by greggyb | 2025-05-16 22:08:58+00:00
...continued...

> * You are much safer being in a car when hit by another car than when not being in a car. This is something a lot of bike commute advocates sweep under the rug. They talk about how biking is overall safe, but then you ask them if they've ever had an accident and so many have been hit by cars and broken bones.

And you are much safer not having an accident in the first place. If we want to observe the world, there are cities that have done a great job at reducing all vehicle related fatalities and injuries: those injuries to drivers and passengers in any vehicle involved, and also those injuries to anyone outside of the vehicle.

There are two commonalities in these cities: 1) they have many viable options for transportation, including high quality bike infra, pedestrian areas, trains, buses, metros, trams, and personal vehicles; and 2) they reduce traffic and speed in all areas where personal vehicles are potentially in conflict with other forms of transportation.

You'll recognize in the first point the same refrain I have been repeating: optimizing a transportation system does not mean optimizing primarily on just one mode of transit. It's not about forcing one mode or banning another. It is about options. There is a near universal observation about transit times within and into/out of urban areas that the time for car travel tends toward the time for public transit. This is generally understood to be because humans optimize their transport, and if one option is faster or more convenient, enough people choose that until it is not.

The second thing those cities do, though, is the leading cause for the reduction in accident frequency, lethality, and severity of injury: the reduction in traffic quantity and speed.

The road-street distinction is very important here. If you are not familiar with it, the distinction is this: roads are high speed connections between places, optimizing for vehicle throughput; streets are complex environments where a wide assortment of destinations are, where living is done, businesses exist, and the general activities of life and city happen. If you want more detail, this video is a good primer (linked to a relevant portion: https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM?t=536); the video is coming from a very strong place of opinion. I am not asking you to accept all the opinions, but am simply sharing the video, because it provides lots of good real-world examples in laying out the distinction.

It is essential that, within a city, there are affordances for people out of cars and people in cars. This is simple reality. If we recognize this reality, and we understand that humans are imperfect and prone to failure, then the conclusion is that if we want to reduce the injuries and deaths associated with traffic, we must build systems that tend toward this outcome. The practical implementations of such systems that are proven to be effective in achieving this outcome are:

1. separate through-traffic 2. ensure mixed-mode areas force low volumes and speeds of cars

The first is by designing transportation networks that force through-traffic to roads designed for it.

The second takes many forms, generally known as traffic calming. I have mentioned a few already. You can search for more. The other side of this is recognizing that cities are for people (the people in the cars and the people out of the cars, though at some points the people in the cars become people out of cars). There must be areas where people want to go. And those areas where people are must minimize the risk of negative interactions with vehicles. Again, traffic calming and pedestrianizing.

Regarding injury: the most likely cause of death and severe injury for a shockingly wide swath of adults in the US is a car accident, whether in the car or out of it. I do not make this as an argument against cars. I make this as an argument for design of car infrastructure in ways that makes me safer regardless of which side of the steel I am on.