His State Street now a pass through? Or does it not actually represent a thoroughfare in a head densely populated residential area where children go to school where families walk, you're listening to the strong towns podcast
Hey, everybody, this chuck Marone with strong towns Welcome back to the strong towns podcast. When I put together the conversation with an engineer video, I did it in a, in a kind of a moment of anger. I explained this a number of times that, you know, while this has turned into something that I think even in retrospect, is actually quite profound. That wasn't my intention. It wasn't what I was doing. I've worked on a lot of things where I thought, hey, this is going to be really profound, and then like, nothing happened. And then I've slapped things together in an hour and a half, and you know, endures for over a decade and is taught in college classes and what have you, that's conversation with an engineer. And I think the thing that has endured about that is, when you watch it, you're seeing two people, in this case, animated, you know, dogs, but having a human conversation, where they are speaking English, but they're essentially speaking two different languages, that they're speaking past each other. Because the whole place that they start the whole worldview, that they have the whole framework that the way they even use words, have completely different meanings based on the language that they are speaking. I wrote an article not too long ago, called engineers should not design streets. And to me, it was not a controversial article, it was it was kind of a statement of the obvious, you know, engineers have things that they're good at, they have things that they are not good at. Street design requires a lot of those things that engineers are not good at. And so you know, we should not be giving the design of streets over to engineers, we should have that be a more collaborative process. One that would include engineers, but would not be dominated by engineering knowledge. Wow, the amount of feedback that I got from that was incredible, and we reran it periodically, in our social media feeds, and it always generates a big huge, you know, amount of Firestorm. I'll tell you what, I had a friend who's, you know, parents is an engineer. And this friend, who is very, very close to strong towns into what we're doing, said, You know, my dad, Vaughn read our stuff like said, This is terrible. This is absurd. The idea that streets are not should be designed by engineers, this would be chaos. This would be, you know, how else could it possibly be done? And again, I feel like it's two different languages, right? It's two different starting points. When we step back, and we recognise that what we see in modern engineering practice today, and modern street design is a solution to a very specific set of problems, right problems stemming out of the Great Depression, how do we grow our economy, and the theory of how we grow our economy, as we increase mobility, we make it so people can get around very quickly get to as many places as possible, we allow people to move themselves, move goods, provide services, over greater distances, and in kind of the, you know, free trade mentality, this is going to grow the economy and make things better for everybody. I get that part of the argument. And I think I can even go back to 1945 and make that argument to a degree. But that's not the problem we're trying to solve today. And it's not the problem that most people are trying to solve in their places. They're trying to solve a very human set of problems. How do I live here? How do we have a prosperous life? How do we make this place better? How do we safely exist in this space? How do we get around? How do we stop in the case of Springfield, Massachusetts, people from continually getting killed on the streets in our community? Recently, a woman named Gail ball was killed crossing the street in front of the central library in Springfield, Massachusetts. Those of you that have read my recent book Confessions of a recovering engineer know that street that is a street that destiny Gonzalez was killed back in 2014. In fact, it is essentially the same exact place within feet of where Destiny Gonzalez was struck and killed. There have been dozens of people killed in this stretch of street in recent years. And it is, you know, as you're gonna hear in a moment, an emergency,
it should be an emergency, it's an emergency, let me say this. It's an emergency for some. But for some, it is not. The emergency is more about the pushback about the, you know, the hastiness. Let's get to this, there was a meeting recently in Springfield, and I want to go through some of the back and forth in this meeting, because what you're going to get out of it is that same, you know, two different languages being spoken. And what I want to do here, as part of this podcast as kind of like a public service, if you are a professional engineer, if you are someone doing this kind of work, I want to try to, in your language, explain to you what the people in these meetings are saying. And if you are one of the people in these meetings, or one of the people who's frustrated or would like to see things different, I want to explain to you what the engineers saying, in response, because you're speaking two very different languages. And I want to make the language very clear. So that we can actually start to communicate on things that are fundamental and important. So the meeting kicks off with the chair, and I'm not going to use people's names here, I, I don't want to make this like overly personal. I know, in the book, I refrain from using people's names, except when I thought I absolutely had to, I'm going to refrain from using people's names here, you're going to hear their voices, I'll explain to you what their roles are in the conversation. The first person you're going to hear is an elected city council member, and the chair of this committee, she's the one who's called the meeting. And she really sets it up very clearly. Here's that clip, that we
need to see something tangible, we need the citizens of Springfield to see that we are taking these tests seriously. And we don't want them to committee to continue our hearts go out to the families. I know the Aqua civic association is addressing this and is concerned about this, but I want to see physical proof that they are doing something about these deaths, even if they put up jersey barriers, speed bumps, traffic lines, something has to be done, and we have to see it.
Okay, let me interpret this now for the engineer. Because I think a technical person listening to this is going to hear a bunch of, quote unquote, solutions being thrown out, right, like we want to jersey barriers, we want this No, no, don't focus on that. That's not the issue here. Because this councilmember, you know, very good intentions. She's has no clue what needs to be done. Right? I mean, she might have some ideas. But here's what she's focused on. People are getting killed here. People are getting killed. And like, I'm the council member who ran, who's standing here saying, like, I will do something about this. And I am looking at you, our professional team, our staff, and I'm saying, WTF, like let's fix this thing. Come on, get moving. And I've been doing this for a long time, and nothing seems to be happening. I want to see something happen. I want to see something take place here. Focus on that part of it. That's the part. That's the urgency that's being communicated. This next clip is another council member. And I think that this is like one of the smartest things that I've heard said in his whole conversation, use that clip.
And you know, I said at that time, what we're really looking at is an epidemic of traffic fatalities in the city of Springfield. And when we look at epidemics, from a public health perspective, you know, you don't just look at the individual event and say, Oh, well, they should have done this differently. Or they should have done that differently. You have to look at the system in its totality and what changes need to be made.
So again, for the engineer here, I think you're hearing someone say something profound. They're saying like, look, this is not just springs, you know, State Street in Springfield, this is not just the crossing in front of the library. This is a big systematic problem. And we're not going to be able to get out of this by, you know, keeping doing what we've been doing. We're not going to be able to have another little study here or another little approach here or some type of intervention. We've had does People die on the street in recent times, like in the last five, six years, dozens, like over 30. It's a profound number of people that have been killed here. We have to step back and rethink things. What we're doing now is not working that that's the way that an engineer should hear this is like, do this is a systems failure, rethink the system get outside of the system,
a broader conversation needs to be had citywide around how we physically slow traffic, make pedestrian safer, make bicycle is safer. And and I think that, you know, it's a conversation we've had at many points. But now we certainly are seeing an influx of cash from the federal government. And we need to be incorporating this into our design.
