Why Engineers Shouldn't Be Designing Our Streets

[@Zen_and]

So you're saying that engineers should...stay in their lane?

[@stewartmassey441]

You built that joke to the top spec. 🤌🏻

[@neolithictransitrevolution427]

booooo

[@quentinmangel2265]

As an engineer (industrial), let me just say that we *can* become good at User Experience and Ergonomics and minimizing environmental impacts and so on. We just need to recieve the good demandsclearly from the beginning of the project. Engineers can do one and only one thing : optimise "systems" under constraints. Just give us good constraints ;)

[@Sharktrain33]

I heard in the video that the problem is no one is thoughtfully defining constraints, so engineers find themselves making the decisions (or are given constraints like maximize traffic volume). I believe you that engineers can and do become good at human focused considerations if the system considers those to important and necessary. The issue I see with streets and roads is that often the people using the space are not considered.

[@YuriJohnson]

I too am an industrial engineer. I couldn’t have said it better. 🙂

[@accordionthief]

Money talks

[@cindybrookshire1292]

This reminds me of sidewalks on college campuses. They don't match the paths that students really take to get from one place to the other. So they put up signs and chains to keep people off of the natural paths.

[@peterslegers6121]

That's a sign of poor design, maybe by an architect who is more interested in nice pictures than in walk routes and wayfinding. One efficient design strategy is to not build (all the) paths, and simply see where people walk. If there's snow, you can easily follow the footsteps. You might wait for elephant's trails (desire paths) to develop, and then make them official by paving them.

[@hunam_1]

It assumes that people will want to walk in the same way that people drive, which is of course, absurd. Two completely different ways to get around, yet it’s built the same way. It’s lazy, and makes it painfully obvious that walking was not considered as a serious mode of transportation.

[@JV-pu8kx]

​@@peterslegers6121 On the Elephant Paths, one college did that. I forget which, there is a/are video(s) about this.

[@peterslegers6121]

@@JV-pu8kx Good to see it still happens. In the 1970s urban designers didn't like the sterile high rise builings on asphalt and grass planes and started to pioneer living streets with more natural green areas. a.o. Dutchman Joost Váhl wrote a few books about it.

[@djblackprincecdn]

Canada has a new process called GBA+ that can help with the design of projects to include more of the human factors needed for design. This can be easily implemented during the design phase to avoid some of the issues you're raising here.

[@b_uppy]

Road engineers can include bioswales in their plans. If they follow the simple rules that Brad Lancaster laid out they can reduce a lot of heat island effects, drainage issues, etc. Having a landscape design consultant in the wings can help with final design...

[@ThePsychicFish]

Brad Lancaster is a great example. If cities implemented even just his curb-cutouts idea, then even dry areas would be able to grow plants in their streets. There's this TED talk of this guy in South Central L.A. who grew food gardens on the curbside grass to combat the food desert in his neighborhood. kzbin.info/www/bejne/e6u9q42VptWNatk We could literally turn patches of grass on the side of the street to a food garden with something as simple as a cutout in the curb. But it's like we don't even care!

[@damiensonney9880]

Engineer can totally design streets. The specifications and guidelines they follow have to change. If instructed to, engineers will totally design a street that maximizes resident’s happiness.

[@SeanHemenway]

It would be a complete reversal of what engineers do now is what he is saying. I totally believe there are engineers capable of this, but as a profession I’ll believe it when i see it. People have been asking for safe, walkable streets since jane jacobs if we didn’t live in an engineers world it would be different

[@Jacksparrow4986]

I beg to differ. While changed guidelines would be awesome, engineers aren't experts for human happyness.

[@LeeHawkinsPhoto]

I spent a lot of time working in IT, and I was a nuts & bolts guy. I was always about functionality and making the interface as simple and easy to use as possible. I always felt like I could have done a much better job if I worked with a designer though…those people think differently than I do and collaborating with a graphic/UI whatever designer would have made things immeasurably easier for me. Yes, I would have some valuable insights into that, and maybe a little more than the average developer perhaps (but maybe I’m overestimating my talent here too), but I am sure a designer would have done it faster and easier and made it so I could focus on what I’m really good at, which is just making things work. Designing (like architects, urban designers, UI/UX designers, game designers, etc.) and engineering the design are really two different competencies that probably don’t come often from the same person. I would feel much more comfortable with a collaboration every time…and I think it should be a roughly equal thing too…form is useless if it won’t function, but function also cannot dominate purpose, which is what designers often do better at remembering.

[@peterslegers6121]

@@SeanHemenway Head over to the Netherlands and you'll see it. Their streets were car dominated in the sixties and early seventies. Several large cities made plans to bulldoze old neighbourhoods in order to build American style highways. Loads of cities have scars of car focussed "break throughs" in which even old town halls were demolished to get the car into medieval city centers. Nowadays the streets are designed to be safe for all people on the street. That is totally different.

