{"id":700,"date":"2010-09-07T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-07T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wabikes.org\/2010\/09\/07\/its-all-about-me\/"},"modified":"2010-09-07T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-07T15:00:00","slug":"its-all-about-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2010\/09\/07\/its-all-about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"“IT’S ALL ABOUT ME!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Urban mobility is not a zero-sum game.\u00a0 When you design streets for bicycles and pedestrians, everybody wins.<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n

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When it comes to designing American streets, it\u2019s usually all about the car.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Look at almost any street in our country. The priorities appear to be, in this order: (1) maximizing the rapid flow of motor vehicles; (2) providing as much curbside parking as possible without interfering with Priority (1); and (3) everything else.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Many American critics of so-called \u201calternative\u201d transportation seem to believe that it has to be this way. They apparently see urban planning as a black-and-white, zero-sum game in which there\u2019s only one legitimate winner. If bicycles and pedestrians \u201cwin,\u201d they believe, then cars \u201close.\u201d And if cars lose, then industry, business, mobility and \u201creal people\u201d lose as well.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Look at the debate over Seattle\u2019s very modest efforts to provide more space on its streets for bicycles. The City is slowly placing some of its arterials on a \u201croad diet\u201d<\/a> and adding bike lanes. But the negative reaction has been fierce, with opponents claiming that this \u201cwar on cars\u201d will clog the streets and drive the City\u2019s industrial base elsewhere.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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And in questioning whether the City should make spending for bike and pedestrian facilities a priority, a Seattle <\/span><\/span><\/span>Times <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i>columnist<\/span><\/a> recently posed the issue as a stark, either\/or proposition, saying: \u201c Seattle voters have to decide what kind of city they want: one with affordable taxes and reasonable accommodation for business and jobs, or a bike and pedestrian haven backed by plenty of public spending.\u201d <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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I have no doubt that much of this expressed angst arises from genuine concern\u2014genuine, but misplaced and ultimately harmful.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Consider: (1) Seattle is already among the nation\u2019s most congested metropolitan areas. We\u2019ve ranked as high as Number 2<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>during the past ten years. \u00a0The average Seattle-area driver spends about <\/span>45 hours<\/span><\/a> a year stuck in traffic. \u00a0(2) Seattle, like other Washington cities, has committed itself to greater density.\u00a0 That means more people in the same space\u2014and unless there is another way to get around, more cars. (3) No large City has ever eliminated congestion by road-building alone.\u00a0 The Los Angeles metropolitan area, which probably has the world\u2019s most extensive freeway system, routinely ranks as America\u2019s most congested. \u00a0(4) Cities that turn themselves entirely over to the car are among the most polluted and least livable. Think L.A. and Houston; would you move to either of those places for quality of life alone? <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Perhaps more importantly, consider the experience of cities that have taken a different path. \u00a0Their experience shows that everyone\u2019s mobility is increased when commuters are given a variety of options. Their experience also shows that giving street space to bicycles and pedestrians helps create a far more pleasant and humane urban environment.\u00a0 In other words, everybody wins.<\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Exhibit A is Copenhagen, Denmark. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Visitors can be forgiven for thinking that Copenhagen has always been bicycle and pedestrian nirvana; that the bicycle tracks, pedestrian streets and sidewalk cafes that one sees today are a natural outgrowth of Danish culture. Not so. They are the result of conscious policy choices that have taken almost 50 years to implement.<\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Two videos illustrate Copenhagen\u2019s transformation and the results; both are well worth watching. One is a <\/span>clip<\/span><\/a> from the film \u201cContested Streets.\u201d\u00a0 The other is a short video from Street Films called <\/span>“Copenhagen’s Car-Free Streets and Slow-Speed Zones.”<\/span><\/a> \u00a0In them, Danish architect and urban planner Jan Gehl and others recount how cars began proliferating in the city during the 1950s.\u00a0 Cyclists were pushed aside, and Copenhagen\u2019s lovely squares were turned into parking lots. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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The transformation to a different model began in the early 1960s, when one kilometer of the City\u2019s main shopping street was turned into a pedestrian mall.\u00a0 And in the 1980s, the City began to build an extensive system of separated \u201ccycle tracks\u201d on major arterials, often taking general-purpose car lanes to do so. As here, business owners often howled.\u00a0 Danes aren\u2019t Italians, they said\u2014they don\u2019t just walk around for the hell of it. The weather\u2019s too bad\u2014no one will frequent the pedestrian zones. Business will be ruined.<\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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But the City went ahead, and proved the critics wrong. <\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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In the process, they created an urban setting that is commonly held up as a world-class model of livability and sustainability. And \u201creal people,\u201d the kind that critics of Seattle\u2019s modest steps claim will be driven away, got back on their bikes. Today, more than a third of the commuters in Copenhagen get to work or school on their bicycles.\u00a0 So it turned out that the cycle tracks weren\u2019t just for a few selfish Lycra-clad eco-lunatics. They were for everybody.<\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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And no, they didn\u2019t outlaw the car. The Copenhagen area has a surprisingly-extensive freeway system. \u00a0And Copenhagen\u2019s streets are less congested than Seattle\u2019s. In fact, according to Gehl, Copenhagen is the least-congested City of its size in the Western world. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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And that\u2019s no zero-sum game.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Urban mobility is not a zero-sum game.\u00a0 When you design streets for bicycles and pedestrians, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[49,32,47,51,45,13,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attitudes","category-bike-culture","category-bike-to-work","category-complete-streets","category-bike-funding-policy-wa","category-bike-infrastructure-wa","category-sustainable-living"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n"IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!" - 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