Bruteforcing the city (2/3) by Dan Hill
[School pickups] bring a visceral quality to the deceptively dry world of traffic engineering, as the large numbers of children must suddenly, and swiftly, transition from the closed system of the school to the open system of the street. And in most of urban Australia, and much of the USA, the equivalent school pickup vignette would typically be dominated by a long, slow line of growling SUVs, each an embodiment of anxiety and aggression generated in their drivers, a spatial selfishness. Whilst advertising subtly preys on parents’ fears for their children’s safety, there’s a hugely increased danger of serious accident, the SUV’s elevated tailpipes are aligned at kids’ head-height, and moving kids in this way creates obesity at scale. In other words, it’s the exact opposite disposition that you might want around children. For these health, safety and emissions reasons alone there is no excuse for these vehicles even being street legal in cities, never mind encouraged. That they are increasingly larger than standard parking spaces and street widths ought to mean that they cannot be sold. They literally do not fit in the city.
I’m appreciative, almost daily, of the fact that I can walk my son to school. Even in NYC, the limited data suggests it’s only around 1/3 of kids on average that walk to school, which is at least double the national average. Per this Walk to School Program Report prepared for the NYC DOT in 2005, “While 30 years ago 65% of children walked or biked to school, today only 13% of students in the United States walk on a regular basis.”