I know by now these cute videos must be getting tiring, but there’s something about them that’s really useful as an educational and discussion tool. So here goes my teachable moment.
I like this video because it speaks to an important paradox of living in the suburbs. All of us want to live on nice, quiet, low-taffic streets, but when we get in our cars, we want to get from Point A to Point B as rapidly as possible. At home, we value peace and quiet; on the road, we value speed above all else, and get angry when don’t get it. These two mindsets are present everywhere in the SCV (and sometimes simultaneously, like when neighborhood residents complain about speeders only to find out from the Sheriff’s Department that they are the ones speeding through their own neighborhood).
Traffic engineers, God bless them, exist only to address the latter mindset. Their job is to make sure traffic flows smoothly (read: quickly). They couldn’t care less about the impact of a road-widening on a particular neighborhood because they’re focused on the larger system and their job is to ensure traffic moves rapidly. To them, even cut-throughs like the ones on Benz Road and the one on Valley Street that was closed a decade ago are beneficial because they increase efficiency without increasing costs.
That’s why I think every city that employs traffic engineers ought to employ a “livability engineer” too. Because let’s face it, the reason we have to get in our cars is because we live so far from the jobs, activities, schools and retail shops we visit everyday. And the traffic engineers are there to accommodate us. A livability engineer would take a look at a given neighborhood and learn why people are getting in their cars in the first place, rather than merely planning on how to accommodate them once they do.
This is also why I’m a lukewarm supporter of OVOV’s concept of a “Valley of Villages.” I want to be able to walk or ride my bike to the shops, restaurants, schools and activities I visit regularly. Essentially, I’d like to put the traffic engineer -and his product, the gigantic superhighways like Newhall Ranch and McBean- out of business.
Am I an idealist? Yeah probably. But the incessant traffic complainers have their own unrealistic demands and are missing the larger point entirely: there wouldn’t be as much traffic if we all resided in livable, walkable communities and neighborhoods.
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