Comment 37626

By rusty (registered) - website | Posted February 01, 2010 at 01:31:21

Mr. Meister,

Some rules don't achieve the outcomes they were set out to - that's the problem we're trying to solve. Merely enforcing them more strictly will not change the fact that they don't work. Some rules need to evolve - isn't that one reason we have politicians? To review our laws and fix them where necessary?

A proven way to improve pedestrian safety is to remove a lot of these broken rules. This is something which goes against our instincts of course, we live in a very rules based society, but it's something that works none-the-less. We would be foolish to ignore the evidence of successful safe street planning:

(http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/756884--hume-maybe-we-d-all-be-safer-jaywalking

http://www.livablestreets.com/streetswik...

Scmadrian - I agree with your historical viewpoint about change, but I think we can see evidence every day that the car culture shift is happening gradually. Transit is now a popular topic, environmental awareness is growing, land space is decreasing, people are beginning to understand the consequences of our out dated planning models. I am an example of this gradual awareness. There was no crisis that made me move to a transit rich area and leave my daily car commute behind, the awareness came gradually. What we need is politicians and planners with the courage to embrace this gradual shift in attitudes and start moving us in a direction towards planning that works. While you have developers and car lots funding the print costs of newspapers and the campign coffers of politicians, this will always be an uphill struggle. But the change will come in time (a long time perhaps but it will come!)

Cheers

.

Ben Bull. Cap'n Bully has a new Blog! http://bullysmoviereviews.blogspot.ca/ or something like that.

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