It’s because practicing engineers (as opposed to road safety researchers, who are silo’d in academia) are obsessed with Level Of Service (LOS) for cars to the exclusion of all other concerns. Cyclists and pedestrians are a joke to them, whose safety is to be afforded lip service, at best.
Traffic engineers are people who would demolish a thriving main street to build a six-lane 55mph highway and have the utter gall to call it an “improvement.” The entire industry is fundamentally fucked up, working from incorrect premises to achieve incorrect goals.
I live in a town with a university with a big urban planning program. You can definitely see the effects. While there are some quirks (more roundabouts on one street than most cities have total) it also has amazing biking infrastructure for north America and lately has been closing street to cars in the downtown core. It is very refreshing and a big part of why i live where I do. I just wish every city could get these planners is all, i hope that in a decade or so the urban planners here will move on to other cities and have the seniority to spread the good ideas.
The engineers try to fulill the goals defined by politicians. Change the goals and they change the methods (like in other countries where the political process is not as closely definded by oil and car industries).
A lot of them aren’t given the problem of planning a city, its more like" hey this road is busy, design a bigger road since its so busy". But then their superiors belittle and threaten to fire them if they recomend building a tram line instead of 6+ lanes of car traffic. “The tram line isn’t by the book”, “we aren’t some experiemental urbanist city” or “the projected level of car service isn’t adeqaute for our predicted car traffic using models where the only transport option is driving”
It’s because practicing engineers (as opposed to road safety researchers, who are silo’d in academia) are obsessed with Level Of Service (LOS) for cars to the exclusion of all other concerns. Cyclists and pedestrians are a joke to them, whose safety is to be afforded lip service, at best.
Traffic engineers are people who would demolish a thriving main street to build a six-lane 55mph highway and have the utter gall to call it an “improvement.” The entire industry is fundamentally fucked up, working from incorrect premises to achieve incorrect goals.
(Source: I used to work as a traffic engineer.)
Are you Chuck Mahon?
If not, it’s great to see his affect on USA traffic engineering
Part of me wishes I hadn’t already changed careers before finding out about Strong Towns.
I live in a town with a university with a big urban planning program. You can definitely see the effects. While there are some quirks (more roundabouts on one street than most cities have total) it also has amazing biking infrastructure for north America and lately has been closing street to cars in the downtown core. It is very refreshing and a big part of why i live where I do. I just wish every city could get these planners is all, i hope that in a decade or so the urban planners here will move on to other cities and have the seniority to spread the good ideas.
The engineers try to fulill the goals defined by politicians. Change the goals and they change the methods (like in other countries where the political process is not as closely definded by oil and car industries).
why do these idiots build highways near city centers instead of on the edges, bypassing the buisness?
A lot of them aren’t given the problem of planning a city, its more like" hey this road is busy, design a bigger road since its so busy". But then their superiors belittle and threaten to fire them if they recomend building a tram line instead of 6+ lanes of car traffic. “The tram line isn’t by the book”, “we aren’t some experiemental urbanist city” or “the projected level of car service isn’t adeqaute for our predicted car traffic using models where the only transport option is driving”
People in this sub seem to vastly overestimate the authority traffic engineers wield…