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It's selfish to ask us to overlook the needs of the people who make their homes in a place for the benefit of some few who choose to pass through. People adapt.

It's selfish to ask us to overlook the needs of the people who make their homes in a place for the benefit of some few who choose to pass through. People adapt. If a person decides that a trip is too expensive, they will find another trip that meets their needs. If a business loses some customers from outside it's neighborhood, then perhaps there will be an offset from within.

Silhouette 11y ago
It's selfish to ask us to overlook the needs of the people who make their homes in a place for the benefit of some few who choose to pass through. That may be true, but it's also selfish for people who inevitably travel themselves as part of their own lives to expect everyone else to behave differently. The degree of NIMBY thinking in the setting of public travel policy is one of the biggest problems we have with making progress. I saw some interesting but all too predictable research not long ago. It was about people who campaign for heavy restrictions on driving in their own (often expensive, desirable, close to local amenities) area, such as lower speed limits, traffic calming measures, extra crossings, or even closing roads to motor traffic entirely. A remarkably high proportion of those same people, when covertly observed, drove their own (often expensive, powerful, inefficient, dangerous) vehicles in exactly the kinds of ways they cite as objectionable in their own back yard, as little as a half-mile down the road going through someone else's residential area, or past someone else's kid's school, or on the way to some other local shopping centre. So, there is certainly a lot we can and should do to improve road safety, but like administering first aid, it should be based on evidence and real need, not who is crying the loudest or making the most emotional appeal for help. Unfortunately a lot of the time these kinds of travel infrastructure decisions are made at a very local level, in response to very local pressure from relatively small numbers of very vocal campaigners. Local politicians with the authority to make the decisions are, in practice, more accountable to a few hundred people living within a mile of their home than they are to national governments and their evidence-based policy frameworks and even well-funded research organisations. Consequently, the number of people effectively influencing policy on their own doorstep may be far less than the number of people actually using that travel infrastructure every day, but the latter don't get a vote and so the systemic bias frequently results in effects akin to a tragedy of the commons. Maybe it's different where you are, but in the UK this happens very often and very obviously, and it's a real problem. People adapt. If a person decides that a trip is too expensive, they will find another trip that meets their needs. Or they'll stay at home and let their kids watch TV and play on their Xbox. If a business loses some customers from outside it's neighborhood, then perhaps there will be an offset from within. If this really happened very much then it wouldn't be local businesses who are usually the first and most vocal critics of travel-hostile changes in local policy.

Silhouette 11y ago

It's selfish to ask us to overlook the needs of the people who make their homes in a place for the benefit of some few who choose to pass through. That may be true, but it's also selfish for people who inevitably travel themselves as part of their own lives to expect everyone else to behave differently. The degree of NIMBY thinking in the setting of public travel policy is one of the biggest problems we have with making progress. I saw some interesting but all too predictable research not long ago. It was about people who campaign for heavy restrictions on driving in their own (often expensive, desirable, close to local amenities) area, such as lower speed limits, traffic calming measures, extra crossings, or even closing roads to motor traffic entirely. A remarkably high proportion of those same people, when covertly observed, drove their own (often expensive, powerful, inefficient, dangerous) vehicles in exactly the kinds of ways they cite as objectionable in their own back yard, as little as a half-mile down the road going through someone else's residential area, or past someone else's kid's school, or on the way to some other local shopping centre. So, there is certainly a lot we can and should do to improve road safety, but like administering first aid, it should be based on evidence and real need, not who is crying the loudest or making the most emotional appeal for help. Unfortunately a lot of the time these kinds of travel infrastructure decisions are made at a very local level, in response to very local pressure from relatively small numbers of very vocal campaigners. Local politicians with the authority to make the decisions are, in practice, more accountable to a few hundred people living within a mile of their home than they are to national governments and their evidence-based policy frameworks and even well-funded research organisations. Consequently, the number of people effectively influencing policy on their own doorstep may be far less than the number of people actually using that travel infrastructure every day, but the latter don't get a vote and so the systemic bias frequently results in effects akin to a tragedy of the commons. Maybe it's different where you are, but in the UK this happens very often and very obviously, and it's a real problem. People adapt. If a person decides that a trip is too expensive, they will find another trip that meets their needs. Or they'll stay at home and let their kids watch TV and play on their Xbox. If a business loses some customers from outside it's neighborhood, then perhaps there will be an offset from within. If this really happened very much then it wouldn't be local businesses who are usually the first and most vocal critics of travel-hostile changes in local policy.