This week Strong Towns members continue to illustrate the importance of doing math and show the future of creative development. Dig in, and get fired up!
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It is no longer acceptable to design our urban streets to forgive the mistakes of drivers. Our designs must forgive the mistakes of the most vulnerable: those outside of a vehicle.
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The week in review as well as a look at where we are going to be soon.
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The federal government, along with many states, is experiencing large shortfalls in their transportation budget. After two generations of highway construction, maintenance costs are mounting. Simultaneously, there is a push for alternatives to the automobile. How do we address this funding crisis?
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More of the ubiquitous tragedy that is the American stroad, that pinnacle of accepted practice that engineering-by-committee has wrought.
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Chuck Marohn talks about the complaint made against him to the state licensing board for speaking out about reforming the engineering profession.
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Many thanks to Gretchen Goldman the Union of Concerned Scientists for their support. This kind of speaking up is important, not just for me, but for the benefit of anyone who has a viewpoint contrary to their own industry's standard practice.
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In this week's field notes I want to share a couple sources of connectedness, kindness, and friendship that have been big for me this year. They seem like very self-serving communities from the outside, but they end up improving the city without necessarily having that mandate. In large part, I think it's because both of these communities are part of a dense web of connected groups and activities coexisting downtown. We all piggy-back off each other's energy to create sense of motion, and that's what pushes the city forward.
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The central problem with Minnesota’s transportation system is that we have the wrong underlying assumption to all of our transportation investments.
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This may not look like transit to you, but it is the only way we are going to build successful, viable transit systems in cities all across this country. If you want transit, build a place. Connect it to another place. Think incrementally.
#wecandothis
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The Grim Reaper constantly lurks in our city, threatening to destroy the productive development patterns of the past with the scythe of 20th century ideas of progress. Before doing more of the same, let’s do the math!
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This week in member blogs: Quotas for three-bedroom apartments aren't producing more family-friendly housing in Toronto's core, perhaps because they ignore the needs of actual families. Can apartments be introduced to single-family neighborhoods incrementally? Doing the math reveals the fiscal downside of a proposed mega-project in St. Louis. Another engineer shares stories of hostility to dissenting views within the profession.
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It is reckless to be pursuing more money for a transportation funding system that is so wasteful and destructive without first having a serious discussion on reform.
#nonewroads
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We're updating our events page for 2015 and have some exciting stops to announce.
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Charles Marohn will be joined by panelists Jason DeGray, Nicollette Barber and Kevin Shepherd.
Live broadcast with Q&A here at 1:00 PM Eastern.
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If you need a sign to tell people to slow down, you designed the street wrong.
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Politicians on the left and right struggle to speak coherently about transportation infrastructure.
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Here's a clear example of the values some engineers bring to their work.
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Walking the tightrope of Strong Citizenship came to the fore this week after I re-read a short research article from grad school. At the time, I had highlighted the key points in a very theoretical way, ready to work them into an exam paper on the challenges of community involvement. Reviewing the paper again, I realized this is my life now. This is my life.
Make no mistake, we are not Tinkerbells. Hard work, not pixie dust makes a place feel magical. And while at times we enjoy this work immensely and it can even define us, the challenge remains, how to get paid?
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Last week I received notice that a complaint had been filed against my professional engineering license. The complaint indicated that I had engaged in “misconduct on the website/blog Strong Towns” for things I have written critical of the engineering profession.
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