The Why: Shaping cities through transportation

There are plenty of great books that pontificate, and belabor the reason cities are great. A few that I’ve enjoyed include Edward Glaeser’s Triumph of the City, or Alain Bertaud’s more recent Order Without Design. The late Doug Allen’s storytelling on the history of cities was also pivotal in my career choice. While the global pandemic has called into question how cities will evolve in the near-term, I still hold optimism that the past century suggests that cities will continue to be the center of progress. But beyond my own interest in the topic, I hope to convince you the reader, that even in 2020, you should care about your City, and participate in shaping its outcome.

I’ve always had a love of cities. I grew up in a very small town, but still to this day think of it as a miniature version of the larger cities that we often visited during my youth. While my miniature version lacked the same attractions, diversity, or economic prowess, there are some things that remained the same including local politics and the aspirations of some citizens to influence and change the built environment around them (for better or worse). When living in a smaller town, maybe it feels more attainable to change the trajectory of one’s environs. As cities grow in size, their complexities to manage and govern grow at an exponential rate. Maybe this is why that despite the extraordinary impact one’s location has on their life, one may feel complacent, indifferent, or overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to shape it. 

In reading books on cities or urban planning, one might gather various philosophies on what makes cities work. The right mix of jobs, talent, upward mobility opportunities, and social capital within relative close proximity is one summation. It’s this composition that creates a whole, greater than the sum of its parts, and perhaps is best translated into a City’s collective civic pride and spirit. However, the sum of its parts are ultimately humans, living in close proximity to one another, which provides ample opportunities for its residents to exercise another uniquely human skill: compromise. 

This is what makes urban planning, the business of nurturing and managing change in cities, difficult. There’s an analogy “trying to build a plane while flying it.” Urban planning isn’t as immediately dire as crashing a plane into the ground, but could resemble a moving vehicle under construction, full of millions of people, with numerous adept locals jockeying to steer its direction, while the road beneath is constantly in motion. 

Even if a city’s population is stagnant, it is under a constant state of change. As an example, the uncompromising progression of time itself translates into to an aging population that requires an evolution of social services, and aging infrastructure that requires eternal attention to maintain a state of good repair. COVID-19 itself shows how cities have adapted resources, services, and their own workforce to respond to meet the quickly changing needs of the community.

Within all of these complexities, is the simple question of how to get from Point A to B. Transportation and cities go hand-in-hand, and their levels of complexity mirror one another. There are many topics one could discuss when it comes to urban transportation. The ones that typically take up the room include traffic congestion, the cost of parking, and more recently, e-scooters. I think about the topic in terms of the inputs and outputs. 

Inputs: the demands on the system. Where do people need to go, what is the most efficient way for them to get there? How might we provide reliable and equitable choices? We often wrap ourselves within these technical questions when thinking about urban transportation. Yet we should be spending just as much time considering the outputs. How does a City’s transportation system increase access to opportunities? Where do we invest in transportation to achieve climate goals? What mobility changes would move the needle in terms of improved quality of life and public health? Cities will often state lofty goals towards these outputs, but infrequently tie transportation as a means to achieve them. Why? Because change is hard and humans are emotional creatures. 

Any transportation professional who has attended a pre-pandemic dinner party, knows this: their work will quickly become the focus of conversation. While we are still deep in the pandemic, most people are doing some level of travel, even if it is a short walk around the block. These are daily, repeated, lived experiences over decades, which shapes our brain’s memory of how we perceive the world. 

Take that cognitive foundation, and add our other human needs like social interaction, safety, acceptance. Transportation itself, is a means, not the end. By attempting to simplify a mundane journey to the grocery store as a car versus bike trip, we fail to understand the deep factors at play. Beneath the surface, in the decision matrix of choosing a mode, one’s personal values, self-identity, and even desire to attract a mate, may be factors. The auto industry has brilliantly transformed the simple utility of mobility, and transformed a vehicle into an extension of one’s self. 

2017 protests in Minneapolis over a bike lane installation

The inertia of the status quo and our emotional connection to transportation can make change tough. However, we have gotten better. We’ve seen more cities conduct pilots and take bold steps to address the former. Cities like New York City transformed public spaces and rapidly built out their bikeway network. Denver and Los Angeles built coalitions to invest heavily to expand their rail networks. San Francisco has converted countless parking spaces into public spaces. Numerous cities have also had to contend, observe, and regulate a rapidly evolving landscape of new mobility companies. 

While we cannot divorce people’s emotional connection with transportation, we can and are doing more to help educate on the impacts and tradeoff of policy choices. 

So why do this work? 

I’ve tried to describe what makes this work difficult, and one could certainly continue to write on that topic at length. Cities and transportation are a messy problem. They are a culmination of technical and emotional inconsistencies, which through our democracy, are resolved through committee. But positive outcomes are only possible if people believe they’re possible, and are willing to put in the work to make them reality. 

Ribbon cutting of Car-free Market Street — January 2020

There are few other professions that can have such a profound impact for across public health, economic mobility, climate change, and  improving quality of life, for literally anyone and everyone using the transportation system, which is basically all of us.

If you contribute to this work as a professional, volunteer, full-time or part-time, there are different aspects of this work that may bring you fulfillment. For me, the combination of working with people, and solving problems, social or technical have brought me joy. However, if your objective is to try to make a positive impact, you will have no shortage of opportunities.

Coming next week: The What — Crafting a career in local transportation