In Beijing, thanks to Wang Shuling, Xian Kai, and Zhang Dexin at the Beijing Transportation Research Center for explaining the evolving complexities of traffic in the capital. Thanks also to Professors Rong Jian and Chen Yanyan at the Beijing University of Technology, as well as Dehui Lee. Thanks also to Lui Shinan at the China Daily; and Scott Kronick, Jonathan Landreth, and Alex Pasternak. In Shanghai, thanks to Jian Shuo Wang, and Zhongyin Guo of Tongji University; thanks also to Dan Washburn for hospitality and advice. In Japan, thanks to Paul Nolasco, Imai Tomomi, and James Corbett for arranging the tour of Toyota’s Integrated System Engineering Division in Nagoya. In Hanoi, Vietnam, thanks to Walter Molt and Grieg Craft, who are, in their own different ways, trying to make the city’s transportation better and safer. In Delhi, thanks to Maxwell Pereira; Geetam Tiwari and Dinesh Mohan at the Indian Institute of Technology; and Joint Commissioner of Police Qamar Ahmed. Thanks also to Rohit Baluja, Girish Chandra Kukreti, and Amandeep Singh Bedi of the Institute for Road Traffic Education.
Thanks must also go to a number of people, across the globe, who discussed their research, showed the way, corrected my mistakes. Again, in no order: Per Garder at the University of Maine; Eric Dumbaugh at Texas A&M University; Ezra Hauer, professor emeritus, University of Toronto; Walter Kulash, Dan Burden, and Ian Lockwood of Glatting Jackson in Orlando, Florida; Allan Williams and Kim Hazelbaker of the Insurers’ Institute for Highway Safety; Sheila “Charlie” Klauer and Suzie Lee of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute; Charles Zegeer at the Highway Safety Research Center; Erik Olson at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; Del Lisk, Bruce Moeller, and Rusty Weiss of DriveCam in San Diego; Christopher Patten of the Swedish Road Administration; John Dawson at the European Road Assessment Program; Tom Bernthal of Kelton Research; Sandi Rosenbloom at the University of Arizona; Tova Rosenbloom of Bar-Ilan University in Israel; Heikki Summala of the Traffic Research Unit at the University of Finland; Oliver Downs and Michele Largé at INRIX; Hussein Dia at the University of Queensland Intelligent Transport Systems lab; Graham Coe at the Transport Research Laboratory; Nick Fenton at U.K Highways Agency; Robert Gray at Arizona State University; Norman Garrick at the University of Connecticut; James Cutting at Cornell University; Anna Hackett, Bob Bondurant, Les Betchner, and Mike McGovern at the Bondurant School of High Performance Driving; Judie Zimomra and Amanda Rutherford in Sanibel Island, Florida; Charles Spence at the University of Oxford; Eric Bonabeau at Icosystem; Antti Oulasvirta at the University of California, Berkeley; Stephen Lea at the University of Exeter; Denis Wood at the University of North Carolina; Eleanor Maguire at University College London; Dale Purves at Duke University; Michael Spivey at Cornell University; Kara Kockelman at the University of Texas; Moshe Ben-Akiva at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Gary Evans at Cornell University; John Kobza at Texas Tech University; Timothy McNamara at Vanderbilt University; John Van Horn at Parking Today; Andrew Velkey at Christopher Newport University; Franco Servadei at Ospedale “M. Buttalini,” Cesena, Italy; Gary Davis at the University of Minnesota; Robert Cialdini at Arizona State University; Marc Ross at the University of Michigan; Nicholas Garber at the University of Virginia; Tom Wenzel at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Phil Jones of Phil Jones Associates in the United Kingdom; Jake Desyllas of Intelligent Space in London; Sidney Nagel and Lior Strahilevetz at the University of Chicago; Frank McKenna at the University of Reading; Geoff Underwood at the University of Nottingham; Daniel Lieberman at Harvard University; Stephen Popiel at Synovate; Asha Weinstein Agrawal at San Jose State University; Jeffrey Brown at Florida State University; Gordy Pehrson at the Office of Traffic Safety in St. Paul, Minnesota; David Levinson at the University of Minnesota; Charles Komanoff at Komanoff Energy Associates; Giuseppe La Torre at the Catholic University in Rome; Eric Poehler at the University of Virginia; Mark Horswill at the University of Queensland; Michael Paine at