Why Complete Streets Design Benefits Everyone

In a piece in Fast Company, Andy Boenau argues that designing roads for the “average driver,” much like designing aircraft cockpits for the average pilot, is a disservice to everyone. 

Boenau:

Designing for the average driver creates a phantom user—a person who materializes inside their vehicle, drives, and dematerializes upon arrival. This ghost never walks across a street, never uses a bicycle or scooter, never uses a downtown circulator bus, and only makes long trips. The ghost is capable of seeing and hearing everything, is always alert and sober, doesn’t experience chronic pain, doesn’t need a cane or wheelchair, isn’t young, and isn’t old. And of course, if the imaginary average driver has to wait a few seconds behind other people, the economy will collapse.

But every driver is at some point of their journey a pedestrian, too. “By optimizing transportation systems for the average motorist, we’re making significant portions of every trip uncomfortable or dangerous for everyone.” By designing for the statistical middle, we’re not designing well for anyone.

Complete Streets, on the other hand, acknowledges that people switch modes and accommodates the full range of road users with infrastructure like bike lanes, accessible curb cuts, and transit lanes. But while some U.S. communities have adopted a Complete Streets approach, progress remains “frustratingly slow.”