On December 3, 2014, a 7-year-old girl named Destiny Gonzalez was killed while crossing State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts.
What gets lost in the shocking statistics about the number of pedestrians who die each year in traffic crashes—4,884 in the U.S. in 2014, more than 6,700 in 2020—is that they aren’t “statistics” at all, or even “pedestrians” really, but people with names, who had hopes and dreams, and family and friends forever changed by the loss of their loved one. That was certainly the case with Destiny, who was killed while leaving the Central Library with her mother and cousin. She also left behind a father, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.
Something else that gets lost in these discussions is how our streets got so unsafe to begin with. Our streets, roads, and stroads are designed according to values so embedded that traffic engineers themselves might not be constantly aware of them. That’s a problem because you can’t fix something you don’t even know exists. It’s also the topic this week on the Strong Towns Podcast.
In this episode, Chuck Marohn reads an excerpt from the first chapter of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. Chuck describes why the high costs of the North American transportation system—costs in life and injury, as well as time and prosperity—are the byproduct of the values at the heart of traffic engineering. He also explains why the values of engineers, including traffic speed and traffic volume, aren’t the values most people would prioritize.
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is available everywhere on Wednesday, though if you preorder now you can get immediate access to Chapter One (along with these other great bonuses).
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Ian Lockwood: Thoughts From an Engineer
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Growth Through Destruction
On the Conservative Reaction to 15-Minute Cities
The Property Tax System is Broken—Regrid Works on Tools to Help Fix It
Jeff Speck on the 10th-Anniversary Edition of Walkable City
Lawsuit Update: Making a Stand for Engineers in the Minnesota State Court of Appeals
Mike Hathorne: Where Does Decision-Making Need to Occur in Our Communities?
Ben Hunt: In Praise of Bitcoin
Thanks for a Great Year
Sam Quinones: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth
Get Ready for #BlackFridayParking
The Impact of Systemic Racism on Jackson’s Water Crisis
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Most Comprehensive Resource Strong Towns Offers
A Whole New Framework for Analyzing Car Crashes
This Is How the Strong Towns Movement Becomes “Unignorable”
The Power of Talking Locally Over the Noise of National Politics
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