M II A II R II K
Senior Member
The Future of Cities and Transportation
August 2, 2010
Mathias Crawford
Read More: http://www.good.is/post/the-future-of-cities-and-transportation/
Bus rapid transit systems and "complete streets" are great. But to design urban transportation systems that are truly sustainable, we have to think much further ahead. By the end of the 19th century, cities throughout Europe faced a crisis: They were literally drowning in horse manure. Thought leaders of the day knew it to be a forgone certainty that dealing with the waste of horses was going to be the most pressing concern for urban planners of the 20th century. At the time this thinking made perfect sense. Horses had dominated commerce and personal mobility for centuries, and as the population grew, it was logical to expect that solving this looming infrastructural problem would demand larger amounts of intellectual and financial capital.
Of course, cars solved the horseshit problem. The parable of the horse illustrates an inherent tension of futures thinking. While we must build towards a better world based on current problems, the future is almost certain to be radically different from what we plan for. This is why successful solutions to the complex problems faced by cities need to strike a balance between addressing current needs and building in flexibility that can accommodate future behaviors.
Today, cities are again facing important dilemmas about infrastructure. From the efforts described in Robert Sullivan's excellent New York Magazine piece on Bus Rapid Transport, which addressed the growing complexity of commuting patterns in New York, to plans for bringing bicycle superhighways to cities such as London cities, there is a growing realization that we have to reform our resource-depleting, socially-isolating reliance on single-occupancy car travel.
August 2, 2010
Mathias Crawford
Read More: http://www.good.is/post/the-future-of-cities-and-transportation/
Bus rapid transit systems and "complete streets" are great. But to design urban transportation systems that are truly sustainable, we have to think much further ahead. By the end of the 19th century, cities throughout Europe faced a crisis: They were literally drowning in horse manure. Thought leaders of the day knew it to be a forgone certainty that dealing with the waste of horses was going to be the most pressing concern for urban planners of the 20th century. At the time this thinking made perfect sense. Horses had dominated commerce and personal mobility for centuries, and as the population grew, it was logical to expect that solving this looming infrastructural problem would demand larger amounts of intellectual and financial capital.
Of course, cars solved the horseshit problem. The parable of the horse illustrates an inherent tension of futures thinking. While we must build towards a better world based on current problems, the future is almost certain to be radically different from what we plan for. This is why successful solutions to the complex problems faced by cities need to strike a balance between addressing current needs and building in flexibility that can accommodate future behaviors.
Today, cities are again facing important dilemmas about infrastructure. From the efforts described in Robert Sullivan's excellent New York Magazine piece on Bus Rapid Transport, which addressed the growing complexity of commuting patterns in New York, to plans for bringing bicycle superhighways to cities such as London cities, there is a growing realization that we have to reform our resource-depleting, socially-isolating reliance on single-occupancy car travel.