Peter Norton

@norton.bsky.social

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Historian; author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, and of Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.

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In 1960 Matthew Sielski, then a recent president of the Institute of Traffic Engineers, warned that no “community group” should have a say in determining speed limits. At the time Sielski worked for a “community group”: the Chicago Motor Club, a relentless advocate for motorists.

In case you missed it, children lost the safe and convenient use of their own local streets because of “safety conscious mothers.”

Traffic engineers such as Harold Marks expressed distrust of parents’ demands for safer walking conditions for schoolchildren. To resist them, engineers claimed objectivity and warned of the “false sense of security” that protection measures could instill in pedestrians.

Fresno’s traffic engineer, Robert Dier, was true to his training, which is much the same today. In 1951 Dier did not treat children walking to school as a form of transportation demand requiring accommodation but rather as a source of interference with transportation.

In 1953 the Chicago Motor Club issued a report for the city of Aurora, Illinois. Called School Crossing Protection, the report cautioned against “over-protection of the school child.” This excerpt is from page 1.

Chicago, 1963: Americans fought to protect children’s right to the safe and convenient use of their own local streets. “We are not going to stand by and see our children, especially those in kindergarten, chance their lives when it comes to crossing a busy intersection.”

As a student at Booker T. Washington High School in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Alphonso Vick (1919-2004) rode his bike from his home in Sharpsburg. He earned a PhD in botany in 1961. He became a professor of biology, serving at Winston-Salem State University and at NC A&T State University.

Chicago, 1963: When the city posted no crossing guards to protect children walking to and from Carter Elementary School on South Michigan Avenue, Yvonne Hayes rose to the occasion.

“We know this took a lot of doing – because the City of New York is not easily moved.”

Walking did not just decline; it was deterred. In the 1960s, despite record road budgets, even streets where children walked to school often lacked sidewalks. In 1966 parents in Lansing, Michigan, held a rummage and bake sale to raise money for sidewalks.

Americans care about walking. In 1965, children attending Kearny Elementary School in Santa Fe, NM, had to walk in a roadway. So ten fathers of Kearny schoolchildren built a 300-foot sidewalk. The cement was supplied at cost; the PTA paid for it through an enchilada dinner.

They lived in separate worlds, but in the US we are the heirs of something they had in common. Authorities evaluate mobility by “level of service.” To improve level of service for drivers, they degraded it for everyone else. Wherever walking is deterred, level of service is poor.

While highway departments drew up plans to devastate city neighborhoods so that suburbanites could drive through them, residents of these redlined districts often negotiated streets without usable sidewalks. Here the Norfolk Journal and Guide objects to local conditions in 1953.

Children’s loss of independent mobility was resisted. In 1964, when a child was killed on her walk home from school in sidewalkless suburb, alarmed parents organized to fund sidewalks themselves. They raised money through a carnival and then through this unofficial “toll stop.”

The prehistory of the chauffeured child from the two-car suburban home, continued: In the 1950s and 1960s, as road budgets surged, nondrivers were left to negotiate a world rebuilt for drivers.

For decades, parents defended children’s right to the safe and convenient use of their own local streets. Here Linda Nail of Benton Harbor, Michigan, protects children on their walk to school in in 1972. Benton Harbor offered no official crossing guards.

Bill Charmatz, November 1954. An illustration for Esquire accompanying “Lords of the Juggernaut,” by Paul Gallico.

Alain Miguelez, Vice President of Capital Planning and Chief Planner of Canada's National Capital Commission, on why and how Ottawa suburbanized itself in the name of modernity – a story with resonances across urban North America: www.buzzsprout.com/2282576

Umber Talkswww.buzzsprout.com Welcome to Umber Talks- where the doors to real estate possibilities are wide open. We are Kristen Denis and Shaun Denis, and we are thrilled to embark on this exciting journey with you. Whether you'r...

Charles Brooks in the Birmingham News, October 31, 1954.

A century later the paradox endures – though today many drivers have lost the walker’s perspective. The missing requirement for a driver’s license is an hour walking busy roads and streets. (Gasoline Alley, by Frank King, Jan. 2, 1920)

We don't talk enough about motorcycles. (Tamale, Ghana, June 4, 2024)

Andy Boenau is the Tom Paine of transportation planning.

Claes Tingvall: “It should be up to the professional community to make sure that that normal people, doing normal mistakes, don't lead to them killing themselves or someone else.” William Kremer reports: www.bbc.com/future/artic...

More than a million people die on roads every year. Meet the man determined to prevent themwww.bbc.com Almost 30 years ago, a revolutionary idea changed the way Europe regarded road collisions. It has probably saved countless lives but it's yet to be fully accepted by politicians.

In “What Does This Street In Zurich Mean?” (CityLab 2019), Norman Garrick takes a close look at single thoroughfare to remind us that any assessment of a street is necessarily subjective. To evaluate a street, we must forego objective measures and welcome diverse perspectives.

New from @islandpress.bsky.social:

When Driving Is Not an Option is out! In her new book, from Island Press, Anna Zivarts reveals how our transport systems exclude – and how we can do so much better. You can listen to the author discuss her book with @brooklynspoke.bsky.social and @sgoodyear.bsky.social on @thewaroncars.bsky.social.

Dan Piatkowski on his new book from Island Press, Bicycle City: “I wanted to have a conversation about the cities we don’t normally think about when we talk about bicycling. ... Great things are happening in lots of places.” Listen in: www.bookedonplanning.com

Book Review Podcast | Booked on Planningwww.bookedonplanning.com Booked on Planning is a podcast where we dive deep into planning and urban design books in a 30 minute interview with the authors themselves.

In conversation with Phoebe Judge on Criminal: “Americans did not choose car dependency. It was not the product of mass preference. And the industry groups that pushed for that world are the best proof that it wasn’t the democratic choice.” thisiscriminal.com/episode-267-...

Episode 267: Right of Way (5.3.2024)thisiscriminal.com In 1991, two police officers stopped Tupac Shakur. They said he was jaywalking.

@davidzipper.bsky.social: “The decline of the sedan is a disaster. ... Larger cars have bigger blind spots, convey more force in a collision, and strike a person’s torso rather than their legs. They’re also heavier. ... Detroit has abandoned the affordable sedan.” www.fastcompany.com/91123174/det...

Detroit killed the sedan. We may all live to regret it - Fast Companywww.fastcompany.com GM ending production of the Chevy Malibu underscores that the Big Three are done with sedans. But consumers may not flock to expensive SUVs in response.

Before there were official traffic calming projects, mothers were calming traffic.