Editing 2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression

{{comic
| number    = 2832
| date      = September 22, 2023
| title     = Urban Planning Opinion Progression
| image     = urban_planning_opinion_progression_2x.png
| imagesize = 675x2033px
| before    = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| 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==
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, then favoring pedestrian-centered design, and finally wanting to discourage driving with tactics as extreme 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 humorously radical, likely mirroring Randall's own evolution
# Satirize the irony of US policy discussions that elevate theory and feeling over actual best practices used in other countries.

The '''first two panels''' present the conventional view.

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

* Next, 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 any attention to Knit Cap; 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 shortage common in 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 scarce good or service causes the demand to rise faster than the increased supply, worsening the shortage. Traffic is a common example: when US cities try to widen roads and highways, they also incentivize even more vehicles and more driving, worsening the traffic 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 as he adopts a strong pedestrian-centric perspective.
* Cities face a dilemma of how to allocate limited street space. Car-centric cities allocate much more public land to vehicle storage and movement, leaving less space for bikes, pedestrians, dedicated transit corridors, greenspace, and density. 

In the '''seventh panel''', Megan takes issue with a particular type of vehicle – "those giant trucks" – and their threat to kids. All cars have blind spots in the front, and large trucks have blind spots sizable enough for the truck driver to be unable to see a standing child right in front.
* "Those giant trucks" likely refers to large pickup trucks, though she might be singling out lifted pickup trucks (raised after purchase), large tractor trailer cabs, or garbage/construction-style trucks.

In the '''eighth panel''', Knit Cap's relevant personal observations gets ignored and interrupted by the armchair theorists – a subtle nod to how US policy debates often ignore successful examples from other developed countries. 
* As 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. Desperate for any fix, Cueball concludes that 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 the tire spikes idea, and that this extreme idea emerges from 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 may reflect if they agree with Megan's final idea — 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 radical implications, and that (2) it's common for Americans to ignore success stories like Amsterdam's.

The '''title text''' references a 1992 cyberpunk novel called "{{w|Snow Crash}}", by Neal Stephenson. In the future of the novel, the roads are still dominated by motor vehicles, but a subculture of skateboarders exists which uses electromagnetic "harpoons" to attach themselves temporarily to cars. This allows the skateboarders to travel more quickly, by stealing a small amount of momentum from the vehicles. The suggestion here seems to be that such a system (despite being dangerous and chaotic) advantages other forms of transport, at the expense of cars, and is therefore at least somewhat beneficial. 

===What are the pros and cons of bike lanes?===
Protected bike lanes are safer compared to painted bike lanes, according to a [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140523001056 recent study]. It concluded that "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."

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 motorized 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.

=== 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==
:'''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. Label at the top of the timeline:]
:Start

:[Cueball is talking to Megan.]
: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 is talking to Ponytail. Ponytail has her arms spread out.]
: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!

:[Close-up on Cueball.]
: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.

:[Close-up on Megan, with her hand on her chin.]
: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.

:[Close-up on Knit Cap.]
:Knit Cap: Visiting the Netherlands was cool!
:Knit Cap: Amsterdam is really neat.

:[Cueball with his palms to his sides.]
: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 with her arms spread out.]
:Megan: Those giant trucks with front blind spots that keep hitting kids should be illegal.

:[Knit Cap with her finger raised.]
:Knit Cap: We should be more like the Netherlands.
:Knit Cap: They design their streets to prioritize...

:[Cueball is frustrated and has his palms raised.]
: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 (in grayscale) raised in her hands.]
:Knit Cap: '''''Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands! Netherlands!'''''

:[Cueball, with his finger raised, talking to Megan.]
: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.

:[Close-up on Megan.]
: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]]