Great opinion piece in NYT – The Pedestrian Strikes Back

[wheelswings]

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

This article is a couple of days old so my apologies if it’s already been posted. It reflects upon efforts by cities around the world to take back the streets for pedestrians (and bicycle riders). Some passages that resonate for me:
(1) the sense of entitlement of drivers…
“Yes, car owners are furious. That’s because they have mistaken their century-long domination over pedestrians for a right rather than a privilege.”
(2) city planners’ reliance on “Level of Service” (LOS) design models focused on keeping motor-vehicle traffic moving. This issue comes up regularly in our meetings with traffic planners in Arlington.
“Hence improvements for other modes (walking, cycling, transit) that might increase vehicle delay are characterized as LOS impediments, [Elizabeth Macdonald] and her co-authors write in The Journal of Urban Design. The idea of pedestrians as ‘impediments’ is of course perverse…”
(3) the costs of driving are borne by all of us…the enormous output of small-particle pollutants that penetrate deep into our lungs, the space issue … why can car owners take up large parcels of urban land for parking– often for free? This is especially absurd in places like Brooklyn where rents are so high. And all this space devoted to driving and parking leaves little for trees, aside from a miniature shrub here and there.
“Urban walking has thus deteriorated from a civilized pleasure to an overheated, unshaded, traffic-harried race to a destination. It’s like what the art historian Vincent Scully once said about the demolition of the old Penn Station and its replacement by the commuter hell squeezed beneath Madison Square Garden: ‘One entered the city like a god; now one scuttles in like a rat.’”

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[consularrider]

@cvcalhoun 184133 wrote:

You assume everyone here is young enough to be your son? Unless you are 85, I can personally vouch for the fact that this is not true.

Your profile says you have been biking since 1968. For the record, I’ve been biking since 1959.

You and me both (or was it 1958?).

[VikingMariner]

@huskerdont 184126 wrote:

1) Not all of the internet has been poisoned. Some places get by with near-human levels of grumpiness.

2) Some places are still inhabited by people posing as adults (i.e, occasionally have “serious” discussions).

3) Smiley faces after condescension come off as creepy.

You smart. Snowflake is creep-ed out by a smiley face. Now that’s funny. You have my coworkers rolling on the floor. Please write more. lol Please. (Operation SNOWFLAKE ALERT Message–Trolling activity underway.)

[VikingMariner]

@cvcalhoun 184133 wrote:

You assume everyone here is young enough to be your son? Unless you are 85, I can personally vouch for the fact that this is not true.

Your profile says you have been biking since 1968. For the record, I’ve been biking since 1959.

Pretty sure from the numerous immature fights on this site that most of you are children, giving cycling a bad name without a clue. Yes. I do find that immaturity on the trail a huge disappointment. Again the issue is tribalism, not me or any other illogical argumentum ad hominem, and that tribalism is again on display–this time in the latest Washington Post opinion piece.

[cvcalhoun]

@VikingMariner 184316 wrote:

Pretty sure from the numerous immature fights on this site that most of you are children, giving cycling a bad name without a clue. Yes. I do find that immaturity on the trail a huge disappointment. Again the issue is tribalism, not me or any other illogical argumentum ad hominem, and that tribalism is again on display–this time in the latest Washington Post opinion piece.

I’m glad to see that you are of such an advanced level of maturity that you wouldn’t pick an immature fight with the several hundred members of this forum, all at the same time.

[Author]

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