The Hidden Values Behind Our Unsafe Streets

<p>On December 3, 2014, a 7-year-old girl named Destiny Gonzalez was killed while crossing State Street in Springfield, Massachusetts.</p> <p>What gets lost in the shocking statistics about the number of pedestrians who die each year in traffic crashes—<a href='https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/api/public/viewpublication/812270#:~:text=Source%3A%20Fatality%20Analysis%20Reporting%20System,Annual%20Report%20File%20(ARF).&text=In%202014%20there%20were%204%2C884%20pedestrians%20killed%20(Table%201)%20and,crashes%20in%20the%20United%20States.'>4,884 in the U.S. in 2014</a>, more than <a href='https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/mind-boggling-pedestrian-deaths-surged-2020-despite-fewer-cars-road-n1267910'>6,700 in 2020</a>—is that they aren’t “statistics” at all, or even “pedestrians” really, but people with names, who had hopes and dreams, and family and friends forever changed by the loss of their loved one. That was certainly the case with Destiny, who was killed while leaving the Central Library with her mother and cousin. She also <a href='https://obits.masslive.com/us/obituaries/masslive/name/destiny-gonzalez-obituary?pid=173397194'>left behind</a> a father, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.</p> <p>Something else that gets lost in these discussions is how our streets got so unsafe to begin with. Our streets, roads, and <a href='https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-and-why-does-it-matter'>stroads</a> are designed according to values so embedded that traffic engineers themselves might not be constantly aware of them. That’s a problem because you can’t fix something you don’t even know exists. It’s also the topic this week on the Strong Towns Podcast.</p> <p>In this episode, Chuck Marohn reads an excerpt from the first chapter of <a href='https://www.confessions.engineer/order'>Confessions of a Recovering Engineer</a>. Chuck describes why the high costs of the North American transportation system—costs in life and injury, as well as time and prosperity—ar