Professional Engineers: Speak Up. The Stakes Are Life and Death.
Is it better to reform the engineering profession from within, politely attending seminars to consult with other licensed and trained colleagues? Or is passionate input from the general public going to change the approach engineers take to designing roads and transportation infrastructure to be safer?
The stakes are life and death and the need is urgent. More than 40,000 people walking and biking are killed on America’s roadway each year by system designs that value speed and throughput more than safety and cost.
Charles “Chuck” Marohn, Strong Towns founder and president, made the decision a decade ago to step outside the cloistered halls of the engineering profession to advocate for change in the way North American cities and infrastructure are designed.
For those following a recent decision by the Minnesota licensing board to censure Chuck, today’s Upzoned episode (hosted by Strong Towns Program Director Rachel Quednau, as Abby Kinney takes a well-deserved break) offers a reflection of how his decision to become an activist, as well as a professional engineer, has caused ripples and fissures throughout the industry.
“The feedback that I got in those early years from professional engineers was, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, Chuck, you’re kind of speaking outside of the church, right?’” Marohn says. “‘You're out there saying things in public that sure, we talk about in private, but you need to talk about that in private. There’s engineering societies you can be part of. There are groups you can join.’”
Marohn explains that he pushed back because he decided that internally, the profession can’t reform itself without some outside pressure.
“And the outside pushing can't be street advocates yelling about pedestrians or people who are advocates for the homeless… It has to be someone with credibility, someone with ‘PE’ behind their name, who's standing with many of these groups saying their concerns are valid—you can't ignore them.”
And that, in Marohn’s view, is the decision that has directly landed him with an erroneous censure from a licensing board rejecting his push for reform.
“There are [engineers] who want to change this system, but they still are a minority within the profession. And they still default to the closed room, the closed chat board, the private discussion, the whispers among themselves, as opposed to what really needs to happen, which is a large public dialogue on the future of transportation in this country.”
Tune in to the podcast for more on the fight that awaits in the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and beyond.
Additional Show Notes
Traffic studies read like dry, technocratic products that follow some scientific process. In reality, they often use selective data and unrealistic projections to promote road projects with the veneer of technical expertise.