{"id":2083,"date":"2010-04-08T22:19:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T05:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=2083"},"modified":"2010-04-08T22:19:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T05:19:00","slug":"congestion-is-our-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2010\/04\/08\/congestion-is-our-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Congestion is our friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 31 Gordon<\/a> Price<\/a> spoke in Victoria about what he calls Motordom<\/em>, or “auto-dependent urban form.” Motordom<\/em> basically is the generative transportation paradigm that has shaped urban form (and dominated urban planning) since at least the mid-20th century. It’s now perhaps finally coming to an end (albeit with many many loose ends).<\/p>\n

I’ve been intending to write a proper blog post about Gordon’s excellent deconstruction of Motordom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, … just a quick<\/em> note today that touches on another transportation-related event I attended on Tuesday night (April 6), Going Beyond Gridlock- Green Party Sustainable Transportation Forum<\/a>, because it fits so neatly both with some of the points raised by Gordon Price as well as with my concerns around a local issue.<\/p>\n

At his March 31 presentation, Gordon noted that congestion is our friend. When roads are congested, the solution to that problem isn’t to build more roads. Instead, let the congestion be the impetus for developing transit and for giving people choices that let them get out of their cars.<\/p>\n

At the April 6 meeting, every single speaker agreed that solving transportation problems does not mean building more roads, but rather taking car lanes away: transforming them into cycling or multimodal<\/a> lanes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

No one at Gordon Price’s March 31 lecture could answer his question (in the photo, above), “Where is there a good example of an urban region that has successfully dealt with traffic congestion by building more roads and bridges?” Especially when he added the qualifier, “A place we want to be more like”?<\/p>\n

And everyone at the April 6 Green Party-sponsored transportation forum agreed that building more roads fails to lead to transportation solutions that are sustainable. Everyone instead agreed that taking car traffic lanes out of the urban grid and converting them to cycling, multimodal, or transit lanes was the more sensible thing to do.<\/p>\n

The obvious question for the City of Victoria is then: why don’t you apply this line of thinking to solve multimodal transportation issues on the Johnson Street Bridge? Specifically, why not look to Vancouver’s example? <\/strong><\/p>\n

In Vancouver, the city took a traffic lane<\/a> on the Burrard Street Bridge<\/a> and turned it<\/a> into a cycling lane<\/a>. In Victoria, we could easily try the same approach with our historic Johnson Street Bridge<\/a> – an approach already suggested by Councilor Geoff Young, but poo-pooed by the Mayor and his friends on council. The latter include Councilor John Luton<\/a>, who spoke at the April 6 event in favor of getting people out of their cars and preferably onto bicycles or other sustainable transportation options instead. He even made a point of showing images of the Johnson Street Bridge, which he considers a key piece in Victoria’s multimodal puzzle – except in Luton’s mind, only a new, expensive bridge will suffice.<\/p>\n

It’s funny that those same politicians will flock to hear Gordon Price, applaud the critique of Motordom<\/em>, agree with other sustainability experts that the best strategies include removing<\/em> car traffic lanes from the grid, …yet adamantly maintain that the relatively tiny Johnson Street Bridge crossing has to stay at three car lanes. Come on, people: give your heads a shake. Take a lane out, remove the slippery steel deck, re-deck<\/a> it with fiber<\/a>–reinforced<\/a> polymer<\/a> (FRP<\/a>), and give it over to bikes. (Note: “Since FRP bridge decks are still considerably more expensive than concrete decks, they are basically competitive where light weight, corrosion resistance, and\/or rapid installation are demanded. Accordingly, competitive applications are mainly found in movable bridges, historic bridges, and urban environments.” [source\/PDF<\/a>])<\/p>\n

Much cheaper than a new bridge, better for the environment (think of all that new concrete needed for a new bridge, and the steel manufactured in China and brought to Victoria with bunker oil burning freighters – how sustainable is that?), and much better for the local economy (fixing the bridge would employ local people, building a new one would not).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gordon Price deconstructed “Motordom” during a recent presentation. One question especially continues to resonate, both in relation to sustainable transportation planning and to Victoria’s Johnson Street Bridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1419,2168,6171,2233,1481,2149],"tags":[1908,10625,15166,15167,14213],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities","category-green","category-johnson-street-bridge","category-land_use","category-transportation","category-urbanism","tag-cars","tag-congestion","tag-gordon_price","tag-motordom","tag-sustainability"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2100,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions\/2100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}