This one goes out to John Rosenbarger: "'Don’t Be a Dick' May Just Be the Best Motto Yet for Urban Designers."

Uh oh. Here comes the Municipal Time Servers Union to file a grievance on behalf of Pinocchio.

In rebuttal, let's turn to 2014, merely a brief segment of one year out of 35, but who's counting?

John Rosenbarger: Yes, it's a design flaw, and yes, we know who designed it. Why can't we do anything about that?

Answer the question, John Rosenbarger: Can Jeff Speck's ideas work here, or not?

Ranting on John Rosenbarger's fundamental contradictions in the aftermath of an atrocious day in the neighborhood.

As for the link ... too late, suckers.

“Don’t Be a Dick” May Just Be the Best Motto Yet for Urban Designers, by Danya Sherman (Next City)

In the past few years, the number of community-engaged design projects has boomed. Buoyed by good intentions and the recognition that resources in urban landscapes are still unequally distributed, designers, planners, architects and other professionally trained technical experts are working with impacted communities to prevent further harm and built more equitable cities.

But how do designers know when they are replicating harmful dynamics they wish to avoid? How can community-engaged practitioners, instead, be a part of breaking down persistent barriers and building the capacity of communities who have been denied access to resources (in some cases for generations) to take ownership of the neighborhood’s future?

Well, one thing they shouldn’t do is be a Dick. That’s the playful conclusion of a new children’s book-style guide to social impact design practice recently produced by the Equity Collective, a group of leaders and practitioners in the field of community engaged design. Available here as a free downloadable book, Dick & Rick: A Visual Primer for Social Impact Design was created with the intention of encouraging professionals in the field to practice self-reflection, remain aware of power dynamics and stay focused on an ultimate goal of advancing racial, economic and social justice in every decision made.

Bicycle Infrastructure Fail(s): "The primary problem is that traffic engineering ... still has influence on planning and urban design."

Which is why, when you remark to an engineer that your city won't ever get the streets right until it decides that one really must break eggs to make an omelette, and the engineer replies that "every day I break more eggs than Waffle House," it's perfectly clear just how big of a broom will be needed for the toxic clean-up.

Or maybe a scythe and a few pitchforks wouldn't hurt, either.

If we design cities for humans, with respect for the human experience, safety, logic and ease-of-use, you wouldn’t see stuff like a bike lane in the middle of a street, or sharrows, in any city.

Ding ding ding -- that magic word, sharrows, which is the invariable "do nothing and declare victory" tactic of the Rosenbarger sect.

To paraphrase Stonewall Jackson: "Fire 'em. Fire 'em all."

Bicycle Infrastructure Fail(s), by Mikael Colville-Andersen (Cities of the Future)

... Best Practice in bicycle infrastructure is basically a century old. Dedicated bike paths date from 1892 when an equestrian path was turned over to bikes on Esplanade in Copenhagen. In 1915, the first on-street, curb-separated cycle track was installed on Strandboulevarden. From there, protected bike infrastructure spread out around the world.

Over 100 years, the infrastructure has been tested by easily hundreds of millions of daily cyclists. Planners have tweaked and experimented, made mistakes and fixed them and ended up with a Best Practice that is simple, effective, safe and cost-efficient. Generations of planners and engineers have done an amazing job and just handed us everything we need on a silver platter. There are only four types of infrastructure in Danish Best Practice. One of the designs fits any street in the nation and any street in any city in the world. Copy-paste, baby.

Why, then, do we see crap like in the photo, above, showing up on city streets? Who, in their right mind, would ACTUALLY choose to put cyclists in the middle of a street with speeding cars on either side? Certainly not anyone with an understanding of the bicycle’s role in urban life as transport or a sincere desire to encourage cycling and keep people safe. As I suggested on Twitter, find the person who is responsible and fire them. A flippant remark – but still a serious one.

The primary problem is that traffic engineering, in certain countries, still has influence on planning and urban design. In America, where this infrastructure was put in, bicycles are placed in the same category as motorized vehicles. In countries that GET the bicycle’s role in cities, they are regarded as fast-moving pedestrians and we’ve been planning for them for a century.

The scarecrow's Nawbany lament, revisited: "More Before-and-After Photos of the World's Best Street Designs."

Photo credit: City Lab.

We've been here before. From NAC, September 18, 2015: The Scarecrow's Lament: If New Albany only had a brain ...

There are times when it's very difficult to read articles like this one, and view scenes like a refurbished street in Antwerp (above), knowing that automobiles continue to be the sole determining factor of everything we do. But that's okay. We'll just keep pushing on.

City Hall's inability to comprehend walkability solutions at the intersection of Main and W. 1st illustrates Jeff Gahan's walkability gap. It's that Rorschach test all over again: Show Gahan one of the photo sets in these City Lab articles, and all he sees is a Disney castle -- and a campaign finance revenue stream.

More Before-and-After Photos of the World's Best Street Designs, by Feargus O'Sullivan (City Lab)

Across the world, street design that favors automobiles and ignores pedestrians and cyclists is being rethought. A newly updated resource created by the Brazilian urban design collective Urb-i allows you to chart just how widespread and profound the changes are.

Once again: "The design of a street, more so than any posted speed limit sign, invites drivers to go fast or slow."

You'll have to click through to see the photo, which contrasts an overbuilt street with a right-sized street. The photo was assembled by Wes Craiglow, a city planner in Arkansas.

Some 20-MPH Streets Are Safer Than Others ... Forget speed limits—the key to slower roads is design, by Eric Jaffe (City Lab)

 ... Craiglow's point is that the design of a street, more so than any posted speed limit sign, invites drivers to go fast or slow. It’s a critical message at a time when cities around the U.S. and the world are turning to Vision Zero and 20’s Plenty campaigns that stress the safety advantages of slower traffic. As the Strong Towns blog noted in picking up the meme: “We can't regulate our way to safety.”

By regulation, we're referring to the oft-heard suggestion to enforce speed limits by writing more tickets.

“Regulation may not be the best means to the end. In fact design—the actual framework—is probably a more responsible, cost-effective, and meaningful method to get the same end.”

Try telling that to New Albany's Bored with Works or Safety, and strain to imagine one of our city planner's describing these matters to a national web site. You can't do it, can you?

He says that for too long now urban planners have provided only one choice, and that it’s time for them to show city residents the full “buffet” of living options. Some people will choose to live in the top photo, sure. But many will choose to live in the bottom photo. Still others will prefer a dense, mixed-use environment downtown. “We need to create that,” he says. “And everything in between.”

Arkansas, folks. Not Indiana. ARKANSAS.

Craiglow suggests it’s time for traffic engineers, who tend to put car movement above all else, to share the stage with smart designers. “We have to drive home design, and what design means to our community,” he says. “We have to tell the engineers: You have to ride shotgun for a little while. You’re still in the front seat. You’re going to navigate. We’re going to do it together. But you can’t drive all the time.”

Revolution? What a thrill.

Why not here?

Ask Jeff Gahan.