I think an engineer hearing this might focus on the influx of cash portion of this and say, Okay, what you're suggesting to me is that going forward, as we are bringing in and doing new projects, I need you to consider more stuff I need to get with some of these trends that are going on in the profession, maybe build some Complete Streets, maybe, you know, add some sidewalks in or some, you know, other things that we can do as we go. But this is something that, you know, as the money pours in, we'll do that I, I think an engineer here that is going to try to fit that into their current paradigm. That's not what is being said, that's that's not what is being said, what this councilmember is saying, is that like, look, this system is broken, it's not working, we need to rethink it, you actually need to throw out the way that you're doing it now. And the biggest fear that I have as a council member, is that we're going to have all this money pouring in and you're just going to do superficial stuff with it, we actually need to do some substantive real things with it, not just superficial changes to the status quo, because the status quo is not working here, we're gonna go back to the chair, again, who I think speaks very, very clearly here. But I'll interpret for the technical professional, what has been said, you know, I'm
really tired. Your studies, I want to see something concrete. That's what I wanted to see.
All right. I'm tired of studies. I think that the technical professional might hear this and think, Well, this is just a reckless politician. This is just someone grandstanding for the public. This is someone just saying something, you know, of saying something cute or populous to try to look like they're doing something to take you? No, no, no, you're reading this wrong. And I want you, I want you to hear this, you know, use her exact words, like I'm sick of studies, I'm sick of nothing getting done. I don't like the process that you have set up to fix things. It's not working, it's opaque. It's non responsive, it's getting people killed. And I want I'm done with it. Like I'm sick of it, I want to be done with it. Get something, you know, no more studies, no more of this bureaucratic process, no more saying why we can't do stuff. Give me something that we can do. I'm gonna throw this one into, I was going to save this for the end. But I'm kind of going chronologically here because I'm, I'm setting up the way this meeting is flowing through. There's another council member that had a similar insight, although he took it in a different direction, one that I think is really important. And I'll add this in here, just so we're, we're on the same page.
You know, I think there are some things that we can do immediately in the short term that can have a large impact. I also heard from a resident who, you know, was adamantly opposed to increase patrols, and, you know, their fear police patrols to slow folks down. And, you know, her fear was that we need to put our police officers in positions to be successful. And so the last thing that she wanted to see was neighbourhoods being oversaturated with police, who are in pursuit of stopping individuals who are creating, you know, who are having a traffic violation.
Let me interpret this now for the the engineer, the technical professional, and I'm gonna say this with an acknowledgement that I think the general disposition of engineers, in many ways is conservative and and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna explain that. I don't mean that in a political sense. I mean it in just like, the disposition towards the world. You know, engineers tend to be cautious. They tend to build in safety buffers, they tend to have margins for error. I mean, engineers are not known for flipping over the chessboard and starting things all over again. I get that, like, I understand that I think that is in general, like a healthy disposition of things. But I think sometimes, you know, that also has a streak to it where engineers try to resist like the latest fad. And in some ways, there are aspects of the current social justice conversation, that can feel a little bit like the latest set of talking points, right. And, you know, I think, and I'm saying, I'm, I'm treading on some thin ice here. And I'm trying not to make this political. But let me give you an example. I know when we were hearing things about defund the police. And that was like the zeitgeist. In an engineering standpoint, you would keep your head down and hope that blows over, right, because you're like, that's not what needs to be done. And I think sometimes when we hear things about police stops, and traffic enforcement, and they're set in a race context, there's a certain natural inclination amongst technical professionals, who know what needs to be done and know what needs to happen, and then have a certain plan approach to just put their heads down and say, you know, this too shall pass like we will get through this moment, I get that inclination, let me for your sake, give you a different interpretation, or help you get beyond that natural reaction, because that natural reaction is not healthy in this case. And it's also not helping, in this case, solve anything or get us to where we need to get to, what is being said here is that a lot of what is seen as safety issues are then empowering police officers to go out and make traffic stops, that is having a really negative effect. Not only is it not really helpful in terms of the safety thing you're trying to accomplish, but it actually creates this adversarial relationship between the city, the the government, the community, you know, the, the, you know, the the insiders in a sense in the system, and the people who are living in a place, that is the problem that you need to solve, right. And if your solution is to say, the people in your community are deviants, and they're terrible, and they're just doing horrible things, and when you get the police and sick the police on them, you're you're not grasping what it means to be a human, you're not grasping what it means to build something in a place with messy humans. You know, who live there, you actually have to design that in, you have to take that into account, you have to actually deal with that. And what this council member is saying to you, the technical professional is like, Hey, if you think that the solution here is just to throw a bunch of money at cops and have cops go out and enforce things, that's going to have all kinds of negative effects, it's not going to solve the problem. And it's actually going to make solving the problems academic doing our jobs here, a lot more difficult, a lot more difficult. This is not some passing fad, this is not something that's going to go away. It's not something that if you can keep your head down, you know, pretty soon people are going to stop talking about social justice issues and go away. You need to actually deal with this reality that enforcement is not the answer. All right. Now we've heard from the public officials. And now we're going to hear from the technical professional a little bit and I'm going to interpret the other way I'm going to give a synopsis of what the technical professional is saying so that the non technical person can understand hopefully, what has been said. So let's start with the first bit which is a clip on how we deal with as technical professionals, the crashes and the deaths and the things that happen within the community.
Whenever there is a major accident in the city or and even including fatalities. I immediately meet with traffic division police to make a determination as to at a particular location. What are the issues surrounding a particular location? You know, whether we're talking about speed, lighting, etc, etc.
