promotion by the government?
30-40,000 human beings are killed by traffic violence in America every year. People are getting killed using a product that follows all the strict design and construction rules.
12-foot lanes,
turning lanes to separate through-traffic,
no trees near the road,
no tight curves,
no buildings close to the road.
Here’s what Smart Growth America has to say about government-approved roads:
This epidemic continues growing worse because our nation’s streets are dangerous by design, designed primarily to move cars quickly at the expense of keeping everyone safe.
What if instead of more regulations and red tape, we had less. What if we introduced some design anarchy.
The "order" of the status quo makes a mess of our world.
In contrast, anarchy gives people the freedom to live as civilized humans.
What would street anarchy look like? Well, it'd be a lot like streets were built for as long as humans have been on earth. Just big enough to allow safe passage. And small enough that people could safely walk along or across the street.
Some American cities have been trying to figure out how to eliminate traffic deaths. Here's the secret: stop following the rules.
Scott Beyer has been doing some really interesting work in this area with his Market Urbanism Report. The premise of a market solution is that the stuff that people need and want is what would get built. No more 6-lane arterials everywhere, ripping apart the city and countryside.
The common critique of design anarchy is “what if someone built a 6-lane arterial?” You mean like the government-approved, dangerous-by-design system? The strongest argument against design anarchy is a description of the status quo.
What do you think is the best path forward for transportation systems?