The Pedestrian Strikes Back

Officials in several countries are getting the message: Cities are about people, not cars.

In many of the major cities of the world, it has begun to dawn even on public officials that walking is a highly efficient means of transit, as well as one of the great underrated pleasures in life. A few major cities have even tentatively begun to take back their streets for pedestrians.

Denver, for instance, is proposing a plan to invest $1.2 billion in sidewalks, and, at far greater cost, bring frequent public transit within a quarter-mile of most of its residents. In Europe, where clean, safe, punctual public transit is already widely available, Oslo plans to ban all cars from its city center beginning next year. Madrid is banning cars owned by nonresidents, and is also redesigning 24 major downtown avenues to take them back for pedestrians. Paris has banned vehicles from a road along the Seine, and plans to rebuild it for bicycle and pedestrian use.

Yes, car owners are furious. That’s because they have mistaken their century-long domination over pedestrians for a right rather than a privilege. The truth is that cities are not doing nearly enough to restore streets for pedestrian use, and it’s the pedestrians who should be furious.

Many American cities still rely on “level of service” (LOS) design models developed in the 1960s that focus single-mindedly on keeping vehicle traffic moving, according to Elizabeth Macdonald, an urban design specialist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Hence improvements for other modes (walking, cycling, transit) that might increase vehicle delay are characterized as LOS. impediments,” she and her co-authors write in The Journal of Urban Design. The idea of pedestrians as “impediments” is of course perverse, especially given the word’s original meaning: An impediment was something that functioned as a shackle for the feet — unlimited vehicle traffic, say.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/opinion/sunday/cars-pedestrians-...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Alex Z on December 17, 2018 at 8:27am

Well said.

Permalink Reply by Paul Lazzaro on December 17, 2018 at 1:23pm

I love the sentiment.  But the issue is not just bad people driving too much.

In many European cities, and increasingly in the US, the city centers, which are walkable and bikeable, or at least moving in that direction, are expensive places to live.  Less affluent people, who are needed to work in the city, usually must commute from a distant suburb.  Often driving is the only way.  Making driving even slower than it already is, or more expensive, can be regressive.  If you are affluent and fortunate enough to live in central Paris, you don't need a car, and you may not care about the cost and hassle of driving to work there from a less affluent suburb.  OTOH, if you are not so wealthy and fortunate, you may be a Yellow Vest.

In order to be successful, the movement to improve quality of life by keeping cars out of cities needs to take into account economic equity.

Permalink Reply by Filka Bean on December 17, 2018 at 2:20pm
Thanks for sharing this Bob! I'm noticing more and more people speaking out or writing about this disconnect. And especially in NYC, where critics have argued that congestion pricing, for example, is a regressive tax on the poor... Despite the fact that most poor people in NYC do not own cars!
https://citylimits.org/2017/09/07/debate-fact-check-is-congestion-p...

I'd love to see our cities and towns built denser and more walk-able. Here's my "pipe dream": if all the cities and towns instituted road diets and prioritized walk-able neighborhoods, then none would be left behind and there'd be no pressure to push low-income residents out.
Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 18, 2018 at 3:38am

Interesting that when people rant and rail about the evils of "socialism" they very rarely bother to mention Sweden and Scandinavia in general...

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on December 18, 2018 at 4:04am

Interesting that when people rant and rail about the good of "socialism" they very rarely bother to mention the high cost of taxes necessary to pay for all these entitlement programs.  

Permalink Reply by David P. on December 18, 2018 at 4:56am

If you pay enough attention, you notice that they do (and it's not a rant when you're talking about a good!) We pay these costs one way or another - the difference is in paying them as an explicit tax or as an implicit tax. 

Permalink Reply by mike w. on December 18, 2018 at 2:31pm

i'd gladly pay those taxes if i never had to worry about paying for healthcare again, to name one example.

Beware of the label "entitlement." it's only been put out there by sly pols to stir up resentments.

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