Vehicle Design and Research in Australia; Joseph Barton at Northwestern University; Anna Nagurney at the University of Massachusetts; David Gerard and Paul Fischbeck at Carnegie Mellon University; Andy Wiley-Schwartz, then of the Project for Public Spaces; Craig Davis at the University of Michigan; Bruce Laval, formerly of Disney; and Richard Larson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A handful of people deserve even more emphatic thanks for going above and beyond in sharing their research, or reading drafts of chapters. Leonard Evans, the dean of traffic safety, was always there to offer his expertise. Jeffrey Muttart made time to talk on countless occasions and ran experiments on my behalf. Stephen Most at the University of Delaware and Daniel Simons at the University of Illinois read parts of the manuscript and offered useful commentary, as did Matthew Kitchen of the Puget Sound Regional Council. Benjamin Coifman at Ohio State University helped me through the complexities of traffic flow. Ian Walker at the University of Bath is a brilliant scholar and all-around mensch. Iain Couzin at Oxford and Princeton led me through the world of ant traffic. James Surowiecki and Matt Weiland read drafts and offered honest feedback. Peter Hall graciously chipped in with research help. Ben Hamilton-Baillie, impassioned “shared space” advocate and wizard of the slide show, led me on an eye-opening tour through Germany and the Netherlands, where he generously introduced me to Joost Váhl, one of the seminal forces in traffic calming and engineering with a human face, and Hans Monderman, whose words and spirit pervade this book. My time spent with Hans, and subsequent conversations, revealed a man brimming with passion, insight, sly wit, and a surprisingly capacious range of interests. Into his discussion of left-turn gap acceptance or roundabout capacity he would percolate ideas on how the geography of the Netherlands fostered Dutch innovation, or quote Proust on how the automobile changed our conception of time. Hans died on January 7, 2008, after a several-year fight with cancer. I only hope I can help Hans’s legacy live on in these pages.
I am indebted to Andrew Miller at Alfred A. Knopf, who encouraged me early on when the book was nothing but the grain of an idea, and subsequently was a steadfast presence, offering judicious editorial counsel, moral support, and the occasional football result. Sara Sherbill at Knopf also contributed a number of good criticisms, most of which helped shape the final book. Bonnie Thompson corralled wayward grammar, exposed logical lacunae, and kept facts this side of veracity. Thanks to the Knopf publicity team, Paul Bogaards, Gabrielle Brooks, Erinn Hartman, Nicholas Latimer, and Jason Kincade. Will Goodlad at Penguin UK offered all of the above from across the Atlantic. Lastly, I am immensely obliged to my agent and longtime friend, Zoe Pagnamenta, at PFD New York. She has been a tireless and sagacious advocate for me and the book, and I never felt as if I were going it alone. I am also grateful to Simon Trewin at PFD in London.
And finally, this book is dedicated to my family, near and far, who were there from the beginning of the journey; especially my wife, Jancee Dunn, my beautiful, brilliant co-passenger in the car, and in life.
Prologue: Why I Became a Late Merger
in a business magazine: Matt Asay, “How Team Works.” Connect, November 2003. Retrieved from http://www.connect-utah.com/article.asp?r=189&iid=17&sid=4.
mingle so freely: There are exceptions to this, of course, as in the case of the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia (which extends even to golf carts) or the segregated highways in Israel for Palestinians and Israelis. See Brian Whitaker, “Saudi Driving Ban on Women Extends to Golf Carts,” Guardian, March 3, 2006, and Steven Erlanger, “A Segregated Road in an Already Driving Land,” New York Times, August 11, 2007.
people and things became interchangeable: Sean Dockray, Steve Rowell, and Fiona Whitton point out that while terms like computer and typewriter used to refer to people (e.g., the profession of a typewriter), they now refer exclusively to the technologies themselves. We have become traffic, they argue, but we do not like to admit that in our language. See “Blocking All Lanes,” Cabinet, no. 17 (Spring 2005).
