Thread by @fietsprofessor

[1/11] Need for speed: Why speed is both cause and solution for unsustainable urban mobility.

A mini lecture on land use and mobility...

[2/11] The starting assumption of much thinking in mobility is that travelling is a ‘derived demand’.

You do it because you want to do activities that are geographically dispersed. To get from A to B's.

[3/11] This leads to a focus on reducing travel time, ideally to 0.

Being underway is friction, impedance. Disutility expressed in time, money & discomfort

Travelling limits the Homo Economicus in maximizing his utility. Thus, it limits the maximization of societal utility.

[4/11] It makes sense at first sight: Many people would agree that it would be great if many of our daily trips can be shorter, faster, cheaper and more comfortable.

We applaud mobility interventions and innovations that promise this! More lanes! Hyperloops! Speed Pedelecs!

[5/11] This simplified view makes us think about mobility as a problem in which locations are 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗱, and travel time itself is 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲.

By making traveling faster, easier, cheaper or more comfortable, travel disutility is reduced. Activities get closer!

[6/11] In the short term...

Data suggests the opposite is true: over a longer period, travel time is 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗱, but locations of activities 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁.

Our interventions in mobility might be 𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙛𝙪𝙜𝙖𝙡.
They don’t bring us closer, but push us further apart!

[7/11] So; we are still spending 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 on travelling to reach the same activities. But now, with larger distances to be covered with higher speeds.

“Beyond a certain speed, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink.”
~Ivan Illich, 1973

@d_snellen @jessefrederik [8/11] Our society became addicted to speed, dependent on mobility.

Just as drug dealers, policy makers refer to us as ‘users’.
With detrimental effects on safety, sustainability, equality, health, quality of life.

Many ‘innovations’ are just a next step in this direction.

@d_snellen @jessefrederik [9/11] The combined land use & mobility system can get in a re-enforcing feedback loop.

Interventions in 1 triggers change in the other. Once aligned, this creates a lock-in.

When mobility gets faster, cheaper, more comfortable, activities can disperse (seek economies of scale)

@d_snellen @jessefrederik @lbertolini63 [10/11] The most striking example we know is car infrastructure and urban sprawl. Mainly because this car-based thinking quickly crowds out mobility- and land use alternatives.

It makes everybody car-dependent.

Just reflect on what automated driving will do to this...

@d_snellen @jessefrederik @lbertolini63 [11/11] Speed is the drug to which we became addicted. And speed causes most of the bad consequences of mobility.

But speed is also a solution. Make travel harder, slower, less comfortable.

We'll have withdrawal symptoms.

But with good prospects for recovery in the long term!