A Traffic Engineer Questions His Profession

Charles Marohn is a traffic engineer. Despite years of training and millenia of precedents, Marohn now feels that the common practice of traffic engineering is creating bad and even unsafe streets.

1 minute read

November 23, 2010, 2:00 PM PST

By Nate Berg


"When people would tell me that they did not want a wider street, I would tell them that they had to have it for safety reasons.

When they answered that a wider street would make people drive faster and that would be seem to be less safe, especially in front of their house where their kids were playing, I would confidently tell them that the wider road was more safe, especially when combined with the other safety enhancements the standards called for."

Now, Marohn has come to see some fault in the way his profession works. He shares his tale of evolution on the Strong Towns blog.

Monday, November 22, 2010 in Strong Towns

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