Fighting traffic
The fight for the future of the city street between pedestrians, street railways, and promoters of the automobile between 1915 and 1930. Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as “jaywalkers.” In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as “road hogs” or “speed demons” and cars as “juggernauts” or “death cars.” He considers the perspectives of all users—pedestrians, police (who had to become “traffic cops”), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
25mentions
15people
2014–2026years
36% recommend64% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- In the U.S., roads were paved for cyclists first. There was a political fight over whether and how to regulate cars to prevent them from crowding out other road users. See "Fighting Traffic".
https://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Traffic-American-Inside-Tech...
- For the history in the US of how streets when from being 'mixed use' pre-automobiles to being basically only about automobiles see Fighting Traffic by Peter D. Norton:
> Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars." He considers the perspectives of all users--pedestrians, police (who had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for "justice." Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of "efficiency." Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking "freedom"--a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.Peter D. Norton is Assistant Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia.
- > Humanity has collectively decided cars have more utility than bikes.
Humanity has not "collectively" decided to prefer cars over other modes of transit. Other countries, most notably the Netherlands, do in fact prefer a much more multi-modal transportation system over a car-centric one like in the United States.
Moreover, your comment ignores the contentious history about this decision in the United States, which was very much imposed on many communities without their consent and to the advantage of a select few who benefited from private automobiles over public transport and other modes of transportation like bicycles. I suggest reading historian Peter Nolan's book "Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City" if you are curious.
- See also Peter Norton:
* PDF: https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2934608/N...
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic
- > Motorised traffic, and cars in particular, are prioritised over non-motorised traffic […]
For a history of how this happened in the US see Fighting traffic: the dawn of the motor age in the American city by Peter Norton.
> Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars." He considers the perspectives of all users--pedestrians, police (who had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for "justice." Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of "efficiency." Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking "freedom"--a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic
- For a good history of this see Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic
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