Next time you reach a signalized intersection, while you are waiting for the beg button to supply you with permission to cross, check out the base of the pole holding up that signal. The pole looks like it is attached to the ground, but if you look closely, you will see that it’s not. At least not directly.
The pole will have a series of bolts — they are shear pins — that attach it to the base buried in the ground.
Those bolts are designed to give way, to shear off, if the pole is struck with enough force. This is done because cars leave the street surface with such frequency, and with such violent force, that many drivers were being injured and killed hitting poles that did not yield.
Ponder this the next time you are standing at the signal, waiting to cross. The next time you are standing in space that licensed professionals have recognized is so dangerous that the extra effort and expense to absorb that violent force is justified. To protect those in vehicles. To save the lives of those that drive their cars off of the street surface. The street surface you are standing next to.
Standing right where those out-of-control vehicles are expected to go.
It is worth contrasting this with the way median barriers are used on highways. On a highway, vehicles are traveling with great kinetic force in opposite directions. Sometimes they are separated by paint and sometimes by a ditch, but increasingly transportation professionals find it beneficial to install some type of barrier between the lanes of travel.
It might be a metal fence. It might be a concrete wall. Great care has been taken to test the ability of these barriers to resist the force of a colliding vehicle.
This seems very logical. And prudent. A vehicle leaving the roadway has the potential to cause traumatic injury to anyone in a vehicle in an opposing lane. It is better to stop that projectile from inflicting such damage, despite the violence this will do to the driver of the errant vehicle.
Construction workers doing maintenance on a roadway rightly demand concrete barriers between them and the traffic flowing next to them. Those who design maintenance projects acquiesce to that demand, not just because they want the construction to proceed but because they understand that it is really dangerous to have humans standing near traffic flowing even at moderate speeds.
The concrete barriers do not have a breakaway design. There are no shear pins to absorb the kinetic energy of an errant vehicle. A driver who loses control in a construction zone is going to feel the brutal consequences of that mistake. The construction worker will not.
If the asymmetry of treatment between you standing vulnerable at the signal and the worker ensconced behind a barrier makes no sense to you, then you are thinking clearly. Why are we concerned with the construction worker and not the kid walking the sidewalk? Why are we concerned with the oncoming traffic and not the person waiting at the traffic signal?
Why are we willing to cause harm to the driver in one situation and not the other? What makes us choose the lives of those in a vehicle in one situation and in another situation be unwilling to sacrifice the life of bystanders? These decisions are embedded in our designs, but why?
I did an internship at the Minnesota Department of Transportation and I remember there was one person there whose job was to enforce right-of-way encroachments. He literally went around to old ladies planting flower beds and others placing unauthorized obstacles in the designated clear zone and forced their removal. The reason was simple: vehicles will go off the road, hit these obstacles, and this will potentially injure the driver along with any passengers.
Never mind that this potential collision was going to happen in someone’s yard, the front of their store, or the entrance to a city park—all places where people are expected to routinely gather. If the kinetic energy of a vehicle was going to be violently and uncontrollably discharged, the DOT was there to ensure that drivers would be spared the consequences.
After all, human legs shear. Human torsos give way. Trees do not. Engineers feel free to ignore the presence of people adjacent to the street, but the trees must go.
My book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: A Strong Towns Approach to Transportation, comes out on September 8. Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules, was kind enough to write a blurb. His comments included the following observation:
“I am not an engineer, so I can share with impunity the truth that Chuck is being prosecuted for exposing: American road engineering is not only destroying the fabric of American society and the health of its citizens; it is nothing less than institutionalized mass murder.”
Jeff is right that I am being attacked for my speech. The state of Minnesota is joining with others who have threatened me, through the state’s licensing process, for speaking out for safe streets. It’s unseemly, even. As Jeff suggests, I may sometimes pull my punches because I am a licensed professional and want to maintain a level of decorum with my colleagues, people I know to generally be decent and compassionate.
Institutionalized mass murder? It’s hard for me to refute that assertion. If you disagree, let’s meet at the breakaway traffic signal to discuss further.
Construction workers deserve to be protected from errant vehicles that leave the roadway. So do people waiting at traffic signals. So do people walking on sidewalks. So do people living normal lives that routinely force them to stand mere feet away from vehicles traveling at lethal speeds.
America needs a billion bollards. There is no coherent argument against lining every street in America with them. This is the minimum level of protection needed to keep people safe from violence. It is the least we can do to correct the massive asymmetry of risk experienced on our nation’s streets by people outside of a vehicle.
If licensed professionals placing breakaway poles in sidewalks isn’t institutionalized gross negligence, at the very least, then what is it? If transportation professionals refuse to put up bollards to protect people from the violence of an errant vehicle, how is this not abetting the slaughter of thousands every year?
I have no satisfactory answer to those questions. I know none that do.
If the federal government wants to fund transportation, skip the megaprojects. Start with a billion bollards. There is nothing we can do that will save more lives, and few things that will put us in a better position to build strong towns.
Charles Marohn is a Professional Engineer (PE) and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). He’s the Founder and President of StrongTowns.org . He was named one of the 10 Most Influential Urbanists of all time by Planetizen in 2017.