Editing 2832: Urban Planning Opinion Progression

 

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, and finally favoring pedestrian-centered design that discourages driving with tactics as extreme and satirical as road spikes.  

# Present a progressive argument leading to a logical conclusion that's also satirically extreme.

# Satirize the irony of US policy discussions that choose theory and feeling over actual best practices used elsewhere.

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

In the '''second panel''', 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 attention to Knit Cap at all; 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 problem of 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 good or service causes the demand to rise faster than the increased supply, worsening the shortage. The most common example is traffic: some US cities have tried to alleviate traffic jams by widening the roads and highways, which incentivized more people to take up driving, more vehicles to route through their streets, or took potential funding from other transportation solutions, worsening the traffic jam 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 '''sixth panel'''  Cueball's questioning turns into anger at car culture, beginning his full 180 from his previous, conventional car-centric view

* Since there is a limited amount of space on a street, cities face a dilemma on how much space they should allocate to pedestrians, cycles and vehicles. Car-centric cities often allocate the most space to cars, leaving less space for bikes and pedestrians.

* The default for cities is for cyclists just to ride in the street with the cars, as the road vehicles they are. This, however, is considered by some to be significantly more dangerous than a city having dedicated bike lanes, which is why Ponytail was likely concerned in the second panel.

** (A recent study reported that painted bike lanes are more dangerous than no bike lane, and only protected bike lanes are safer: <span title="Conclusions: 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.">Garber, Michael D., et al: ''[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140523001056 Bicycle infrastructure and the incidence rate of crashes with cars: A case-control study with Strava data in Atlanta]''. Journal of Transport & Health, '''32'''. September 2023: Received 13 February 2023; Received in revised form 10 July 2023; Accepted 14 July 2023; Available online 11 August 2023. doi:[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2023.101669 10.1016/j.jth.2023.101669]</span>)

* 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 motorised 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.

In the '''seventh panel''', Megan takes issue with a particular type of vehicle – "giant trucks" – and their threat to kids. She may be talking about large pickup trucks, lifted pickup trucks (raised after purchase), or large tractor trailer cabs or garbage trucks. All cars have blind spots in the front, and large trucks have especially large blind spots, sizable enough for the driver in the cab to be unable to see a standing child right in front.

In the '''eighth panel''', Knit Cap's relevant personal observations gets ignored and interrupted by the armchair theorists – a subtle reference to the tendency of US policy debates to ignore data and insights from other developed countries with successful alternative policies.  

* Winston Churchill once said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”

By the '''final two panels''', Cueball's and Megan's evolution is complete. Cueball believes 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 consideration of the tire spikes idea, and that this obviously extreme idea is shown to come from a place of logical reasoning.  

* A reader who has been nodding along the whole time must reflect if they agree with Megan's final comment, 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 pretty radical implications, and that (2) it's too common for folks to ignore success stories like Amsterdam's.