Alright, so here's what has been said. And I think this is really important for non technical people to understand. What is being said is when there is a crash of some sort, particularly a major crash where people are getting traumatically injured or killed. We have a checklist that we go through to kind of explain largely for insurance purposes, what happened there A checklist is not covering the things that you hope it covers. But it's covering like the defensive kind of liability stuff. How can we in a sense, put the blame on someone else besides our, you know, what we have done? We're looking after the city, we're looking after the community. So can we identify speeding that was done? Can we identify someone who was not where they should have been? Who did something erroneous when they were driving? Was someone drinking? Was someone not wearing a seatbelt? Did someone have like tinted windows in their car? Or, you know, like, what, what are the factors? Not us? But what are the factors that mistakes that other people made or things that other people did, that we can go through and in a sense document, so that when this gets potentially to a court or gets to some type of adjudication, that we actually have the things in place, defensively, to be able to say, this was not our fault, this was someone else's fault. This was some mistake that was made by someone else. And we have got a process of doing that it's set up, it's established. I can show you the checklists and the forms and all that, that that that is what is being said, here's the next clip, then that responds to this idea of like, what are we going to do now,
with regards to State Street the last time we had met, I mentioned a study, study, we are meeting with the consultant next Wednesday morning. They're presenting their findings to us for the options that they are developing. So I will have that information next Wednesday, following the meeting we have on Wednesday. And then at that point, what will most likely happen is that the city will look at the various options and figure out which ones we want to do. And at that point, we would start determining whether it's something we do on our own depending upon costs, or if it's something we turn into a different type of project, depending upon I mean, it's probably going to be more dependent upon the cost than anything else. But we will have all that information. Beginning next are following our meeting on next Wednesday, with regard to the State Street area.
Alright, for the for the non technical person, let me explain what is being said here. Because you heard in the prior clip, the idea that there's a process that we use, when there's a crash, when someone dies, we go out and we we have checklists, and we have forms. This is an extension of that. This is saying, there's a process that we use to make changes. And I work for I serve that process. Um, you guys are asking me to do crazy stuff, just go out and do things I want to see change. But no, no, I don't, I don't do things that way. Like I don't function that way. I have a process that I use, I work in this process. The process is, you know, this is not something we're going to do internally, we don't want to do, we don't want to take that on, we have an outside consultant, because we can have them take the arrows for us, you know, come in, they've got maybe some wiggle room to say crazy stuff that we don't, they'll throw all these options out, and then we'll look at them. But we don't want to be hasty. We don't want to jump into things we want to follow the process. Because again, I work for this process. This process is set up by, you know, technical people to who know what they're doing, who have been through this before. We don't want to go out and do hasty, crazy stuff. We want to follow the process that's in place. I know. And hearing I'm not talking like the engineer. Now I'm going to talk to you the non technical person. I know that's frustrating. And it should be frustrating to you because you want to see something done. What you're hearing is you're hearing someone who is saying, I don't work for you. I work for this process. This process is what it says is set up to define how I approach things. And here's how that process is going to play out. This is a different thing than what you're asking for. Let me let me go on to the next clip. Because this is fascinating, because it's going to sound to the uninitiated that maybe there's some progress that's going to be made here. I don't want to disappoint you by previewing this but that that's not what is being said
they will be looking at roadway narrowing media and islands, flashing signs, clock signals, locations of crossings, all of that. So I anticipate a number of different options that are going to be presented to us.
So here's how you ought to hear this if you're a non technical person. What you should hear is that within the context of moving traffic and mobility and level of service and all of the things that we are being asked, that is our primary mission and objective of a street, we're going to look at what can be done to accommodate other things. So, you know, with over whelming mandates that we have to move traffic quickly, what then can we do, and there's a whole bunch of things we can do. And I'll just list a bunch, you know, yay, here's a bunch of ideas, here's a bunch of things, I think the non technical person is hearing, great, we're going to slow down traffic, we're going to change things, we're going to make this human oriented, we're going to change the scale of this, you know, and we got all these ideas that we're going to put on the table. That's, that's not what's being said. And that's not what's being proposed. And that's not what you should hear, what you should hear is, my, the process that I have is established, when there's a crash, we go out and look at it, we got a checklist, where we're gonna make a change, we do studies, we hire consultants, we review this we meet, and then, you know, yeah, there's all these things that are gonna be put on the table. But all those things will be done within the over whelming mandate of moving vehicles quickly through here of this mobility mandate. Whatever we can do, while maintaining that mandate, I'll be open to doing. Now we're going to get to some of the resonance. And this is where it gets gets gut wrenching. And I'm going to switch back into trying to explain to the engineer what is being said, because I'm going to preview this. These are some powerful statements that are going to be made. And in some beautiful ways, things that should be said and need to be said. But the engineer is not going to you know, and I don't know about this case, but the technical professional is going to hear these in a different way than what is intended. And I'll explain that when we're done here.
And I just want to say, although I certainly appreciate all the study and everything that has gone into the accident, and I hope we'll continue having to look at those spray paint marks on State Street marking out the crime scene every day when I go to and from work is just I can see my colleague Ginny nodding her head is just like a horrific reminder, and we just need your help.
This really struck me when I heard it. You know, the idea that your, your colleague, this woman works at the library, she set this up by saying, you know, this is the person who just died Gail, it was my was my coworker, she was someone I knew and I cared for, and now she's dead. And not only do I have to live with that, but I have to walk by every day that the paint out on the street, marking where she died. It's this, you know, traumatic, horrific thing. I think, as a technical professional, there's a certain I'm gonna say coldness. I don't I I know sometimes, you know, there are jokes about engineers being inhuman, and, you know, wholly rational, that's not engineers are very human, they have lots of emotions. They tend to be, you know, more introverted, technical minded people. And so that is expressed very differently than artists and other creative types. But that doesn't mean that they're not human is not there. I do think though, that as a profession, what we often do is we often dismiss this kind of thing, right? There's a certain attrition rates, I don't think that's exactly the right word, but there's certain there's a certain rate of death, and a certain rate of trauma that we don't accept as engineers, but in a sense, become used to and I've said, you know, there's a trade off here between mobility and your ability to get around and all the great things that come from mobility, there's a trade off between that and you know, these types of things happening. And by the way, these things happen because people make mistakes, not because of us, we've got a checklist, we've got a process, you know, there's a whole bunch of things that we do as technical professionals to insulate ourselves from the humanity here, this woman is saying, look at the humanity of it. And that's what you need to actually hear out of this is that, you know, level of service is an abstract thing. Traffic flow and projections are maybe a little bit more technical, but but themselves are, you know, fleeting, abstract things, the numbers that we tend to find comfort in, we should be less comfortable with than we are. And these emotional outbursts that we are so quick to dismiss as that just mere outbursts are actually where humanity is at. It's where people are, it's, it's actually the thing and that we should be paying the most attention to this woman is calling on the technical professionals here to actually like experience a little bit of the humanity. And you know what, when we're building a street when we're building a place, that's absolutely what we need to do. Even from a technical design standpoint, that's where we need to start. That's what you need to hear out of this. Here's a another council member. Now,
you know, the difference of going 2520 or 25 miles an hour versus 35. Or I've caught myself doing one day I caught myself doing 47 coming down State Street, it's easy to do.