on certain streets altogether: See Eric Poehler, “The Circulation of Traffic in Po
mpeii’s Regio VI,” Journal of Roman Archaeology, vol. 19 (2005), pp. 53–74.
no traffic or street signs: Poehler argues that given the level of preservation at Pompeii, had these signs existed there would likely be archeological evidence today. Drivers, he suggests, relied instead upon the cues of other drivers or design cues in the streetscape, while people looking for addresses relied more upon relative cues (e.g., turn left at the butcher shop or right at the shrine). Correspondence with Eric Poehler.
Vico di Mercurio: Poehler suggests that these changes must have been overseen by some kind of Department of Traffic Engineering. “The inescapable implication is that the traffic system was carefully managed by a central, executive individual or group at the municipal level.” See Eric Poehler, “A Reexamination of Traffic in Pompeii’s Regio VI: The Casa del Fauno, the Central Baths, and the Reversal of Vico di Mercurio,” Archaeological Institute of America (2005).
In ancient Rome: The Roman traffic history comes from The Roads of the Romans, by Romolo August Staccioli (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2003), in particular pp. 21–23.
“a devil-fish from sleeping”: quoted in ibid, p. 23.
“of the Mayor”: The English traffic history comes from the wonderful book Street Life in Medieval England, by G. T. Salusbury Jones (Oxford: Pen-in-Hand, 1939).
“contesting for the way”: The information on traffic fatalities and the accounts of London drivers are taken from Emily Cockayne’s exemplary study Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 157–80.
“reckless drivers”: The 1867 pedestrian fatality figure comes from Ways of the World: A History of the World’s Roads and of the Vehicles That Used Them (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), p. 132.
“wish to pass over”: New York Times, April 9, 1888.
“to show illumination at night”: “Our Unwary Pedestrians,” New York Times, December 24, 1879.
right-of-way to women?: For a delightful account of the impact of the bicycle on American culture, see Sidney H. Aronson, “The Sociology of the Bicycle,” Social Forces, vol. 30, no. 3 (March 1952), pp. 305–12. Aronson noted, “Thus it can be concluded that the bicycle provided a preview on a miniature scale of much of the social phenomena which the automobile enlarged upon.”
“good roads”: For more on the history on the bicycle, including the Good Roads Movement, see David Herlihy’s comprehensive Bicycle: The History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 5. Bicycle manufacturing, Herlihy notes, was the forerunner of the mass assembling of automobiles, and many bicycle-repair shops were converted into gas stations.
“social or business prominence”: New York Times, September 15, 1903.
“right way to turn a corner”: “Proposed Street Traffic Reforms,” New York Times Magazine supplement, February 23, 1902.
“special indications meant”: from Gordon M. Sessions, Traffic Devices: Historical Aspects Thereof (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Traffic Engineers, 1971), p. 63.
“red” time remained: The Wilshire and Western traffic light information comes from Sessions, Traffic Devices, ibid., p. 45.
learned red and green?: The story about color blindness and traffic signals comes from Clay McShane, “The Origins and Globalization of Traffic Control Signals,” Journal of Urban History, March 1999. p. 396.
roles of city streets: Jeffrey Brown, “From Traffic Regulation to Limited Ways: The Effort to Build a Science of Transportation Planning,” Journal of Planning History, vol. 5, no. 1 (February 2006), pp. 3–34.
collapse of the Berlin Wall: For a fascinating discussion of how German Democratic Republic traffic engineering was affected by the reunification of Germany, and the cultural underpinnings and consequences of those decisions, see Mark Duckenfield and Noel Calhoun, “Invasion of the Western Ampelmännchen,” German Politics, vol. 6, no. 3 (December 1997), pp. 54–69.
