{"id":251721366,"date":"2012-12-23T10:36:06","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T10:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=251721366"},"modified":"2012-12-23T10:36:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T10:36:06","slug":"author-jeff-speck-on-walkability-and-the-one-mistake-that-can-wreck-a-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=251721366","title":{"rendered":"Author Jeff Speck on Walkability and the One Mistake That Can Wreck a City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nAS: What is the biggest mistake cities make?<br \/>\nJS: I\u2019ve repeated it so much I hate to tell you the same thing, but it\u2019s the honest truth. The biggest mistake cities make is to allow themselves to effectively be designed by their director of public works. [Or the director of transportation.] The director of public works, he or she is making decisions every single day about the width of streets, the presence of parking, the question of bike lanes. And he\u2019s doing it in response to the complaints he\u2019s hearing. But if you satisfy those complaints you wreck the city.<br \/>\nA typical public works director doesn\u2019t think about \u201cWhat kind of city do we want to be?\u201d They think about what people complain about, and it\u2019s almost always traffic and parking.<br \/>\nThe one thing we\u2019ve learned without any doubt, is the more room you give the car the more room they will take and that will wreck cities. Optimizing any of these practical considerations \u2014 sewers, parking, vehicle capacity \u2014 almost always makes a city less walkable.<br \/>\nAS: What do the effective cities do instead?<br \/>\nJS: &#8230;<br \/>\nCities need specialists that help define what make them a great city. Is it going to make you a great city having an 18 minute commute versus a 20 minute commute? Or is it going to make you a great city to have a smaller carbon footprint and more transportation choices?<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/dc.streetsblog.org\/2012\/12\/19\/author-jeff-speck-on-walkability-and-the-one-mistake-that-can-wreck-a-city\/\">https:\/\/dc.streetsblog.org\/2012\/12\/19\/author-jeff-speck-on-walkability-and-the-one-mistake-that-can-wreck-a-city\/<\/a><br \/>\n*********************************************************************************************************************************<br \/>\n[B&#8217; Spokes: I don&#8217;t know about you but I keep thinking about Baltimore and the &quot;reason&quot; why they removed some of our bike lanes in the &quot;biggest mistake&quot; section. We need to start thinking differently!]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Angie Schmitt, Streets Blog &#8230; AS: What is the biggest mistake cities make? JS: I\u2019ve repeated it so much I hate to tell you the same thing, but it\u2019s the honest truth. The biggest mistake cities make is to allow themselves to effectively be designed by their director of public works. [Or the director &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=251721366\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Author Jeff Speck on Walkability and the One Mistake That Can Wreck a City&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251721366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251721366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=251721366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251721366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251721366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251721366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251721366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}