For Sustainability, Be Sweet to Pedestrians And Cyclists
It’s a quote we’ve heard from Jan Gehl before, but I think it’s something that bicycle and pedestrian advocates have yet to even convince ourselves of - walking and biking (and any form of active transport) must be first choices above all other choices, and they should be valued much more highly than any other form of transport.
And if we’re concerned about sustainability, then it is active transport that will most effectively help us reach that goal:
“I think Jan Gehl put it best, which is to say a city that is sweet to pedestrians and sweet to bicyclists is going to be a sustainable city,” Fraser said. “So I think focusing on those two particular modes of transportation meets the other goals of the financial viability because they’re the cheapest ways to get people around — and the healthiest ways — which I submit is one of the other criteria for sustainable transportation…. And it helps with the social justice and social connections.”
Following the green transportation hierarchy, which makes perfect sense, any money we manage to snatch away from the greedy claws of the car people should be put into walking, biking, and then mass transit - in that order.
An example? Sure. Let’s imagine San Francisco gets $100 million to spend in 2009 on any kind of transportation it wants, and we can spend it however we want - no laws, no bicycle injunctions, no rules except common sense - how should we spend it? I submit it should look something like this:
Walking - $60 million
Biking - $30 million
Transit - $10 million
The only stipulation that we demand of ourselves is that the money should be spent on making each form of transit more functional - more realistic - easier for people to use. Beautification projects can wait until we’re out of the current state of emergency. The Walking Fund starts out with $60 million. Any money that is not used directly to reduce private car, car-sharing, transit, and bicycle use should then ‘trickle-down’ to the next best type of transportation - in this case that is the Biking Fund (and other forms of active transport). If the bike folks can’t figure out a highly-effective way to use the money to reduce car, car-sharing, and transit use, then the money trickles down to the transit folks, and so on.
This formula can be modified, tweaked, etc., but this is the principle we should base our spending on - put the most amount of money towards the most effective projects, with heavy priority/weight being given to sustainable forms of transport - walking and biking, in that order.
Now, let’s go get some money. 
[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
October 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
The problem with the formula, and this says something about the efficiency of biking, is that you can do almost nothing with $10 million for transit. $10 million for biking or walking I am guessing would do a ton.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:56 am
@Stuart - you’re right, Stu. I did figure that in, but it still seems to me like the right approach.
For instance, let’s say that $60 million goes towards walking in 2009, and we need it all for walking? And the same for biking - we need all $30 million for biking. What that means is we will reduce the need for transit by some significant percentage - 10%? 20%? more?
That means that right off the top we’ve improved the quality of _transit_ because we’re reduced wait times, overcrowded conditions, etc. All without spending a nickel on transit.
In 2010, maybe we only need $55 million for walking - the extra $5 million start trickling down to the Biking Fund. And so on. Walking and biking conditions can improve _very rapidly_, especially providing we use smart strategies like reclaiming existing infrastructure for pedestrian and bicycle use.
It also means that we finally start working towards the true potential of the most sustainable forms of transit - walking and biking. As these two forms of transit - the highest forms of transit - start to return only marginal returns for the investment we make in them, then that means we’ve essentially maximized our utility of investment in these modes of transport based on current and emerging land use patterns, and we should shift money to modes further down the transportation hierarchy - to less sustainable forms of transport. We’ll be an incredibly walkable and bikable city within a couple of years.
Then most of the money starts going towards transit. We’ll then see huge gains there. Then the money shifts towards supporting car-sharing.
By the time we’re done - nobody will want to be saddled with the social stigma of driving a private car, much less owning one.
So under this spending formula, we can make huge gains to the livability and vitality of San Francisco in a very short period of time, while at the same time ridding us of one of the most toxic, unsustainable form of transport (private cars), and at the same time improving transit conditions immediately, even though the big money won’t reach the Transit Fund for a couple of years.
