Building Community through Transportation

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6 Comments

Comment by Randy Selleck on August 4, 2009 at 11:46am

Yes! For too long, traffic engineers have been behind transportation network design & planning. I have a great respect for engineers (I've worked with many), but they do tend to see roadways as being exclusively for vehicular traffic and thier goal tends to be eliminating all interaction between vehicles and pedestrians.

A prime example is the small town that is ruined when the major route running through it is "improved", creating a multi-lane, high speed road that is now a barrier to bike/ped traffic.

I'll leave it at that since this is my first post...

Comment by Rakhi Chowdhary on May 19, 2009 at 7:59am

I completely agree with you on planning and designing transportation facilities to function as public places and enhance the quality of the human and natural environments, rather than simply moving vehicles from place to place.

It is not just increase in number of vehicles but we need to check that these vehicles are not hazardous to human health, emission of CO2, moving with technology to improve vehicle mileage, efficiency, infrastructure.

Comment by Aurash Khawarzad on April 23, 2009 at 11:21am

I agree. We're at the point now where we're realizing the inherent limitations to an auto-centric transportation system. Population growth will severely limit how many roads can be built without severely damaging the ecological systems we depend on for our health. Not to mention that people are looking towards biking, cycling, and other modes of transportation as a means to improve their quality of life.

The externalities of automobile transportation, such as environmental pollution, poor health, reduced work productivity, and several others, are starting to be measured and understood to be great burdens on our society. Having a comprehensive transportation system would improve our mobility, but reduce these costly externalities and produce a benefit of the commons, instead of a tragedy of the commons.

Here's an excerpt from the book "Sprawl: A Compact History" that discusses the externalities of auto-centric transportation.

Comment by Elena Madison on April 17, 2009 at 10:38am

Here's a link to the video on Hulu.

Comment by Elena Madison on April 17, 2009 at 10:36am

I think the PBS video Andres sent around about Bogota is also very relevant. I like the way it doesn't isolate issues but is approaching a variety of urban problems in a holistic way. Transit, bicycling, streets, and transportation are seen in the larger context of urban livability and sustainability.

Comment by Aurash Khawarzad on April 8, 2009 at 2:01pm

I would like to begin this group's discussion with an interesting video. In the clip below, you'll see what the streets of Barcelona were like 100 years ago, and what those same streets are like today.


As you can see, modern transportation systems have had a profound impact on our streets and neighborhoods. Can we get back to the vibrancy exhibited in streets of Barcelona 100 years ago? Are we already headed in that direction? Should we head in that direction?

It's my observation that in the video, the streets of Barcelona were used as community space 100 years ago. Whereas today, the streets in Barcelona are desolate and void of excitement. And the main difference seems to be that now the streets are dominated by, and planned for, cars. 100 years ago, the streets were primarily built for people, but also accommodated a tram system, cyclists, cars, and perhaps the odd sheep herder - seems rather sustainable to me, wouldn't you say?