Once More Unto the Breach, Dear Friends

This Day Is Called the Feast of Crispian

Roy Lichtenstein, 1963.

I've been watching Philadelphia's city government in action for quite a few years. I regularly find myself shaking my head in puzzled wonderment: Is this latest travesty caused by stupidity, incompetence, or malice? In situations like the present, I often have the feeling that it's a swirling mixture of all three.

I've been working on reimagining our streets for longer than I care to remember, and I suppose I should be desensitized to the transparent same-old, same-old. It's true that the forces of reaction are wearing new, and perhaps more fashionable, cloaks. No longer do I hear in meetings that bikes do not belong on the street and should simply go away. (Although I'm told you can still hear this on the street quite a lot.) No longer do I hear that bikes should be confined to our small streets - although recently I did hear of a proposal to remove the bike lanes from Pine and Spruce and redirect all bike traffic onto Market.

This last idea strikes me as coming from an expiring brain. But what actually worries me is the charm offensive - we agree with you; let's study it some more. You get this particularly from elected officials; some are actually sincere, and many are not. This meditational limbo appears to be where we are with the plans to upgrade the bike lanes on Pine and Spruce.

While we're waiting, I've decided to pass on a few ideas about street design that I hope others may find useful.

Street Design: Six Principles

Streets account for a huge percentage of the public land in Philadelphia. They belong to us, and not to a real estate oligarch; and we should be able to choose what goes on in those streets, and also change our minds about what should go on in those streets. Today, of course, this is a fantasy. But I would like to see it become a reality. 

My small contribution here is a list of six principles for street design that I have cobbled together, largely from the work of others who are smarter than I am. I hope this may prove to be a useful guide for those who are looking at our streets and trying to reimagine them. (By the way, we all have the right to play this game, but it's useful to approach the process with some humility, and an open ear for reasoned criticism.)

1. NO DEATH. This is, of course, the basic principle of the Vision Zero movement. It's pretty well worked out, but an astonishing number of people are utterly innocent of the concept. However, it has been several years since someone told me that he thought 40,000 dead on our roads and streets every year seemed like a reasonable cost of doing business.

Let me put it simply: Your convenience should not compromise the safety of other people.

2. We need to LOOK AT THE WHOLE STREET. People often have tunnel vision when it comes to streets. Why are people parking in a bike lane? Is it because there are no loading zones in the parking lane? Why do people insist on unloading their groceries at the front door, when they have a perfectly good back door on the little street behind the house?

3. Safety measures should be UNOBTRUSIVE AND EFFECTIVE. Often they are obtrusive and ineffective. Take, for instance, speed limit signs. Who, in the City of Brotherly Love, even looks at speed limit signs? (Well, I do.) Perhaps there is a better way. 

4. FLEXIBILITY. We are accustomed to sclerotic streets. The current arrangements on our streets often don't work well, but people assume that the present was inevitable and is certainly unalterable. Then the pope came for a visit, and we got a glimpse - for a few days - of a completely different city. Streets can be very flexible if you let them, changing to meet the many needs of the people for public space. And I must insist: flexibility is a strength and not a weakness.

5. CONFRONT THE BASIC PROBLEM, which is human error. We are all human and make mistakes, and we need to plan for those mistakes. Bad drivers make good posters, and they kill a lot of people. But the problem is broader than that. We need to look in the mirror, and highway engineers need to stop designing interstates that encourage people to drive 100 mph. The Complete Streets and Vision Zero programs are good on this. It would help if people listened.

6. This is personal, and pro-bicycle. I would like to see a MODE SHARE OF 50 PERCENT for bicycles and scooters in Center City. This goal has been my lodestar for quite a few years. Why? Because it would utterly transform our streets, for the better, and it would help us save the planet. Did I tell you about the lady who told me bicyclists are evil? I've thought a lot about her comment, and I think I know where it came from - a fear that we would actually succeed.

Thanks to Mr. Shakespeare and his Henry V for the hed and dek.

I found the Lichtenstein print at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

See also Defense Doesn't Win Wars and The Vigil for Dr. Friedes, and the notes at the end of those stories.