Ugly secrets and beautiful truths I’ve learned as a transportation plangineer
What's gone wrong, how to fix it, and how planners & engineers can be heroes.
With the recent Twitter Files revelations, I realized I need to publish a type of Urbanist Twitter Files. A series of posts that reveal shenanigans you may have long suspected but couldn’t necessarily make sense of in the whole. So I’ll publish a series soon with the goal of connecting the dots, or painting by numbers, or whatever analogy makes sense.
In the meantime, I want to share several things I’ve learned in the time since buying a civil engineering degree in the 90s (thanks, Dad!). What’s gone wrong and how to fix it. For most of my career, I worked as a plangineer, straddling planning and engineering. That’s why I know the secret handshakes of both clubs and speak their language. So here are the ugly secrets and beautiful truths I’ve picked up along the way.
Unicorns exist and dreams do come true.
Bicycle Urbanism is the study, planning, and design of built environments for inhabitants to conveniently get around on a bicycle.
The bicycle is the great social equalizer. It’s a design unicorn, capable of leaping over social barriers. Bicycling is a fundamental mode of transportation. It’s walking while leaning on a saddle. Streets that are designed to be safe and convenient for riding bikes also happen to be very safe streets for driving cars. Bicycle-friendly street networks slow cars down, keeping them from bumping into each other all the time.
Professional planners and engineers have loads of manuals, design guides, and real-world case studies to learn from. So what's the industry waiting for? Why is bicycle urbanism such a rare thing, especially in America?
Things I’ve learned along the way.
Streets are dangerous by design.
Many don't realize just how deadly car-oriented engineering is, and how safe bicycle-oriented engineering is. It turns out that “human factors” on the road are often a result of “engineering factors” at the office. For instance, one reason 10-ft wide lanes are safer than 12-ft wide lanes is a feeling of claustrophobia. When humans feel pinched in narrow lanes, we slow down. Planners and engineers weren’t taught in college about how design impacts driver behavior.
Psychology is an entirely different curriculum at universities, and it rarely crosses from one group of students to another. Consider:
People DO freak out about legalized marijuana—a plant that is impossible to overdose on. Prohibition of plants will soon be ridiculed by the mainstream.
People DON’T freak out about legalized engineering—a practice that delivers the equivalent of a 9/11 every single month because people drive fast, just as the engineering intended.
Humans are a funny bunch.
When you point out the dangers of modern engineering, you may get accused of waging a war on cars. Resist the urge to argue. Instead, remind your detractor that if there is in fact a war on cars, it hasn’t killed anyone. Fortunately, plangineers are already equipped with the means to save the world: a healthy dose of bicycle urbanism.
I am not a cyclist, and I’m a lousy bike mechanic. I haven’t assembled an adult bike since college. But as an activist or advocate, you don’t need to be a cycling enthusiast. What will help you is an insider’s view of the transportation planning and engineering industry.
Normies and experts live in different realities.
The transportation industry has promised freedom and convenience for 100 years. To meet that goal, high-speed car traffic was prioritized above all else. Car-oriented engineering steadily erodes mobility options.
If regular people knew modern transportation engineering was so hazardous to their health, they might rebel. The industry solution? Change the facts. Divert attention. Get the average citizen riled up about a college kid rolling her bike through a stop sign.
“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” Albert Einstein
It turns out, human behavior doesn’t fit the standard plangineering theory. Some examples from study after study:
Lots of people don’t own a car.
Most people would ride bikes if there were safe and convenient places to ride bikes.
Foot and bike traffic are great for business.
Human-scale design is safer for everyone.
Engineer’s Reality | Traffic models are about predictable dots and formulas. People are predictable in the plangineer’s reality. People do not adapt to their conditions in the engineer’s reality.
Neighbor’s Reality | The next-door neighbor lives in a different reality. Transportation conditions are miserable. Lack of funding can’t be the only culprit, because more car lanes are planned and built every year.
When civil engineering “reality” is implemented, your neighbor’s child is killed by a sober motorist. The built environment—professionally engineered streets—endangers life and property. Engineers claim to be the most conservative people on the planet. “Safety factors” built into everything, just in case. But when it comes to street design, engineers are habitual gamblers.
Licensed engineers are not off the hook. They are not allowed to blame politics or the chain of authority for silence when they learn real life disagrees with software models.
You can help experts follow rules and excel in their career.
Bicycle urbanism isn’t about saving the planet or ending poverty, although it is relevant to both. Bicycle urbanism is about saving lives and restoring freedom of mobility choice. Abstract attention on massive social issues does have a place in advocacy, but don’t expect that to move the needle among transportation plangineers. Find ways to help make them the heroes.
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” Frank Zappa
The car-oriented mindset of the last 100 years isn’t going to make streets more comfortable for cycling. Plangineers can deviate from the norm in order to make progress by working smarter than their peers and mentors.
The bicycling industry is great at promoting off-road adventures, new park trails, touring ideas, etc. “Bicycling as recreation” has no opposition. Train your brain that
bicycling is transportation.
bicycling is transportation.
bicycling is transportation.
Protected bike lanes should be the rule, not the exception. Sharrows should be the exception, not the rule. And please stop calling them “infrastructure.” Sharrows are temporary tattoos: kind of cute, but adults only apply them as a joke.
Everybody gets in a tizzy about budgets and financial constraints, so here are seven tips from FHWA to fund infrastructure that demonstrates bicycling is transportation:
You may design lanes narrower than 11-feet on primary arterials.
You may design lanes narrower than 9-feet on local streets.
You may use federal funds for local street projects.
You may use federal funds for separated bike paths.
You may use federal funds to reduce the number of car lanes.
The AASHTO Green Book is not the only acceptable guide for federal funds.
The 85th percentile does not have to be used to set speed limits.
Use the ideas above at public meetings, design workshops, city council hearings, and backyard picnics. (Remember, these are straight from the feds!)
Things get better in the end.
Transportation professionals get annoyed that the average citizen thinks they can do a better job. But you know what? Normies already are doing a better job. The graphic designer working for a gaming company knows more about bike-friendly street design than civil engineers because he cares enough to learn.
The internet puts immeasurable quantities of information within reach. How wide is a bike lane? How much does bike share cost? What’s Vision Zero? Never stop learning.
It’s easy to engineer a thing, but hard to change your mind about a thing. And that’s fine, we shouldn’t have putty for brains. Just don’t expect the professionals to become entirely different people. Embrace their strengths. Engineers are problem solvers. Our societal problem is a lack of bicycle infrastructure. Enlist the experts to help address the problem.
While alleged experts are busy copying lame ideas from their mentors, regular people are learning about street design. They’re learning that professionals have been designing dangerous infrastructure for 100 years. Here’s my plea to plangineers and urbanists, knowing you’ll face stiff opposition:
Stand for something. Be visible. Be heard. Design streets for people.