2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression

2023-10-05T15:45:36Z

Boog2021: Added some info in the walkability section

{{comic
| number = 2832
| date = September 22, 2023
| title = Urban Planning Opinion Progression
| image = urban_planning_opinion_progression_2x.png
| imagesize = 675x2033px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = If they're going to make people ride bikes and scooters in traffic, then it should at LEAST be legal to do the Snow Crash thing where you use a hook-shot-style harpoon to catch free rides from cars.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a DUTCH BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic follows [[Cueball]], [[Megan]], [[Knit Cap]] and [[Ponytail]] as their beliefs evolve widely from a conventional car-first view of urban planning, then questioning the wisdom of car-centered policies, and finally favoring pedestrian-centered design that discourages driving with tactics as extreme and satirical as road spikes.

As a clever form of satire, the comic has twin aims:
# Present a progressive argument leading to a logical conclusion that's also satirically extreme.
# Satirize the irony of US policy discussions that choose theory and feeling over actual best practices used elsewhere.

In the '''first panel''', Cueball and Megan complain about the common problem many car-centric cities face about not having enough space for all the cars, and give a conventional suggestion of making more space for cars.

In the '''second panel''', Knit Cap mentions how she is going to visit {{w|Amsterdam}}, a city known for its {{w|walkability}} and bike friendliness, which gives Ponytail a chance to share the conventional concern that road cycling is bothersome to drivers.

* This is the only moment that anyone pays attention to Knit Cap at all; later when she has lived experience of the topic, they ignore her.

In the '''third and fourth panels''', Cueball and Megan begin to evolve their thinking, wishing for better transit and more bike paths – another problem of car-centric cities – with Megan noticing that optimizing for drivers discourages pedestrians, which in turn spurs more driving – later calling it "a vicious cycle."
* Megan's comments could relate to {{w|Induced demand}}, an economic theory in which increasing the supply of a good or service causes the demand to rise faster than the increased supply, worsening the shortage. The most common example is traffic: some US cities have tried to alleviate traffic jams by widening the roads and highways, which incentivized more people to take up driving, more vehicles to route through their streets, or took potential funding from other transportation solutions, worsening the traffic jam problem. Conversely, other cities have tried removing traffic lanes or converting them to dedicated public transit lanes, and have reported a reduction in traffic congestion, due to people choosing other transportation options. Among urban planners, this is known as the {{w|Downs–Thomson paradox}}.

In the '''fifth panel''' – taking place a week or two later – Knit Cap is back from her work trip to report that Amsterdam is really neat.

In the '''sixth panel''' Cueball's questioning turns into anger at car culture, beginning his full 180 from his previous, conventional car-centric view
* Since there is a limited amount of space on a street, cities face a dilemma on how much space they should allocate to pedestrians, cycles and vehicles. Car-centric cities often allocate the most space to cars, leaving less space for bikes and pedestrians.
* The default for cities is for cyclists just to ride in the street with the cars, as the road vehicles they are. This, however, is considered by some to be significantly more dangerous than a city having dedicated bike lanes, which is why Ponytail was likely concerned in the second panel.
** (A recent study reported that painted bike lanes are more dangerous than no bike lane, and only protected bike lanes are safer: <span title="Conclusions: Protected bike lanes and buffered bike lanes had estimated protective effects on segments between intersections but estimated harmful effects at intersections. Conventional bike lanes had estimated harmful effects along segments and at intersections.">Garber, Michael D., et al: ''[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140523001056 Bicycle infrastructure and the incidence rate of crashes with cars: A case-control study with Strava data in Atlanta]''. Journal of Transport & Health, '''32'''. September 2023: Received 13 February 2023; Received in revised form 10 July 2023; Accepted 14 July 2023; Available online 11 August 2023. doi:[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2023.101669 10.1016/j.jth.2023.101669]</span>)
* From a wider perspective, however much you attempt to segregate different forms of transport (at junctions and other bottlenecks where space cannot be reserved), you'll always need to bring bicycles and traffic back into contact, briefly, and in circumstances where motorised traffic has become unused to sharing the roadspace with the lighter vehicles. This is unlike a more integrated place like Amsterdam where a driver is rarely going to be surprised by the presence of bicycles, overlook them and therefore cause an accident.

In the '''seventh panel''', Megan takes issue with a particular type of vehicle – "giant trucks" – and their threat to kids. She may be talking about large pickup trucks, lifted pickup trucks (raised after purchase), or large tractor trailer cabs or garbage trucks. All cars have blind spots in the front, and large trucks have especially large blind spots, sizable enough for the driver in the cab to be unable to see a standing child right in front.

In the '''eighth panel''', Knit Cap's relevant personal observations gets ignored and interrupted by the armchair theorists – a subtle reference to the tendency of US policy debates to ignore data and insights from other developed countries with successful alternative policies.
* Winston Churchill once said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”

In '''panels nine, ten, and eleven''', everyone's emotions peak with views that reach their zenith. Car culture is systemic! Driver-centric road planning is a vicious cycle! NETHERLANDS!

