By Frank Filocomo
"It is important to remember that when we demand minimal congestion and fast travel," writes Adam Bonosky in Public Square, "we are asking for ourselves, our kids, our grandkids, and our neighbors to be designed out."
As community members, we have to ask ourselves: what is more important, fast travel or the preservation and well being of our localities? Any sensible person would say the latter.
Many of America's cities, however, are designed in a way that leaves pedestrians out of the equation.
Writing for Axios in 2023, Thomas Wheatley reported on the need for pedestrian safety in Buford Highway, a community in Atlanta, GA: "Though designed for cars, Buford Highway is used by a surprising number of pedestrians going to work, school, shopping, or medical appointments."
As community members, we have to ask ourselves: what is more important, fast travel or the preservation and well being of our localities? Any sensible person would say the latter.
Many of America's cities, however, are designed in a way that leaves pedestrians out of the equation.
Writing for Axios in 2023, Thomas Wheatley reported on the need for pedestrian safety in Buford Highway, a community in Atlanta, GA: "Though designed for cars, Buford Highway is used by a surprising number of pedestrians going to work, school, shopping, or medical appointments."
The area, though, isn't exactly known for being safe for passersby:
For decades, traffic planners have prioritized the speed of automobiles over the safety of pedestrians on Buford Highway. Doraville has seen more than 30 crashes involving pedestrians over the past five years.
Bonosky says the answer is slower traffic. It makes sense: if cars are whizzing by, pedestrians have a higher likelihood of being struck and killed. If, on the other hand, roads are narrower, have tighter turns, and are generally less conducive to high speeds for cars, people will feel much safer.
This should be a no-brainer. But you'd be surprised: not everyone takes kindly to these people-centric, New Urbanist approaches.
This should be a no-brainer. But you'd be surprised: not everyone takes kindly to these people-centric, New Urbanist approaches.
In September of 2024, I wrote a piece called, "The Case for Walkable Cities," in National Review, wherein I argued that people shouldn't have to worry about "two-ton steel contraptions zipping by" when they're out on the town. When I sent the piece to the submissions editor at the time, he warned me that readers might offer some pushback. Boy, was he right.
"Frank, you've got something there, and it's bad idea you've got," wrote one commenter.
"WTF publication am I reading? Beat it, Frank," wrote another.
I was accused of being a collectivist, hellbent on taking people's cars from them. Surely, if I think that people should take priority over cars, I must be a central planner! A Marxist, even!
While I was a bit taken aback by the intensity and volume of the comments, I expected the sentiment: to conservatives, anything that sounds hippy-dippy is bad.
Moreover, the conversation becomes about rights. "What about my rights?" In other words, my vision of safer American cities, to them, sounded like a slippery slope to State-coercion, wherein the purchasing of cars may very well become forbidden.
This is, of course, nonsense. Just as people have the right to live in sprawling suburbs where SUVs zip by, other people also have the right to live in walkable cities with ample public transit and greenspace.
This goes back to what has been my central critique of the boomer-conservative/neoliberal mind: when our philosophy becomes libertarian and focused only on my rights, the common good suffers.
This goes back to what has been my central critique of the boomer-conservative/neoliberal mind: when our philosophy becomes libertarian and focused only on my rights, the common good suffers.
We must begin to think more seriously about the common good.
Safer communities is a start.
Safer communities is a start.