[@SeanHemenway]

@@peterslegers6121 haha i would love to just bring that over, but our system needs our solution and hopefully it’ll eventually look like that with the mentality strong towns brings

[@johningraham6547]

If road design is like HVAC or pipe system design, poor road design has less to do with engineers designing roads and more to do road building standards. The standards specify lane size, road size, signage, and a plethora of other things. How much are engineers allowed to design roads?

[@mduvigneaud]

But those standards were made by engineers.

[@saranbhatia8809]

In the end what really matters is a good overall sustainable human experience !

[@michibosire5000]

Is this limited to North American engineers? I'm assuming that European countries do have engineers designing their streets too. Is the disparity because of engineers, or could it be something else entirely?

[@jan-lukas]

In my city, cologne, there's multiple steps in planning, and engineers are not part of most of them. This is just what I could gather as a 15yo living here by looking through public design documents and stuff like that First someone needs an idea what to change. Then the three aspects every project has to be evaluated on will be evaluated, often done by external companies, which are: -Ecological/Environmental impacts -Economic impacts -Social impacts The basics of this were even part of school education in my 9th grade, but as it is with school few people actually remember what they were told after they have left. In order for a project to succeed, these impacts need to be positive for the city, with most plans I looked through either not affecting carbon emissions or lowering them. Then when it's decided what to do, the public has some time to give their opinion, and sometimes plans will be adjusted accordingly. Last, construction details and things like that are done by engineers, and the thing will be built

[@michibosire5000]

@@jan-lukas That's actually interesting, cause its a much better way of involving the public from the start. Does it apply to every road project? Or is it only for major roads/highways?

[@hvr1874]

@@jan-lukas Pretty much the same in Africa and Asia. Involves city planners, traffic flow specialists who are highly trained statisticians using very complex models and as you mention enviro specialist, mass transit commuter services/companies and probably couple more I'm missing. Can not imagine it is so much different in the US. Found the problem is usually that cities essentially constantly changing organisms and the scope of roadway and city design span decades, but the people making the calls are local politicians who mainly concerned with their term of say 5 years and meeting the budget for 1 year,

[@peterslegers6121]

Neh, it´s not about engineers in general. In the late 19th century Camillo Sitte already fulminated against Reißbrettmenschen, people with rulers who copied their templates into each and every design. Standards can never adapt to specific problems and make creative solutions. In this case the problem is the bonkers, US/CA, unsustainable way of building that is purely focussed on the car. Their traffic engineers embody this. If their political system cared about people, they'd do things differently.

[@bodhisattva87]

@@peterslegers6121 Traffic and transportation engineers will design what they are told to design and with the budget allotted by city leadership and the planning department. This video is misdirected. The engineers would be more than happy to design other infrastructure. And just as an example, if the city approves a massive housing development in a rural area with no walkability and no public transportation (happens constantly in the US) then all of the new residents will be driving themselves everywhere in their own cars. A better solution would be well-built densified communities with light rail systems and walkability so that the engineers don't have to design for all of those extra cars. But decisions like that would have to be made by city leadership and city planning.

[@HHCHunterYTC]

This is one of most ultimate Civilian posts I've ever seen on the internet yet.

[@nvrnlumby3]

What an architect point of view. You have very little clue of how these decisions are actually made at the consultant level. Stay in your lane (heuheuheu) architect. I know you think you’re vastly more important than the PEs and SEs you deal with, but at the end of the day you aren’t taking liability for what you’re making us do.

[@damiensonney9880]

Guess who designs all these wonderful happy walkable neighborhoods in the Netherlands ? Engineers !

[@ElliotWallace]

It’s like you didn’t watch the video.

[@anubizz3]

​@@ElliotWallace really maybe you need to rewatch it again.

[@beeveeme]

So, how do we get to a world with “road architects?” We have “landscape” architects!

[@LeeHawkinsPhoto]

Don’t they call them urban designers? Or urban planners? I mean, these are the guys who deal directly with the public, while engineers are the nuts and bolts guys who know which concrete to use and what curb radius is necessary for certain vehicle lengths at certain speeds.

[@hvr1874]

IS this how it works in the US or are you guys guessing. Pretty much everywhere in world I've lived as a resident and talking to friends from university who are road engineers spread across 3 continents it usually involves environmental designers (and sometimes landscape designers), traffic flow specialists to give the expected and growth of traffic flow, city planners and road engineers. The engineers are actually quite clued up on the whole pictures as they are also involved in projects attempting to fix designs issue after the fact and will usually take into account pedestrian walkways, public transport etc etc. Then there is usually a public participation process where the public gives comment. The the elected officials come in scrap the design, downgrade it minimum acceptable levels since the project needs to fit an arbitrary annual budget based on political ideas and promises. But they can check the checkbox that the correct process was followed.

[@Bolensgoldrush]

They're guessing.

[@sheldonmckinlay881]

This is not true especially where I work. Alot of them have Masters in urban planning...

[@nehemiahstewart]

Engineers design for safety number 1. Everything else is secondary to that. As it should be.