I think the technical professional here, might might hear this as kind of like a quip, right? Because everybody who's driven has caught themselves speeding at times. And you might think, Well, this guy is acknowledging that, you know, he's made mistakes, too. And so maybe he's trying to like, let other people off from making mistakes. And you have some empathy there. And okay, like, whatever. You know, that doesn't excuse the mistake you make by speeding. That's not what this council member saying. And you need to hear it differently, with a council member saying is that this street is designed for high speeds. Don't be surprised when people drive high speeds, I am an upstanding citizen, I represent the city, I'm on the city council, I care. And even me, I've caught myself going fast, because it's easy to do. It shouldn't be this easy to drive this fast. That's what you need to be hearing. Here's an advocate. Someone who knows the issues here really, really well, has been deeply involved in making changes advocating for changes here. And I'm gonna play this clip from her because, again, she's saying something that I don't think is being heard by the the technical people.
And it's interesting that there's now the 25 mile or sign on the library sign at the library. Why isn't there one on the other side of the road? And if and if we can go ahead and put up 25 mile an hour signs without having to do a speed study? Why can't we put one by the school? What you know, why can't we put them all along State Street where there are sensitive, you know, buildings, which I believe is the reason we can get away with putting one at the library without a speed study.
All right, the technical professional is listening to this. And what's going through their brain is, oh, my gosh, this is exactly why we need to stick to the process. As soon as we start to do something outside of a thoughtful deliberative process, like put up a 25 mile an hour sign in, like populist response to outrage, what we get is the whole like Pandora's box of well, why don't you put one here? Why don't you put one there? And then we're going to open ourselves up to liability, we're going to open ourselves up to lawsuits, because we, you know, have randomly done things. No, no, you're hearing this, you're reacting to this in the wrong way. And you're hearing this wrong? What what this comment is, and what this woman is saying is, your values are backward, your values are messed up, the thing that you're prioritising is wrong. Look, we got you to put up a 25 mile an hour speed limit sign here and you acknowledge that you can do that, like you have the power to do that. Why won't you use your power to do things in other places? Like, look, obviously, if you cared about people walking across the street, there's a school here with kids where we know kids are walking across the street right over here? Why wouldn't you have the same care here? Why wouldn't you have the same care over here where we have elderly people that we know walk across the street? Why wouldn't you do that? I don't understand why your values are so messed up. And why you're prioritising the speed of traffic moving through here, when you can obviously see, we've had multiple deaths, we've had multiple things happen, your values are screwed up. If you're the technical professional, that's what you need to hear not be defensive about process and all this and in you know, someone pushing you to do things, you need to recognise that people are actually attacking the underlying values that you're applying to the system. And rightfully so rightfully so. Here is a clip now from another member of the Publican, this one is going to be a little bit longer. I'm going to run the whole thing because I think it's really really powerful. It got to me when I listened to this one. Here's this clip.
I wanted to say that I am obviously not a traffic engineer. We know that these problems are everywhere in our nation, anyplace there are cars and people but I really want to read Tonight back to what Councillor Letterman said about systems. And being aware of those and what Councillor Hurst said also about making sure that everyone is seeing all of these solutions. We're counting on our our administration to bring forward the results of this study. So that no stone we hope, is left on turn that this the study will really be comprehensive, and give us lots of food for thought that it will be analyzable in terms of what actually does reduce fatalities. What overall, I want to say that downtown Springfield on State Street in specific to get specific about this race. This is an it is now a red, it's a residential area, that I think it has something to do with thinking about what is his state street now a pass through? Or does it not actually represent a thoroughfare in a head densely populated residential area where children go to school, where families walk at Betsy has pointed out that the population in the Sky View tower right on that corner by the library is? What is it that say it's at least a quarter of the population of Metro centre? Or 1/3? Set? It's a significant we have a million? Yeah. Many, many people. And I think part of as we're thinking systemically is the the balance between people and traffic. And I would like us to balance and nod and lean toward the people. Were the city of homes. Let's recognise that and make it homey.
Wow. Wow, wow. For the for the for the non technical person out there. Let me just before I get to the technical and the interpretation, let me just say, I feel this frustration. I feel it. I'm empathising with you. It is maddening. Let me let me interpret for the the technical professional, because the beginning of this clip, you know, she starts talking about all options on the table. And I think the technical professional can hear that and say, Yeah, of course, you know, we will, within our mandate, look at all the options on the table, and what is actually being said, is no, expand the options, you need to actually look at your value set and your mandate and your approach to mobility as being one of the options that needs to change one of the things that needs to be fixed. And then she goes on, and she elaborates on that very point. She, she describes to you what this is, this is not a thoroughfare for traffic, this is a residential area, it's not a place, that you're supposed to be moving cars quickly. It's a space where people are living people are shopping, people are working people are in, you know, having life, they're going to the library, that that is what your design does not take into account right now. And what you need to be hearing from, this is not a call to do a better study or a more thorough study, or to you know, involve more people. But to go to what that last statement was, that she made, you know, there's a balance between people and traffic, and right now, you're choosing traffic over human lives. You're choosing traffic over the prosperity of people living in this neighbourhood, you're choosing traffic over humanity, and that is what needs to change. That is what is screwed up in your value system. And in your approach. That's as a technical professional, what you need to hear this is this is actually a condemnation of your entire value system. And, you know, she's been very polite. She's saying, like, I'm not an engineer, I don't know everything, you know, I don't do all the studies. Like I didn't get a degree. But my God, like look at the humans, like you're, you're just missing something profound. That is what she's telling you. We go back to the engineer now and I will I will switch hats and interpret for the technical people. What is being said, I
want to say what we want what we would want to do for construction. So versus you know, looking at going into amazing detail last seven or eight or nine different alternatives, we're going to look at a handful of them and have them go forward. But the general concepts of what we were talking about can be shared at that point,
who will review those and decide which ones to proceed forward with?
We will we OS with the, the DPW, engineering department, with the consultant and so that we can then make a determination what we think needs to hit Well, when we come up with what we think that solution is, as I said, before, figuring out what we can do as a city, versus what we do end up doing it into a bigger project, my preference is not to turn this into a DLT project, simply because from a timeline standpoint, those things take forever. So I'm trying to find the best solution to be able to get it done as quickly as possible.
All right, for the non technical people out there, here's what was just said, we have a process that we use to go through here to make this determination. And we're going to do we're doing the study, and we're gonna get a whole bunch of different options in this study, gosh, you don't want us to fully engineer all those out, we're going to make a determination and we're going to make a determination, right up front at these options are viable in these or not. And then the question was posed, like, who's going to make that determination? And the answer was, we are that, like, the technical people are going to make that like, why would we, we're not going to make that like some populace mandate, we're not going to put it out to a democratic vote, that would be silly, that would not be prudent, these are engineering kind of decisions. And so we're going to make that decision. And then what we will do is, we will bring you in a sense, a filtered set of options, all of which are viable through our kind of lens. So our mandate is to move cars quickly is to have mobility. You know, that's, that's the job we are in. And so what we will do is, we will present you with a bunch of options that fall within that mandate. So there may be 50 options on the table of those 50 options, there's only five that we're going to consider viable and worth doing. Because they're the ones that meet our goals and priorities internally, of you know, of mobility, and traffic and all that. And so what we're going to do is we're gonna give you those five options to look at, and we're not going to, like, spend a tonne of money over developing them over engineering them, but we'll give you those five, and then, you know, we'll go from there. At the end, there was a discussion about what the project would look like. And again, for the non technical people, engineering, things manifest in projects, and they manifest in generally large projects, right, like, we're going to do very large things. And so the question here that the engineer, the technical person is dealing with is, is this something that is going to be a big project, or is this something that's going to be a huge project, and it's gonna be a big project, then we will wrap that into our capital improvements plan and put it on and so we can, you know, show progress, don't want to be hasty don't want to do something crazy, don't want to open ourselves up to liability. But if it's going to be bigger than that, like a huge project, then we're going to have to seek DoD approval, we're gonna have to go through them. And we're going to have to apply for funding and partner and all that stuff. And that's going to be a bigger deal. The preference here from the technical person is to make this just a big project, not a huge project. And that's kind of, you know, I guess genuflecting towards the urgency that's being communicated here. But you know, understand, they're not what's being expressed here is not urgency, and like, I need to get out and do something now to address this because people are dying. It's how do we fit this into our process? Here's our process, you're gonna get some options that meet our goals within our process. And then, you know, of course, you can decide,
we want to make sure we're doing it correctly. And I'm trying to say this with as much tact as I can. I don't want it to be a popularity contest, because some people look at something and say, We think this is going to be the best thing, when from an engineering or traffic perspective, it may end up being one of the worst. So we want to make sure that we do our due diligence, I don't have a problem presenting all the options, but I want to make sure that we have had a chance to vet them to figure out what is important. And then when I say important, what is meeting what we're trying to accomplish and, you know, doing a race crosswalk across State Street. Some people may look at that and think it's the greatest thing in the world where the downside that also has to be looked at so I want to make sure we vet it in both ways by possible. And again, I have no problem making sure that that stuff gets presented, I got no issue with that.
So for the the non technical person this is, you know, this is very, I think clear, but let me state it in an even clearer way, the engineer is not going to call it a popularity contest, not going to get into like populist rants, right? Like, we're not going to just go with the where the winds are blowing, we've got a process we're going to follow that process is going to be you know, have a prudent results we got, we got books, we got a standards and codes we got to meet, we've got, you know, all these requirements we've got to go through, this is not going to be something we just do on a whim. It's interesting, because he referenced, you know, we got to make sure we meet our requirements from an engineering and a traffic perspective, understand what is being said, there is what I've been saying multiple times here is just we have a mandate to move cars, we have a mandate for mobility. And the options that we vet and that we come through, are going to have to meet that mandate. And once they meet that mandate, and go through our process, and are consistent with our codes and our regulations, and all the value structure that we have set up around moving vehicles. Yeah, sure, we're willing to give you all those options. And you can consider all those options, you can look at all those. But anything outside of that is just crazy. Anything outside of that is, you know, might be popular, people might want to raise crosswalk, but you know, that's going to be terrible for traffic, it's going to create congestion, it's going to slow things down. And we don't want that to happen. So whatever we do, whatever we give you is going to be vetted through our process through our prudent set of analyses so that we meet our technical engineering and traffic goals and objectives. And then within that, sure, we'll we'll let you you know, pick your favourite option. But we're not just going to, you know, make it a popular cause we're just going to open it up to any ideas that people might have. Now, this draws some pushback from the chair, and she's the next one here, I've got a clip from she doesn't say like, Hey, like, this is not just your decision to make, listen to what she has to say.
So it's a walk us through this, okay, the plan, the plan, the long wait, study, happy, there's, there's suggestions to just the DPW that decides what's going to happen, it just goes to the traffic of the council. Does it go to the meeting at classical condominiums, you know, people want to be involved in this. And I think, you know, after what's happened and, and the grieving, I think it'll certainly help with a grieving process, if people can be involved in this. Like, that's very important. I don't want to just read about it, I, you know, I think we all want to be part of the solution.
Alright, the engineer needs to hear this in a certain way. Because I think, again, what I think the technical professional will focus on in that clip is, you know, the grieving again, human emotion. And we don't have the luxury as engineers of dealing with human emotion, human emotion is something that, you know, would would induce us to make bad hasty decisions, popularity contest, you know, grieving is fine, like, you know, we all grieve, but we got to move on. And I, you need to hear something different. If you're a technical professional, you need to hear something different out of that, what has been said is very simple, you are only going to give us a handful of options that are okay for you. And we want more options than that. We want you to expand the toolkit of things. And I don't trust you, quite frankly, to give us all the options that are available. I want you to give us more options. I want to know what the consultant is telling you, I want to know all of those things. I want all of those other things on the table, and I don't want just what gets through your filter. That is not acceptable. To me, that is not acceptable. To anybody in this community and the people I represent want, actually something in a different paradigm than the one that we have. Now. If you're the technical professional, that's what you need to hear, again, another indictment of your standard process and the way that you would deliver an outcome here,
press one from a timeline standpoint. I know you don't necessarily have what is being proposed yet. But if it's going to take a while which I suspect that it might. Is there anything that you can think of doing temporarily and not just at State Street, but what possibly throughout the city? I don't I don't know if you've been kicking around some ideas in terms of just trying to control you know the speed of traffic In general, but if you could just start with State Street, and then maybe give us more of a broader perspective.
Yeah. So if this isn't clear already to the technical professional people, it should be I mean, here's another council member, saying, like, Hey, okay, we get it, you've got a process. you've outlined that process, you're sticking to that process. Fine. We're not going to fight you on your whole internal process. I don't have the the inside expertise. I don't know how to fix that. But come on, can you do something temporarily, like the city is on fire? Like we've got all these people die? Like, can you get out and do something? That's what you should hear as a technical professional, you should hear like a, again, an indictment of your inaction, of your inability to kind of rise to the situation and your your wedding Enos to a process, these people would love to dismantle everything about what you're doing. They would love to dismantle your entire internal framework, because it's not responding to the situation that you you have. You're not hearing that. That's what you need to hear, you need to hear not that, you know, they're trying to, you know, have some populist uprising and, you know, sing and dance for the electorate and pretend like they're doing something. They're representing people in your community. And they're saying, like, Look, your sense of urgency here is misplaced. Your allegiance to a process is misplaced. Fine, I can't win that battle with you. You're intransigent. You're, you're difficult to deal with, Throw me a bone, like, is there anything that you can do to make this situation better, you've got to have some ideas. You're the damn engineer. All right, now we're gonna get back to the technical response.
All when I start to get the information from the consultants next week, I want to I think one of the things that we want to look at, for example, if one of the things is discussing about roadway narrowing, we would do some installation for road diets in certain areas. And it's, you know, we've done it in a couple of different places throughout the city over the years, one of the big ones a few years ago, was Forest Park Avenue. We tried it there, it did reduce speeds, it never got installed on Forest Park Avenue, because nobody wanted it in front of their house. So but um, you know, State Street, that's a little bit of a different story. So looking at the downtown area at this point. And when I say downtown, basically, my opinion from St. Commerce down, is looking at that area. And if we're going to be looking at some road diets, we would definitely be barriers and seeing what would happen out there. Because I think, you know, one of the things that we would want to be able to show people and when I say show people, both drivers and residents and businesses there is that, okay? When we do this, this is what the result is going to be. And when we build something in the ground, it's hard to go back and get rid of it. So that oh, how long do you make tapers? How long do you do this sort of thing? So you know, and on a road, like State Street with the amount of bus traffic? What do we need to do for pull offs? What do we need to do get people out of the way, if we're going to be loading and unloading on buses be able to keep traffic flowing.
There's a lot there for the non technical person to take in. And I want to key in on a few things. There was a point in here, where he talks about a project that had been done before a road diet kind of thing that had been done before, but it never got fully implemented because, quote, you know, people didn't want it in front of their house. And you need to hear that the non technical person for for what is being said, because what has been said is, hey, you guys, like all this stuff. You think it's cute, you think it's nice, nobody else wants it. And if you're gonna make me go through and do it, it's gonna backfire on you and it's gonna blow up in your face. That's what the engineer is saying to you. He's saying, hey, remember that time when he didn't take my advice? Remember that time when you want to do that cute thing? You know, you remember this isn't going to work out well for you if you don't follow what I'm saying that that that's what he's saying to you there. He's you know, he's he's he's sensitive to the complaints in a sense and wants you to see that if you don't trust the process, if you don't follow the deliberative thing if you want to do crazy stuff, you're gonna waste a bunch of time and not you know, have things not work. He also is expressing to you that he works in a deliberative processes, you know, he's going to do a large project, a large deliberative process. So, you know, he says, like, I don't want to put something in place and then have it be ripped out. If it's if we're going to do it. It's going to be either for a long, long time, because there is no, like temporary action that follows out of these processes. This process is very deliberative, very formal, very top down. And, you know, that's the way that we work. And that's the way that things are going to unfold. And so, you know, don't, don't expect anything out of that, let's make sure we process this right, it wants to, I thought it was interesting, you know, the emphasis on keeping traffic flowing. You know, it's, it's, it's important for the non technical people to recognise here, that the technical person is not working for you. They are working for the system, they are a creature of the system, they work for the system, they look at the system, as being the thing that not only protects them, but protects you and protects the community. And so their allegiance is not to you. It's not to an elected hierarchy, you're kind of the crazy people that want them to vary outside the system. What they work for, is a bureaucratic process, the system. And the system is slow and deliberative. Because if you're not slow and deliberative, you're going to wind up doing things, you know, that, quote, people don't want further house. And, you know, gosh, we couldn't, we couldn't handle that, that would be a very bad thing. Now we're gonna hear from a resident who I think, is reading between the lines really
appreciate what I'm hearing around, not wanting to do something hasty and wanting to be sure it's the right solution and waiting for the study. And I don't want to discount the expertise involved in these things that are that are that are based on studies, right, that our database. At the same time, I'm really not hearing anything that is going to happen in the super short term. And so I guess what I'm asking is, is the answer know that you're refusing to do something in the immediate term for State Street? Because I just want to hear someone actually say that, are you saying no, there is nothing we will do in the next couple of weeks to help with speeding on State Street?
For the technical people listening? I don't think that needs much interpretation. That actually was probably the best question of the day, or the most pertinent one, you know, like, are you saying No, nothing's going to be done within the next couple of weeks? That's exactly what the person is asking. They're saying to you, like, action to me means you go out and do something, not a study, not committee, not a consultant, you go do something, are you going to do something in the next couple of weeks? Here's the technical response.
Now. I know what the proposed solutions would be. I don't want to put something out there that enzymes are gonna get a change two weeks later.
So for the non technical person, you're hearing a No, right? But that it's, it's more than No, it's no, I work in a process, I have a system that I use and go through. That includes studies and consultants and deliberation and filtering of options. Until I go through that process. I'm not ready to go out and do something, because doing something would be hasty. And the worst thing that could happen is if we spend some money doing something, and then we have to take it out, from the engineers perspective, that is, like a really horrific option. Now, I realise from the non technical persons standpoint, especially the people here in this meeting, people dying is the worst thing that could happen. For an engineer, you know, there's a whole bunch of reasons why that's not what they feel their calling is, or that's not what they feel their mandate is. for them. It is going outside of this process, going outside of this kind of deliberative approach that they believe is designed to protect people. And so for them, you know, the idea of doing something seems kind of hasty. Here's now the chair coming back again.
