Thread by @mszll

Finished reading "Movement" by @tverka & @fietsprofessor. Extremely important and thought-provoking book. TLDR: Bike streets, Vision Zero, 30km/h, etc, are meaningless if we maintain the anti-human politics of "streets are for traffic flow".

My favorite insights: 🧵

The Marshall plan greatly helped rebuild Europe after WW2. But it also brought traffic engineering, preparing Europe for easier import of US products to boost the US economy, which made Europe more car-dependent.

There is an enormous pressure on scientists to be emotionless robots. If a full professor can't reveal his personal motivations (childhood friend killed), science is in deep 💩. Lets hope we can overcome this stigma. (I also had a reviewer rejecting a paper for "activism")

Protected bike lanes, bike streets, etc, could be harmful if they reinforce streets as designed for fast-moving traffic. This is very much the case in Denmark (and elsewhere). I am worried this political choice could "lock us into" cities that will never become human-centric.

Question ALL the language and assumptions. Why are people who walk "pedestrians"? Why are they called "vulnerable"? Why is the bike lane called "segregated"? How is 30 km/h "slow"? Why is the street "closed" (for cars) when it is then open for all others? Why is it an "accident"?

Transport planning follows arbitrary guidelines that are not set in stone. It's all a political choice, no matter how technical it sounds - Don't be fooled by technobabble. Change is possible but mostly prevented by status quo bias and the silent majority effect.

Read the book!