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petersenbri

Cars or people?

While living in Austria, Vienna last fall a friend from Flagstaff sent me a link to an article in the Flagstaff local paper. The headline read: “City of Flagstaff takes ‘massive’ steps toward prioritizing pedestrians, cyclists over cars.” Having lived in Flagstaff for eight years, this proclamation seemed rather curious. As a biker and regular pedestrian, Flagstaff has never felt friendly to non-motorized transportation. Quite the contrary - I regularly feel unsafe biking around town and have had to jump onto the sidewalk, desperately trying to evade cars while walking in crosswalks. Flagstaff definitely has more non-car infrastructure than some other places but that relative approach to analysis obscures the reality that Flagstaff remains unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists. More importantly, other places remain far more safe, and have increased citizen well-being through planning efforts to deemphasize cars.


Living in Santa Cruz, California provides an example. Twenty years ago, the City installed infrastructure so that bikes could trip stoplights through the pavement. In Flagstaff, I regularly sat at a stoplight on my bike, after dropping my child off at pre-school, for a long time, desperately waiting for a car to come so the light would change because I could not do so myself (they did not even install a button for cyclists to push). The infrastructure changes in Santa Cruz mad a big difference functionally but also cued people to prioritizing non-motorists. In Flagstaff, by contrast, drivers all too often exhibit open hostility to cyclists and pedestrians.


How have other cities prioritized pedestrians and cyclists? During city council meetings a couple years ago, many speakers talking about this topic essentially said that Flagstaff is not ‘Europe’ so we could not possibly have similar outcomes. This sentiment has many shortcomings in logic and evidence. First, not every European city has prioritized pedestrians and cyclists. Second, some cities in the US have made great strides at reprioritizing transportation modes. Davis, California, for example, has created a flourishing cycling system while other California cities with similar topography and climate have not. This example speaks to the real point – shifting priorities does not just happen.


The Flagstaff City Council directive warrants examination. The effort, nicknamed the ‘Big Shift’ by city officials, has four primary elements: 1) safety programs 2) establishing vehicle miles traveled as a key metric for analysis 3) level of service exception zones and 4) changing design standards and speed limits on future roadways. Let me make something clear – I am not writing this post to criticize city officials or this overarching goal. Good people have and continue to put tremendous energy to improving our transportation system. Still, as a concerned citizen and someone who uses a bike as their primary means for moving around town, I am compelled to weigh in on this effort.


I read the article my friend shared about this plan after visiting several cities in Europe that have already prioritized pedestrians and cyclists over cars. Again, not every city in Europe has done so. How did some cities do so while others did not? After visiting, walking and biking across the cities, and doing research on them, the elements that contribute to different priorities emerged.


Clearly, no single approach can work everywhere and creating different priorities cannot emerge from simply instituting a single approach. And we must acknowledge that many obstacles and challenges prevent cities from instituting changes that could profoundly affect their cities and citizenry. Still, some insights bear mentioning. First, people often invoke the term ‘prioritizing’ in problematic ways. In Flagstaff, for example, the Big Shift, according to the four elements above, seems to suggest that existing roads will remain largely intact, while new roads might include infrastructure that purportedly ‘prioritizes’ pedestrians and cyclists over cars. I remain highly skeptical. You cannot successfully prioritize pedestrians and cyclists in some areas in the city and maintain car dominance elsewhere – that does not work. Copehanhagen, Denmark has received worldwide attention for their efforts to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists over cars. They have done so by taking strategic actions, including removing parking spaces and roads, heavily taxing cars, creating bike infrastructure, lanes, parking, stoplights, intended to increase biking and pedestrians while reducing cars and driving. Flagstaff’s plan has no such measures or goals. As a result, officials can claim a new priority while maintaining a car dominated city and culture.


Second, the key ingredient for ‘reprioritizing’ remains obscured even in cities where transformation has occurred. Other examples in Europe abound, too many to recount here. But the ones I witnessed first-hand have something in common that has nothing to do with planning, directives, goals, or even money. The Flagstaff effort, as described in the Daily Sun article, has one fatal flaw that remains the Achilles heel in efforts across this country. The European cities that have achieved true mode shift, creating viable non-motorized options for citizens, did not come from city officials or planning. The key ingredient, mostly missing from our efforts, has to do with citizen engagement.


The Daily Sun article does not mention citizen support or perspectives. This effort comes from a dedicated City staff but lacks citizen participation and engagement. European cities that have achieved transportation systems that prioritize people over cars have had vocal, knowledgeable, engaged citizens demanding different outcomes. That element remains essential and, unfortunately, too few people in this country take part in our transportation planning. This has to do with the dominant car culture we all find ourselves in, the well-funded and connected car-friendly interests that have unequal power in our weakened democracy, distracted and disengaged people, and the inability for individuals and communities to envision something different. This last point remains particularly important. When a conversation about how to address our transportation system comes up, people, even City staff, often start the conversation with the assumption that any solution starts with cars: different kinds (electric) or in a different system (more roads and bridges to accommodate more cars). Starting with these and related premises dooms us to a community dominated by cars, where pedestrians and cyclists remain marginalized, despite rhetoric to the contrary.


The only intervention that can actually lead to fundamental changes in transportation, and other social change, has to do with citizens making their voices heard. Not merely writing to the newspaper or speaking before City Council. No, what we need requires much more: binding together, collectively, to demand fundamental changes. The nuts and bolts embedded in this, as you might imagine, take many forms but cannot come about without a connected, concerted effort, binding people together to work towards a shared goal. It might sound simple but has remained elusive. Only you can change that.


After reading the article in the Daily Sun I went down the street to catch the local streetcar in Vienna. I took it downtown, a short ride that dropped me off in the city center, connected to buses, underground metro, light rail, and an easy ride to two main train stations with timely departures to reach any country in Europe. Vienna regularly tops the list for the world’s most livable city, a ranking earned in large part due to their public transportation system. Once again, the evidence suggests that people demanding a livable city with effective, affordable transportation has played a large part in this outcome. As I looked into the current situation in Vienna, a major controversy presented itself. City planners and business interests have proposed and started moving forward with a major highway through the city. How have people responded? Many have camped and protested at the site for months, waging a campaign to prevent a roadway that would profoundly affect the city and its people. Have you seen such a response to a proposed roadway in this country? Me either. We cannot have a transportation system that prioritizes people over cars until we do.

(Dedicated bike lanes, Amsterdam, Netherlands)

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