By the '''final two panels''', Cueball's and Megan's evolution is complete. Cueball believes city livability calls for making the driving experience worse, and then he suggests tire spikes as a solution. The final joke is that Megan actually supports consideration of the tire spikes idea, and that this obviously extreme idea is shown to come from a place of logical reasoning.

Additionally, Cueball and Megan are coming up with crazy solutions while ironically ignoring Knit Cap's reasonable and practical lessons from how Amsterdam actually solves the problem. This continues the satire of US policy discussions that ignore real-world best practices because they come from across the Atlantic.

* A reader who has been nodding along the whole time must reflect if they agree with Megan's final comment, and if not, why not? The whole comic is a type of logical argument in which many small steps of reasoning can lead to eventually extreme and satirical conclusions, similar to the famous {{w|A Modest Proposal}} by Jonathan Swift. It seems that Randall is sharing the evolution of his own views, while self-awarely noting that (1) if you take those views as far as they'll go, you can support some pretty radical implications, and that (2) it's too common for folks to ignore success stories like Amsterdam's.

The '''title text''' references a cyberpunk book called "{{w|Snow Crash}}", by Neal Stephenson. An early scene in that book involves the equivalent of a skater using a magnet on a cable to attach onto the back of a pizza delivery vehicle. He swerves in order to dislodge her, she taunts him and attaches stickers to his vehicle.

=== What makes a city walkable? ===
To achieve a walkable area, urban planning (or zoning) must be seamlessly integrated with public transport planning. The central truth is that everybody is a pedestrian for some time, which also includes car drivers. Crucially, the average pedestrian is willing to walk about 2000 ft from their home to the next public transport stop, and an additional 2000 ft between the last public transport stop and their workplace. Opportunities for shopping and eating should exist at every connecting station, with the connections scheduled in a way that it both allows changing to the connecting train/tramway/bus immediately – as well as buying groceries.

For an area to be walkable, at a minimum, all roads should have a sidewalk,{{Actual citation needed}} which, of course, costs area, but make the pedestrians' lives much easier and safer. But then, not only roads impact walkability. In the United States, many places open to the public are, by municipal ordinances, forced to provide enough parking space for [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8 all customers at any given time], which leads to serious knock-on effects: Pedestrians must often cross a large and weather-exposed parking lot in order to shop. A building can often be only re-purposed if a neighboring building is bulldozed to create the necessary parking area. And tenants who live in an apartment, but do not own a car, are forced to pay for the parking space they do not need. This creates difficulties, particularly in urban areas.

Another topic is subsidizing public traffic. Municipalities in Switzerland, for example, order bus connections – e.g. a hourly bus from 6 AM until 10 PM, and in exchange, they cover the deficit of any such connection. That way, families, who usually are better taxpayers, move to villages, and beginning with grade 5, 6 or 7, pupils can still easily commute to a district school.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:'''Typical urban planning opinion progression'''

:[Each panel is connected to a point on a timeline. Timeline is recognizable as the tread of a bicycle tire]

:Cueball: I wish there wasn't so much traffic to get into the city. They should put in more lanes.
:Megan: And more parking.
:Megan: Parking is so bad here.

:Knit Cap: I have to go to Amsterdam for work next week. I hear they all ride bikes there.
:Ponytail: Bikes are fine but people shouldn't ride them in the street! I worry I'm going to hit someone!

:Cueball: It would be nice if we had better transit options!
:Cueball: I tried a scooter. It was fun but I wish there were more bike paths.

:Megan: It's funny how widening roads to speed up traffic makes them more dangerous to walk near, making driving more necessary and creating more traffic.
:Megan: Really makes you think.

:Knit Cap: Visiting the Netherlands was cool!
:Knit Cap: Amsterdam is really neat.

:Cueball: We've ceded so much of our land to storing and moving cars, with the rest of us tiptoeing around the edges and making drivers mad for trespassing on "their" space.
:Cueball: Even though '''''we're''''' the ones in danger from '''''them!'''''

:Megan: Those giant trucks with front blind spots that keep hitting kids should be illegal.

:Knit Cap: We should be more like the Netherlands.
:Knit Cap: They design their streets to prioritize...

:[Cueball is frustrated.]
:Cueball: The problem is car culture. It's systemic.
:Cueball: I don't know if we can fix it.

:[Megan’s arms are thrown out, and her hair is bedraggled.]
:Megan: People approach road planning decisions from the point of view of drivers because that's how we're used to interacting with the city, so we make choices that make it more car-friendly.
:Megan: It's a vicious cycle.

:[Knit Cap is walking around with two Dutch flags raised in her hands.]
:Knit Cap: '''''Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands!'''''

:Cueball: Anything that makes a city a worse place to drive in makes it a better place to live, short of scattering random tire spikes on the road.

:Megan: Honestly, I think the city council should consider the tire spikes thing.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]

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2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression