MOVING BEYOND THE ‘WINDSHIELD VIEW’ - NY TIMES UPDATES

The idea that a city like New York could be made wholly compatible with the car looks increasingly antique, a paved-with-good-intentions fever dream now as obsolete as the idea of tower-block housing projects. As Michael Frumin, a transportation expert, once observed, if the morning subway commute were to be conducted by car, we would need 84 Queens Midtown Tunnels, 76 Brooklyn Bridges or 200 Fifth Avenues.

In the U.S., one rarely hears about the 'war on the pedestrian' or bus rider or straphanger or cyclist, even in New York.

The car, with its exponentially diminishing collective returns — for example, traffic — is not the solution to mobility in the increasingly crowded cities of the 21st century. The sooner we put this flat-earth belief behind us, the faster we can get along with ideas for more efficient forms of mobility.
But, like a century-long hangover, the “windshield view” still pervades, even in cities, like New York. As a result, people on foot or bike are seen, in the old lingo of traffic engineers, as “vehicular impedance,” while any breach of vehicular autonomy is dubbed part of a “war on the motorist.”
One rarely hears about the “war on the pedestrian” or bus rider or straphanger or cyclist even in New York: the sidewalk space historically lost to traffic lanes, the signals set for vehicular progression (not, as the famous American urban planner, William H. Whyte, once observed, to accommodate the walking patterns of groups of pedestrians), the high speeds that dampen true street life, the one-sided harm and death caused by cars.
The changes to New York’s streetscapes, much of it inspired by already existing European schemes, produced the initial expected grumbling from motorists (who rarely come out on the right side of history — witness, for example, the early 20th century opposition to parking meters by the car lobby), but are now paying larger dividends. The new public spaces — “parking” for pedestrians — are instantly filled. On the controversial Prospect Park West bike lane — straight out of Copenhagen — children on training wheels are now a common sight (providing yet another reason for young families to not flee to the suburbs). And while there was a clamor that partially pedestrianizing Times Square — an effort inspired by Danish planner Jan Gehl — would lead to its commercial asphyxiation, the area now boasts some of the highest rents per square in the city.
And yet, somehow, all this — like month-long German vacations or Swedish family leave policies — is pitched as unrealistic, undesirable, somehow inimical to our desires.   




Source: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/06/28/car-clash-europe-vs-the-us/moving-beyond-the-windshield-view?scp=11&sq=moving&st=cse

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