[@bodhisattva87]

This is just silly. These changes need to be approved by city/town/state leadership who also need to appropriate the money for it. If you want to spend extra taxpayer money on the "experience," i.e. bike lanes, how the neighborhoods interact, etc., any engineer would be happy to oblige, but the engineers need direction and the resources. If you want to deviate from designing to code, the city needs to take ownership of it so the design engineer doesn't take liability for anything that goes wrong as a result. Unlike the architecture realm, which is mostly private sector, engineers build what they are told and make the best use of the budget provided. In civil engineering work, the cost efficient option is usually all they get to work with.

[@Scynthescizor]

I think that's the problem though. Just building according to spec, within a budget, will usually ignore the human experience of the area. We don't need to fault the engineers, but we do need to realize that we need people with an aesthetic vision to help in the design phase, before the specs are given to the engineers.

[@graemetunbridge1738]

I have see engineers do good designs - not just conventional (over ) design.

[@justafan5179]

I'm sorry, but if you've got a product designed solely by engineers, who are actually well versed in their respective field of study... you'd never get the garbage product you describe. You're right, it won’t look the prettiest... but it won’t be ugly or useless... it will be utilitarian... like those 1950's houses. They won't win any beauty contests, but you've got all the boxes reqested, adequately checked. Anything beyond that, in terms of dysfunction, isn't the fault of an engineer, because engineers don't run companies... they work for Architects, City-planners, and salesmen. We take ideas presented to us. and work out the logistics... I have zero say in what gets sold, accepted, and when I am consulted, it's cherry-picked to fit a narrative. There are certainly incompetent engineers, as with anything... but most of us would love to be allowed to do our jobs, just as much as you'd like us to as well. Take care my friend!

[@38snipshow]

Not sure where you're from, but in much of Ontario Canada, roads are designed nearly start to finish by engineers with virtually no input from urban planners or other public stakeholders. The design is based squarely on following the relevant highway design manuals which are also prepared by engineers. The problem is the design standards are flawed as they import high speed auto-oriented design principles into complex urban environments. As a result, our urban arterials have lethal speeds, high collision rates, discourage active transportation, and are generally just shitty places for humans to live. That's a major problem.

[@xcer4975]

I think you’d run into a lot of issues with public opinion if you no longer made the flow of traffic the primary goal of road construction. Is it the engineers who are the problem, or is it the population who wants/needs to get everywhere as quick as possible with no delay?

[@jan-lukas]

Politics has to tell the engineers what kind of street/road to build, but I don't know exactly how the situation is in the USA

[@julianpowers594]

I think the ‘hypothetical detractor’ has too much say in what we do. If you actually surveyed the general public would traffic flow even place the top ten for things valued in a place to live/work?

[@xcer4975]

I don’t have any studies, but as an anecdote, a huge part of where I live was based on commute to work. Where I am now is a straight shot rather than winding around for an additional 15 minutes. The Work from home boom may have changed things a little but for a decent amount of people, there’s a commute to consider. Any additional driving time definitely adds up day after day.

[@jamalgibson8139]

If you listen to anything Charles says, or read his books, you'd know that this is already covered. He lays out four design considerations when building a road: safety, speed, traffic volume, and (I'm not sure if this is the last one) noise. If you actually polled residents who live near a road, they will overwhelmingly state that safety is their #1 priority, but engineers will always put speed as their #1 priority. So the question here becomes, who's more important? The people who live on/near the road, or the people who live 10 miles away and drive through the neighborhood on their way to something else?

[@jamalgibson8139]

@@theultimatereductionist7592 If that were true, they wouldn't blast 45 mph roads through residential neighborhoods. The only safety engineers care about is the safety of the occupants of a motor vehicle, and anyone not in one be damned.

[@kylegard1642]

This is very ridiculous take. While there is work that can be done to improve our streets, to say that engineers have no qualification to help improve this area of roadway design is incredibly ignorant.

[@strongtowns]

"While there is work that can be done to improve our ***STREETS***, to say that engineers have no qualification to help improve this area of ***ROADWAY*** design is incredibly ignorant." Making the point.

[@rgomoffat]

Neither should "planners" . These jerks with an 18mon certs. now want to wreck our communities.

[@katlinmeyer7520]

I think this statement might be valid about 40 yrs ago.

[@Bolensgoldrush]

It is blatantly obvious that these people have no idea what engineers do.

[@strongtowns]

Hilarious!

[@bodhisattva87]

As a practicing engineer, I agree.

[@Bolensgoldrush]

@@strongtowns your tongue in cheek comment is a pretty clear sign to me that you're more interested in "gotcha" one-liners, as opposed to collaboration and constructive conversation. Hopefully your arrogance within this movement is drowned out by someone who actually works to materialize our community's goals.

[@Scynthescizor]

@@Bolensgoldrush This looks like a one-line zinger following a one-line zinger. How is it "blatantly obvious that these people have no idea what engineers do?" Provide something constructive, and you will probably get more constructive replies.

[@gabbar51ngh]

@@Bolensgoldrush his entire channel is like this.

[@michaelsundarev5818]

I think gender study specialists should be designing your streets. Have fun!