Well, I have to agree with with my neighbour who I didn't know it was my neighbour, I want to see something tomorrow, even if it's a wooden horse, or if you put up you know, those signs that you have, you're going so 25 miles an hour we need before this study, something needs to be physically seen before the study. I mean, even if you paint something an action has has to be taken and I don't know where that comes from. We have to go to the traffic commission. If the City Council can pass a resolution say we want some sign that we realised there's a problem here and we want to protect our patrons and our pedestrians but I feel very strongly I'd like the west of the females. Um, this call,
I kept that line in there about the females on the call, not only because it was true and insightful, but because I think it's one again, that the technical professional might react against it in the same way that you know, the race issue with pulling traffic over it. It's one of those things where like, it's outside of our mandate, it's outside of our calling. And so, you know, that's what like social people deal with. That's, that's, you know, why you have social workers and sociologists and other things. It's, it's not math, that's not numbers. That's not a technical calling. And I want the technical person to know and understand that you are wrong, you're wrong. You're wrong. We work as technical people in providing these platforms for society. And if you ignore society, in that, you're just, you know, you're just doing tinker toys, right? Like he's just building something for the sake of building it, there's no why there to it. The chair here is saying like, I want something out there now, like, where's the sense of urgency. And if you're the technical person, again, you should hear this as an indictment of your process, your process is not responsive. And let me give you an example. So you can, like, have something tangible to think this through, because there's some great literature, there's the book, tactical urbanism that goes through and explains how to do this, there's lots of places that are doing these type of, you know, temporary, quick step up kind of things, you absolutely have the capacity to do this and could do this. And in terms of hiring consultants to look at options, the money you're going to spend, and the time you're going to spend doing that could be better spent doing some type of intervention out there, on a temporary basis to see what would work and to model it. I know that sounds scary to the technical person, but let me give you a bridge. We do, as technical people, as construction people, we do temporary traffic control all the time, right? We go out and put up signs and barricades and jersey barriers and all these things. When we're doing construction. We know how to do this, we studied it, we have a long history of doing this successfully. Go and do that, right? Like if you're going to try a lane narrowing, treat it like a construction project with no construction people there. Right, like you know how to do this, this is not something that you have to reinvent the wheel to do. This is something that you actually have the capacity to do this Chairwoman here is calling on you to do that. And she is pointing out that everybody in this meeting is calling on you to do something now, not go through your deliberative process, not filter out all the responses to make sure they meet your goals, they want action now, you have the capacity to do this, that's what you need to hear is that the process that is keeping you from doing that is the problem.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I was gonna say, Chris, some of the temporary measures you described sound like things that would take place, you know, as precursors to, you know, some sort of sort of trial run after the study. But I think what people are looking for is, is a is a truly temporary and immediate reaction. So can you answer.
So that's one of the not females on the call. And, you know, it's the same thing, if you're a technical professional, you're being called on the carpet here now, saying, like, Why? Why do we have to wait for study? Why do we have to wait for this deliberative process? You've got technical knowledge, you've got understanding, we all kind of know what needs to be done here. Why can't we go out and temporarily do something to alleviate this crisis? Because, hey, people are dying. People are dying, where's the sense of urgency, if you're the technical professional, you should feel a high level of shame right now, adhering to your process. And you should recognise that you're being called to do something very different than what is comfortable for you. Here's the here's the technical side now. And we're getting near the end here. This is going to be probably the longest clip in this whole thing. There's a lot to break down here. I could do it in little bits, but I think it's better just to have it all as one hanger.
In general. No, I don't have a problem, signage, things like that. What I want to make everybody aware of for those of you who, three, four months ago, West Springfield with the state decided to do something on Route five. Yeah. Next day, there's a fatality there. Because it was one of those. Let's throw something out there to get it done. And now everybody is scrambling. It's Where was the st? Did anybody read
this, but they aren't going to know route five, but that they have a My understanding is they decided they actually are going to now route five,
right? No, I, I understand that that's when they did the temporary stuff. They did it without any almost like they throw it out there type of thing. And that's what I want to avoid, I just don't want to throw something out there, that is going to also cause something. So it has to be thought through. If you're if you know, one of the problems that I have with this stuff in West Springfield is your driving two lanes going southbound at McDonald's, they didn't have there wasn't any advanced signage. So all of a sudden, a tractor trailer just as in the right lane, going 40 miles an hour and just ploughs through everything. So that's what I need to figure out is that if we're doing barrels, if we're doing cones, if we're doing something that you have enough taper distance, you have enough signage, you have enough advanced warning, that is not just as simple as throwing out a barrel, because people were driving on that road at an appropriate speed. Now all of a sudden have to do weaving and get from right lane to left lane, as well as buses, as well as that. So you have to do that taper, you know, per standards and get it done. So just throwing something out there to do it is something I'm against, I want it to be as thought through as possible, so that if anything happens out there, we are all protected. And the idea of just throwing something out for the sake of doing it with and seeing if it works is not something that I really want to do without any thought on it. And then, you know, opening up to many people to liability issues.
Before I interpret that as the technical for the non technical people. I as an aside, I'm a parent, and I fully recognise this strategy, right? I want to get my kid to do something, I want them to act in a certain way. And so I throw out, you know, this, like crazy, worst case scenario, you know, I remember when there was a kid who, you know, didn't pay attention behind the wheel, and they drove off the road and died and their whole, you know, and you, you, you you take and you key on this. And these stories actually become like legends within the profession. Because you know, the story of like, well remember on Route five, where they did this, and then someone died. Those things become the thing that justifies everything else. Right. And so let me give you the the technical interpretation here, because I think there needs to be some analysis that goes with it. But the technical thing is here is like, look, bad things happen when we deviate outside this process. Remember when this bad thing happened over here? Because, you know, and maybe that's not why because but that's what we're gonna that's our narrative. Our narrative is because of this because we didn't follow the process because we were too hasty. We weren't deliberative and bad, bad things happen and people died. And so you know, I don't want that to happen to you, I don't want you to be scared about that. If we go out and we start doing things, hastily, we start veering outside the process, I can't promise what's going to happen. And you know, what, we could have a lot of liability, we could get a lawsuit, someone else could get killed and died and we would not be protected. And, you know, bad bad things could happen if we're not deliberative, that way we protect ourselves. And by protecting ourselves. I don't mean protecting people. I'm speaking as the technical professional here, I don't mean protecting humans. I don't mean doing what you're saying. I mean, protecting us from liability. I don't want my licence in question. I don't want people to file complaints against me. I don't want people to file lawsuits against the city. I don't want those things to happen. I also have this mandate to meet about mobility and moving traffic. And so in order for me to meet that mandate, and for us to not have, you know, these situations, we have to follow this very deliberative process, stick to the code stick to everything else. I feel like there's got to be some analysis with this, because this is where I think things get the most absurd. You know, we do create these like internal legends within the profession that we use to tell ourselves stories about where liability comes from. Liability should come from having dozens of people killed on the street. And that's where the liability should come from. What regardless of what your standards say, or what your, you know, approach says or what your deliberative processes the liability should come from when you just get people killed over and over and over again, and you fail to do anything. I think that this line in here about liability, and you know, if we proceed in a hasty way, that will create all kinds of liability for ourselves. Sure, if you You're just gonna go out and like throw stuff down. Yeah, that might be the case. But if you document what you're doing and why cities have tremendous amounts of latitude, tremendous amounts of latitude. And not only that, but like I said before, we, we know how to do this kind of stuff temporarily. I mean, we've we've, we do construction zone, stuff all the time. And we don't have all kinds of problems with that. We know how to make this kind of stuff happen. But this idea that the primary goal here should be that quote, We are all protected. With a technical professional is saying to you there is not that you are protected, in the sense that your safety is increased, your prosperity increased, your community is more productive and viable and successful. That's not the kind of protection they mean, what they mean is my licence will not be challenged. Or if it is, I can successfully ward off that challenge. We will not be sued, I will not have to spend time in lawsuits. And if I do, I will have a ready defence. And we won't have to deal with that. Because we can say we were following the rules and the established process. I'm gonna go back to the chair here for to get us near the close. Make sure
I wouldn't mind you. So something out today, even if you take it down in two weeks, we are asking for immediate, direct answer answers.