offers no improvement at all: As I was succinctly told by Michael Primeggia, deputy director of operations at New York City’s Department of Transportation, “People have argued that the countdown signal gives more information to peds to make intelligent choices. Why would I think more info would be better, when right now I provide them good information and they choose to ignore it?” Some studies have found that pedestrians were less compliant with countdown signals; see, for example, H. Huang and C. Zegeer, “The Effects of Pedestrian Countdown Signals in Lake Buena Vista,” University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center for Florida Department of Transportation, November 2000. Accessible via www.dot.state.fl.us/safety/ped_bike/handbooks_and_research/research/CNT-REPT.pdf. This could be an artifact, of course, of pedestrians rationally analyzing the situation and deciding that they have plenty of time to cross the street before their signal has expired. While they are technically “violating” the signal, they are also using the information smartly.
gradually rolled back: For a discussion of differential speed limits and their effects on safety, see “Safety Effects of Differential Speed Limits on Rural Interstate Highways,” Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C., October 2005, FHWA-HRT-05-042.
“become more surrealistic”: Henry Barnes, The Man with the Red and Green Eyes (New York: Dutton, 1965), p. 218.
“things you can do”: Ralph Vartabadian, “Your Wheels,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2003.
“explicit argument”: The quote about convex mirrors comes from a telephone interview with Michael Flannagan.
insurance company surveys: A 2002 survey by Progressive Insurance, for example, which queried more than eleven thousand drivers who had filed a claim for a crash in 2001, found that 52 percent of the accidents occurred within five miles of the driver’s home, and 77 percent occurred within fifteen miles of the home. Retrieved on October 3, 2007, from http://newsroom.progressive.com/2002/May/fivemiles.aspx.
A study by: See, for example, Tova Rosenbloom, Amotz Perlmana, and Amit Shahara, “Women Drivers’ Behavior in Well-known Versus Less Familiar Locations,” Journal of Safety Research, vol. 38, issue 3, 2007, pp. 283–88. Studies have also shown drivers are less likely to wear seat belts on shorter trips, which would seem to indicate a feeling of greater safety close to home. See, for one, David W. Eby, Lisa J. Molnar, Lidia P. Kostyniuk, Jean T. Shope, and Linda L. Miller, “Developing an Optimal In-Vehicle Safety Belt Promotion System” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 2004).
food or health care: Driven to Spend (Surface Transportation Policy Project, 2001).
more own three than own one: Alan Pisarski, Commuting in America III (Washington, D.C.,: Transportation Research Board, 2006), p. 38.
has a three-car garage: Amy Orndorff, “Garages Go Gigantic: Car Buffs Opt for Bigger Spaces,” Washington Post, September 13, 2006.
thirty-eight hours annually: See Tim Lomax and David Schrank, 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report, compiled for the Texas Transportation Institute (College Station: Texas A&M University, 2007).
by nearly half: Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, Mean Streets 2002, chapter 2. Retrieved at http://www.transact.org/report.asp?id=159.
“food and beverage venue”: This phrase comes from Food and Drug Packaging, March 2002.
there were 504: Frozen Food Age, vol. 54, no. 1 (August 2005), p. 38.
84.4 billion in 2008: On-the-go eating figures come from the market research firm Datamonitor.
gentler, slower age: Drive-through sales figure comes from the Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2000.
through a car window: Chicago Sun-Times, October 7, 2005.
at least once per week: According to a survey commissioned by the Food Strategy Implementation Partnership (FSIP), Bord Bia, and Intertrade Ireland, and carried out by Invest NI, as quoted in Checkout, February 2006.
in order to speed traffic: Julie Jargon, “McD’s Aims for the Fast Lane.” Crain’s Chicago Business, June 27, 2005, p. 3. The article does note that the two ordering lanes must merge into one paying la
ne; there is no word of any reported merging difficulties.
burgeoning drive-through customers: Geoffrey Fowler, “Drive-Through Tips for China,” Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2006.
company-owned stores: Elizabeth M. Gillespie, “Starbucks Bows to Customer Demand,” Toronto Star, December 27, 2005.
“handle well in the car”: This quote comes from a press release accessed through Business Wire, retrieved at http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=4394&cha=4. The dashboard-dining test was performed by Kelton Research; it was the firm’s CEO, Tom Bernthal, whom I met with to discuss the test.
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