Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. Charles L. Marohn, Jr.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“How big is the clear zone?”
I took a deep breath and looked down. “The clear zone is 25 feet on each side of the street.”
“Twenty-five feet! That is my entire front yard!”
I wasn't going to compromise on safety. I had a code of ethics demanding that I put the welfare of the general public ahead of concerns like this. I had worked years to get my license, and I wasn't about to risk it by not following the design standard.
Plus, the firm that I worked for had professional liability insurance, which I knew was expensive. We live in a litigious society. There was no way that I was going to be bullied into doing something irresponsible — something that threatened my client or my firm, let alone the people who would drive along this road.
“I'm sorry, but the standard requires that for the road to be safe, all obstacles must be removed from the clear zone.”
“Do you understand that my children play in this clear zone?”
“I would not recommend that. It would not be safe.”
“But it is safe today. I thought you were doing this project to improve safety. How is the street safer if my children can't go outside?”
I was having a conversation with this woman at the request of the mayor. She was one of his constituents. I knew that my job was to listen to her and answer her questions, but it was also to demonstrate that the city had performed due diligence on the project. If she showed up at a future council meeting complaining about her kids not being able to go outside to play, she was less likely to be taken seriously if everyone knew that I had personally met with her, answered her questions, and seen her property firsthand. I'm the professional and, after being on site and meeting with her, I can confidently say that nothing unique is happening with her property, regardless of what she might suggest at a public hearing.
“Building the street to meet the standard will enhance safety by allowing cars to flow more smoothly.”
“More smoothly. The cars will just drive faster, will they not?”
By statute in my state, the city is not able to enforce any speed limit lower than 30 miles per hour. There are exceptions, but those require extensive studies and proof that there is some unique circumstance justifying the lower speed limit. We weren't going through that effort here. The city didn't have the budget for such a study and, even if they did, there were no special circumstances that would justify doing so.
Once the street was built, if there was reason to believe that 30 mph was the wrong speed, I could do a speed study and make that determination. Such a study would involve monitoring the speed that traffic was naturally flowing, which my experience suggested was unlikely to be less than 30 mph. She should be careful what she wishes because a speed study is more likely to result in a higher speed limit than a lower one.
“We will post a speed limit after we do a speed study and determine the safe speed for the street,” I said with some added authority in my voice.
She replied with equal authority. “But cars drive slow now. Slow is the safe speed through my neighborhood where my children are playing in my yard. How does it improve safety to have a drag strip out my front door?”
“It will increase safety because traffic will flow more smoothly. That is the standard.”
At this point, the two of us had cycled through all of the typical objections that people bring up to oppose such projects. We had started with a friendly line of inquiry and eventually proceeded all the way to unresolvable acrimony. I had done everything that had been asked of me, and I was thinking it was time to move on.
She was not ready to let things go, however, and I started to sense that this conversation would get very emotional before we were done. Her next words reinforced my uneasiness.
“I am not aware of anyone being killed in an accident on this street, and I have lived here for thirty years. Are you aware of anyone being killed?”
“No, I'm not.” I tried not to roll my eyes or sound like the teenager I was just a few years earlier.
“I am not even aware of any accidents that have occurred on this street. Are you aware of any accidents?”
I repeated, “No, I'm not.”
“Then why do you say that the street is not safe today?”
One of the frequent justifications for making roadway improvements is a tragic incident, especially a death. While those cases often seem random, they form a powerful justification for doing an improvement project, especially where you can tap into available federal or state funding. Multiple incidences can even create a sense of urgency. Since there is a seemingly endless list of roads that need improvement, prioritizing by death rate or accident rate can almost seem natural.
That wasn't the case here. We were proactively making the improvements to this street to make it safer — to bring it up to an acceptable standard in a way that would ultimately save lives. We weren't waiting for the accident rate to rise; we were getting out in front of that. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction in my work.
“The street is not safe because it does not meet the standard.”
“So, today cars drive slowly and it is safe, but you want to flatten the street, straighten the street, widen the street, and remove all of the trees so that cars can drive fast? Only afterwards will you post a speed limit so that cars will slow down? And you say this is safer?”
It was a clever recitation, but while the woman with whom I was speaking was clearly sharp-witted, she lacked the background knowledge and understanding that allowed her to grasp the situation fully. I would try one last time to enlighten her.
“Yes, it will meet the standard. And please understand that there are high traffic projections for this street.”
“What do you mean by a high traffic projection?”
“We project that a lot of cars will use this street in the coming years.”
We've all been on roads that lacked capacity, where the traffic was at a standstill. From the perspective of the traffic engineer, this is an absolute failure. We even give it a grade of F.
Traffic engineers use a scale to measure “level of service” that runs from A, for “free flow condition” where all traffic is moving unhindered, to F, where the flow of traffic breaks down and travel times are unpredictable.
Cities spend a great deal of time and resources analyzing and projecting traffic patterns. For this project, our models suggested a large increase in traffic, something that would create congestion and reduce traffic flow to Level of Service D — or potentially worse. All of the improvements underway were a proactive attempt to avoid bottlenecks and keep traffic flowing. We were being proactive with this project and I was proud of that.
“Why would a lot of cars drive down this street? It is a small, narrow street where you have to drive slow.”
Now we were getting somewhere. Now she was asking the right questions — the ones that explained exactly why this project was so important. And I could surely sympathize with her not understanding what was coming. She hadn't seen the models my colleagues and I had put together. She wasn't the expert working with this every day. I felt a renewed sense of optimism. We were making progress. I replied excitedly.
“That is why we have to improve the street — to meet the standard.”