What I think was clear in that clip was that she actually interrupted him and said, like, hey, like, you can go through all this stuff, but we're sick of it, we're sick of it, we're done with it. And I just want to applaud her so much. Again, for the technical people, I think you realise what you're hearing right now, what you're hearing by now is that, like, I'm gonna interrupt you, I'm not gonna listen to this anymore, you got to do something like this is not acceptable. And if you're a technical person, and you're at this point, and that is not abundantly clear, what is being said that your your internal process is broken, I You should not be in engineering, here's a final is a final clip from one of the council members,
you have to think it through, which I get, and I'm all for it, I just don't want that time period in which you think it through to be the same timeline in which you get the permanent, you know, some of the some of the permanent things from the study that you end up doing. And so it'd be nice if we could at the very least, hear a timeframe in which you might be able to think through what you can do in the, you know, very near future, I think that might help appease some folks,
again, for the technical professional is just a cry for help, right, it's like a plea, please, like, get something in the very near future, like I get it, you're gonna do process, you're gonna go through all that. Okay, I respect it. But I will see something now. This is where I think things are broken the most. And I'm gonna go back to where I started this whole podcast, with, you know, the conversation with an engineer video. And with the article I wrote that engineers should not design streets. What is broken here is the process, right? The engineer has a process that they're using, and all of the technical responses and the action flows through that process. And that process starts with a mandate, the mandate to move traffic have mobility, and all of the kinds of constraints of where the funding comes and working through that. And the technical professional puts everything through that lens and that prism, and that keeps them from communicating clearly. And it also keeps them from understanding clearly what is being said to them. That process is what is broken, is what is broken and needs to go away. Particularly for street design, I'm fine with the process for road design. If you're going to build highways, if you're building stuff, use a deliberative process, that's fine. But when we're talking about street design, and when we're talking about responding to crises in our neighbourhoods, this is not acceptable. This is a broken system and it needs to go away it needs to go up in flames. For the non technical people out there, I think there needs to be a recognition that this is a broken system. This is wrong. And we should not be giving over our street design process to engineers. Engineers have things to say they have helpful things to do with the street design process. But the street design process is not an engineering process. You can hear that throughout this conversation. It is something else it is something different. It needs to start with a different set of values it needs to be led I have a different conversation, the people here, what we're seeing here is we're seeing elected officials saying, how do we burst through this opaque process that's been set up to engineer mobility in order to get a different result? And the answer is, you can't, you won't, it's not going to happen. Now without like some, you know, massively heroic transformation in terms of who your engineers are, who your technical people are, and what they're going to do. And for, you know, there are examples of that there are a handful across North America that we can point to, but not everybody's city is going to have a hero, right? Not every place is going to have someone transformative, we have to work with the people we have, how do we do that? We give the process over to a non technical person, we actually give it over to someone who is going to put the other values ahead and push on those values, and basically direct the process in a way where the engineer contributes their knowledge and their expertise where their expertise creates value, but leads with a different set of understandings and a different place. There's nothing that requires us to give our street designs over to technical professionals like this, just blindly following their process and adhering to it. There's nothing that makes us do that. I'm going to close with this. I don't think that any of the actors here are bad people. I don't think that any of them have ill will and their hearts are, you know, bad actors are. I don't even think any of them. I don't think any of them are willing to sacrifice, human health and prosperity.
You know, for for a narrow set of interests. I think that even the technical people here, believe that what they're doing and what their approach is, is the best for the public health and safety of society. I think that they believe that they are wrong. But I think that they believe that let's, you know, stick with the idea that people here have the best of intentions and want what's right. But let's recognise that the systems we have in place are designed to solve a very specific set of problems, right? How do we increase mobility. And that's not the set of problems we're trying to solve right now, particularly in our core neighbourhoods, in our cities. The problem we're trying to solve right now is how do we make these places productive. And that means making them safe, safe for people on foot safe for people on bike, safe for people in wheelchairs, and skateboards and what have you, it means thickening up those neighbourhoods making them better places to live better places to invest, attracting that type of incremental investment throughout. And that all conflicts with the goal of moving cars quickly. moving cars quickly needs to go away as a public policy objective. And it needs to be replaced by building great places. We need to get rid of our roads standards within our cities and actually come up with a street design process. One that is not beholding to the engineer, the technical approach, the traffic studies, all the long deliberations, the big transformative projects, that all needs to go away. And we need to adopt a strong town's approach or a bottom up incremental way of fixing our places, making them safe, making them productive, and making them great places to live. Here's the amazing thing about that. It doesn't need federal legislation. It doesn't need federal funding, it doesn't need a major infrastructure bill. It doesn't require the state to be on board. It doesn't require you know, huge amounts of money. It all it requires is a shift in mindset, a shift in emphasis, a shift in approach. And if we can do that, what we'll find is that we can make really modest investments. We can, you know, focus on the things that are most important and make really modest incremental changes and see amazing, amazing returns, amazing financial returns, amazing safety and public health returns and amazing quality of life returns. It's just going to take a different approach. Thanks everybody for listening. I know this one was a little bit long. We're on a staff retreat next week. So this podcast will go out and there might be a little bit of gap between the next one but we'll get back to you real soon. Take care everybody and keep doing what you can to build a strong tragic times require watch They know that America has one big power right now. Short for Rome this
has been fascinating
I like you, I like your vision of the world the United Nations Earth Summit agenda 21