This book explores the geography of the everyday roadway and contemplates how regulation and design shape our streets. People may question the hegemony of cars, but reimagining public streets is a major conceptual and technical challenge. Drawing from “new mobilities” and transport studies, Prytherch addresses how streets are structured by policy standards; what it means to have a right to the street; and how a more just street would look—in both theory and practice. He summarizes key traffic statutes, case laws, and engineering manuals, and interprets these in relation to mobility rights and justice. At its core, the book moves beyond criticism to highlight emerging movements which aim to develop more complete and livable streets for everyone.
In Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives, journalist Thalia Verkade and mobility expert ("the cycling professor") Marco te Brömmelstroet take a three-year shared journey of discovery into the possibilities of our streets. They investigate and question the choices and mechanisms underpinning how these public spaces are designed and look at how they could be different. Verkade and te Brömmelstroet draw inspiration from the Netherlands and look at what other countries are doing, and could do, to diversify how they use their streets and make them safer. Making our communities safer, cleaner, and greener starts with asking these fundamental questions: who do our streets belong to, how do we want to use them, and who gets to decide? To truly transform mobility, we need to look far beyond the technical aspects and put people at the center of urban design. Movement will change the way that you view our streets.
The face of the pedestrian safety crisis looks a lot like Ignacio Duarte-Rodriguez. The 77-year old grandfather was struck in a hit-and-run crash while trying to cross a high-speed, six-lane road without crosswalks near his son’s home in Phoenix, Arizona. He was one of the more than 6,000 people killed while walking in America in 2018. In the last ten years, there has been a 50 percent increase in pedestrian deaths. The tragedy of traffic violence has barely registered with the media and wider culture. Disproportionately the victims are like Duarte-Rodriguez—immigrants, the poor, and people of color. They have largely been blamed and forgotten. In Right of Way, journalist Angie Schmitt shows us that deaths like Duarte-Rodriguez’s are not unavoidable “accidents.” They don’t happen because of jaywalking or distracted walking. They are predictable, occurring in stark geographic patterns that tell a story about systemic inequality. These deaths are the forgotten faces of an increasingly urgent public-health crisis that we have the tools, but not the will, to solve. Schmitt examines the possible causes of the increase in pedestrian deaths as well as programs and movements that are beginning to respond to the epidemic. Her investigation unveils why pedestrians are dying—and she demands action. Right of Way is a call to reframe the problem, acknowledge the role of racism and classism in the public response to these deaths, and energize advocacy around road safety. Ultimately, Schmitt argues that we need improvements in infrastructure and changes to policy to save lives. Right of Way unveils a crisis that is rooted in both inequality and the undeterred reign of the automobile in our cities. It challenges us to imagine and demand safer and more equitable cities, where no one is expendable.
