Basement Office

Anatomy of a to-do

In a brilliant act of sustained provocation, the Post-Gazette has kept the back-and-forth between bicyclists and drivers alive for three weeks running. Since the August 12 story about the appointment of a city bicycle “czar”, it has been nearly impossible to go a day without witnessing an exchange.

Following the publication of this story, the letters to the editors on August 13, 16, and 17 had at least one bicyclist or driver opining on the awfulness of the other.

Sensing blood, the P-G collected anecdotes from frustrated drivers, wrapped some weak reporting around it, and threw it on the front page on August 18 under the headline “When bicyclists break the safety chain, driver complaints mount.”

Predictably, this set off another round of furious letter-writing, some of which were published on August 20, 21, 23, and 25. The paper’s normally conservative page 2 columnist also spent a column supporting the bicyclists’ cause.

There has been ample debate on the topic on the paper’s own discussion form as well as on at least one local blog, which has racked up an impressive 100+ comment count on a post that was just trolling for abuse.

I have little to add to this noise, except to say that I think that both sides are yelling past each other, and that no amount of increased law enforcement, or painted bike lanes, or bicycle licensing fees will change how cars and bikes interact on the city’s streets, in their current state.

That’s not to say things can’t get better. What I would like to see is a fundamental rethinking of the function of the city street.

This story of Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer is a wonderful study in counter-intuitive approaches to better moderate the role of the automobile in the city.

While redesigning a major thoroughfare in a Dutch village after two children were fatally stuck, Monderman employed psychological tricks, not signs and speed bumps, to calm traffic:

Signs were removed, curbs torn out, and the asphalt replaced with red paving brick, with two gray “gutters” on either side that were slightly curved but usable by cars. As Monderman noted, the road looked only five meters wide, “but had all the possibilities of six.”

The results were striking. Without bumps or flashing warning signs, drivers slowed, so much so that Monderman’s radar gun couldn’t even register their speeds. Rather than clarity and segregation, he had created confusion and ambiguity. Unsure of what space belonged to them, drivers became more accommodating. Rather than give drivers a simple behavioral mandate – say, a speed limit sign or a speed bump – he had, through the new road design, subtly suggested the proper course of action.

Of his approach, Monderman says:

“I don’t want traffic behavior, I want social behavior.”

Better social behavior is something we should all strive to practice. Perhaps as the oil era cedes center stage, we can once again reclaim our urban spaces and infuse them with a humanity that has been missing for far too long.

Killer essay

This commentary hits just about every nail on the head. I couldn’t agree more with the following paragraph:

There are three things that keep me up nights: the threat of climate change, peak oil and the mountaintop removal strip mining that is destroying Appalachia. And I have reached the conclusion that, here in the United States, there are three major causes of these problems: Our homes are too big, our food travels too far, and our entire economy is built around the automobile. American homes are twice as big as they were 30 years ago, though fewer people actually live in them. The average item on a supermarket shelf has logged 1,500 miles to get there. And the homogenous suburb has ensured that we must drive everywhere, destroying at once the traditional, walkable city and the surrounding rural landscapes. Thus we have created a consumer culture that much of the developing world – most ominously, China – wants to emulate. But the problem is that this culture is based entirely on carbon-emitting fossil fuels, and it is therefore a culture that has no future.

Gas and taxes

Lately, there’s been a lot of things worth mention, but here are two of particular note:

Ethanol: Now it’s personal

This love affair we’re having with ethanol has got to stop. Among the many shortcomings that are noted in a recent New York Times blog post, “Ethanol and the Tortilla Tax,” comes this gem:

So far, Americans havent really caught on to what is happening to the price of products such as soybean or corn-based foodstuffs. But that may change if and when this rush to all fuels allegedly more environmentally friendly affects the price of beer.

It could happen; Heineken, the brewery giant, said beer prices might have to be raised because so many crops are being planted and diverted to bio-fuel production that the supply of barley and hops is being reduced.

Over-reliance on a crop that is chemically dependent and facilitates erosion, being disingenuous about the energy required to produce the stuff (and its purported “green” image), and shortchanging the world’s food supply in favor of keeping our country’s fleet of S.U.V’s in motion is one thing. But fuck with our beer supply? It just won’t fly.

Encouraging bad behavior

Representative Zack Space of Ohio has a solution for the twin “problems” of foreclosures and “high” gas prices:

…families who lose their homes to foreclosure frequently are hit with a massive tax bill. They lose their home and are hit with a “foreclosure tax” by the IRS, adding insult to injury. […] This “foreclosure tax” is simply unfair and needless injury. That’s why I will be introducing legislation to help alleviate this problem.

I also don’t have to tell you what gasoline prices have done to our families’ budgets. Earlier this summer, prices climbed to $3.25 per gallon and higher. For most of us who live in rural areas, we have no choice but to pay those prices if we want to continue to get to work and pick up our kids from school.

That is why I announced my plan to introduce the Rural Commuters Tax Relief Act of 2007. This legislation could not be simpler: If your household makes less than the national median income, you drive more than 30 miles to work and you work at least four days per week, then you receive a $100 tax credit for each month that the average price of gas is more than $3 per gallon.

So, if I read this right, he’d like to set up programs that only serve to reinforce the behavior that caused the problems in the first place? That’s poor governance.

To wit:

Why are more people suddenly facing foreclosure on their $300,000 home? It’s got a lot to do with the recent subprime lending boom and the popularity of adjustable rate mortgages, which allow for the easy acquisition of a McMansion in the ‘burbs. Speculation in a real-estate market that is teetering on the edge of collapse is not, historically, something that Joe Middle Class usually engaged in. Why not direct this “relief” into something more productive, such as borrower education that encourages potential homeowners to realign their expectations with economic reality?

Representative Space’s district lies amidst a lot of Rust Belt cities that could use an infusion of fresh blood. Incentives to repopulate these empty urban centers would serve to increase the economic health of his state more so than the current cycle of suburban development, which does nothing but keep the fast food chains, big box stores, and highway construction contractors happy. True, it may keep his district from becoming a haven for the Bed, Bath and Beyond set, but we should be concerned with preserving, not developing, our rural communities.

Promoting this type of behavior would also serve to eliminate the need to “help” people who “drive more than 30 miles to work.” The best help for these kind of people is the kind that encourages them to move closer to where they work. In Representative Space’s district, that would probably include cities like Columbus, Akron, and Canton. None of which are weathering the current suburban exodus all that well.