At Strong Towns: "4 Reasons We Must Build Our Streets for People (Not Just Cars).

A reprise of the conversation (paraphrased) that I had with 3rd district councilman Greg Phipps last week.

Me: We need to talk about the street grid.

Greg: I know you have issues, but look, at times you have to compromise, and it's better than it was before. It's a start.

Me: Okay, for the sake of argument, let's say it is better than before (the two-way street project). It can still be improved, so we need to talk about the next phases for improvement.

Greg: Well, you know, probably nothing else is ever going to happen.

When the weather gets warmer, I'll be going back out with the radar gun, and then we'll see the degree to which traffic is being slowed by two-way friction alone.

4 REASONS WE MUST BUILD OUR STREETS FOR PEOPLE (NOT JUST CARS), by Kea Wilson (Strong Towns)

 ... Here are the four things I wish I could say not just to Jamie Wilson, but to anyone who thinks that stroads aren’t one of the most pressing issues facing our cities today.

1. Human life is not a traffic problem to be solved.

 ... Ask yourself this: Should the punishment for being a flawed human being who gets distracted (or plays too rough, or has an addiction, or any of the other messy human things we do) be a painful, sudden death under the wheels of a high-speed automobile?

2. Pedestrians safety is a two way street. But too often, that street is a stroad.

 ... To say that pedestrian safety is a two way street is to imply that pedestrians and cars are moving in equal lanes. And, both literally and metaphorically, nothing could be further from the truth.

78 people died in my city over the course of ten years when they were crossing roads designed almost exclusively for cars moving at high speeds, upon which they were also expected to walk. I have yet to hear of any comparable epidemic of automobile drivers being killed when they swerve to avoid pedestrians.

3. Fixing stroads isn’t expensive. And not doing it is what’s making us go broke.

 ... The idea that there’s only way to build a road network — that is, to vastly overbuild it, adding lane after widened lane until no one would blame a driver for forgetting he’s not on a highway — is not only incorrect, but deeply limited, and I think officials like Wilson are in for a pleasant surprise when they begin to think differently. For one, it’s forgetting hundreds of years of human history, in which roads were simply never built this way. For another thing, it neglects the vast range of creative solutions available to us when we dare to think even a little bit differently — many of which cost next to nothing at all.

4. Everyone is a pedestrian — or they were, or they will be.

 ... To say these people are “pedestrians” or “non-drivers” is to forget that they are all of us at some point in our lives. They’re people who are too young to drive a car, or too physically infirm in their old age, or too poor to afford one. They’re people who have visual or physical or other disabilities, and people who simply just want to go for a walk on a sunny day. When our city streets are designed properly, a pedestrian is, simply, anyone who feels like walking — and if you look at St. Louis’ many non-stroads on a summer night when the Botanical Gardens are hosting a concert series, you’ll see that more people than not will get out on foot if it’s even remotely an option.