Monthly Op-Ed

Welcome to the first of many monthly Op-Eds on new urbanism as it relates to car transportation and how it effects people. How this is going to work is every month I will go over major urban planning developments project in my local area and the more notable project happening nationwide. What I want to do is to explain to people who are 'car brain' (unconsciously bias toward car dependent infrastructure and view car ownership with it's use as a normal part of society) that new urbanism actually benefits everyone including them. My goal is to hopefully convert people with 'car brain' into supporting new urbanism efforts and projects to help make urban living better for everyone since this it the demographic that are most likely to oppose such changes. Maybe I could also find projects that people with 'car brain' might actually like while also adhering to the principles of new urbanism. 

First I want to explain what new urbanism is before I can go into the major issues that retain to our topic on why our car dependent infrastructure is hurting us. New urbanism is a practice on urban development that promotes an interconnected system of land use, transportation, and urban characteristics to build communities that foster a human scale design to our infrastructure. The way America in general plans it's infrastructure to be car dependent leaves our people where driving isn't an option. Non-drivers  make up about one quarter of the U.S population and include people of color, lower income, immigration status, and disabilities and can't afford the luxury of owning a car. Not only that but car death have been in the rise for decades and the are likely to continue to rise unless we advocate for policies that promote less car dependency.  

Image Credit: American Planning Association

An analysis from the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) from April of 2023 found that pedestrians killed by cars rose by 18% from 2019 to 2021 and like I said before this trend will continue to rise unless we do something about it. For most of my life I was 'car brained' because I thought that cars were the coolest thing ever since I played a lot of racing games and watch a good amount of car related TV shows. Now that I'm a senior in college and have to experiences with good urban planning I wanted to learn to do the best that I can to help push for policies that will stop the increase in pedestrian deaths by cars. I know that it's possible to help people with 'car brain' to get out of that mind set and promote new urbanism because I was one of them. 

In South Bend Streets where i live close to I was able to see how new urbanism is taking shape to help better pedestrian live to the St. Joseph county. However, the city of South Bend still have a lot of work to be done before it gets rid of it's car dependency like any other city in the United States of America. For the first major city planning project related to car dependency: I wanted to choose to go over one of the more noticeable project in South Bend that is happening at the time that I post this blog and explain how the project benefits both pedestrians and car drivers. The Project I want to go over is the construction on Notre Dame Avenue to Hillside Street: what are they building, how will it benefit pedestrians, and how it will benefits drivers. 

Image Credit: Together South Bend

The scope of this project follows: reconstructing curbs, reconstructing sidewalks, reconstructing  driveway, water main replacement, storm sewer installation with sewer separation, street pavement reconstruction, street trees, etc.. Some streets along Notre Dame Avenue through Hillside Street will also have protected sidewalks and bike lanes to make it nearly impossible to a driver to accidently run over a pedestrians. The project, when finished, will allow pedestrians safe alternative form of travel to get to places while also being promoting and active and healthy lifestyle. Drivers will benefits from the pavement reconstruction and enjoy a smooth ride and the new street design will incentivize a lower speed limit which will allow drivers to pay attention pedestrians and the the nicer scenery of the newly redeveloped area. Expanding on that, the redevelopment of the street swill also suppose to come with newly reconstructed housing which will make the area all the most pleasant for the eye. If there is one thing that everyone can agree on is that people will like new development if they are beautiful to look at because no one likes a grey and gloomy run down street.

Planting new trees and greenery will play a big factor in the beautification of these redeveloping area because we as humans are naturally drawn to nature. Think about it, the best place that people like to go to are parks because they aren't as grey, dull, boring, and depressing of busy roads where there are no sidewalks and barely any greenery. A great example of bad road deign are stroads which combines the commercial aspects of a street with the fast travel of roads and they fail at both. I live very close to a stroads and it's very dangerous for both pedestrians and car drivers because crashes and are highly likely to happens on theses stroads. Late summer I tried to walk to my work that is on the stroads I live near and I have to watch for traffic the entire time even while I'm on the sidewalk on util it abruptly ends then I have to huge the road or walk over private property. Also, in April of 2023 my cousin got into a bad car crash on the same road at an intersection; she's okay but she still hasn't fully recovered yet.

Safe to say that stroads are what radicalized me into hating car dependent infrastructure and I plan on making more of these monthly Op-Eds will give more example and stories on new urbanism as it relates to car dependency. Hopefully I can convince some people 'car brain' to get out of this mind set and share their experiences and stories that help radicalize them into supporting new urbanism. That's all I have for now, but if you want to share your thought on the subject matter then please comment down below and I'll see you some other time. 

former car brains ; welcome to the future of New urbanism!

All of my life I've tend to hyper fixate on things and fall out of it sooner or later, but one passion that stuck with me is the world of car culture. When I was a kid I used to watch Top Gear and play Need for Speed games and I still do to this day just replace Top Gear with The Grand Tour. I started my college career at what was know as IUPUI, which is now IU Indianapolis and PU Indianapolis respectfully, for a degree in motorsports engineering and while my time there I started to notice something about our car centric infrastructure that makes driving less fun. This extends to places outside of cities too; it just I lacked the understanding of why I was feeling these things in the first place. It wasn't until I recently took a sustainability class for my senior standing at IU South Bend is where I truly start to understand why our centric car infrastructure suck and it not only makes pedestrian life worse, but also makes driving less fun. I'm always drawn to this Strong Towns article on why car design have made pedestrian life more dangerous and how it effects us as the driver of which you can find here. The goal of this blog is to help radicalize car enthusiast to the ideas of proper urban planning and how it can benefit them too, so that everyone can be happy because the only way to break away from car dependency is to have viable alternatives.  

image credit: Strong Towns