Peace and Planning

I had the good fortune to travel to Spain this summer – the land of bike buses, superblocks, and Pontevedra’s pioneering approach to eliminating cars in the city center – and visit many of the places that had long been on my urban bucket list (sadly, Pontevedra will have to wait until next time). People asked if I was doing research while abroad – my immediate answer was no. I tried to connect with some fellow bike bus researchers based in Barcelona but they were out of town…beyond that, no ride-alongs or interviews or public meetings were planned. I must admit, after my early summer study site shenanigans, it did feel weird to not be in full dissertation mode (though despite these glaring omissions in my itinerary, thankfully Tulip was still able to make the trek 🌷🥰🚲).

However, what I’ve come to realize is that whenever I’m traveling, I’m *always* doing research. What land use characteristics are contributing to this lovely and lively neighborhood vibe at 10p on a Tuesday? How many women or older folks are riding their bikes on a given street – any why? How might I feel using this sidewalk if I was riding in a wheelchair? How easy is it to know where I’m supposed to go when I get off the train, or has good wayfinding not…found its way to this corner of the globe just yet? So yes, Spain was an informal research project where I collected ideas, made comparisons to more familiar places (ahem, DC), noted areas for improvement, and witnessed possibilities.

Our first stop was Madrid where at first blush I was less than impressed, let down even. If it wasn’t for the jet lag, being surrounded by huge arterials and speeding cars rather disappointingly would have made it feel like I never left home. However, as we got within a few blocks of our hotel, we saw the built environment shift to be almost entirely pedestrianized. Narrow cobble-stone streets clearly communicated these were places where cars were guests, if they were welcome at all. We encountered this all-or-nothing planning paradigm in almost every city we visited (perhaps with the exception of gorgeous Granada), where either cars were far and away the dominant mode or where historic centers that predated the automobile by hundreds of years were designed solely for human-scale mobility.

In other words, this was not the land of Paises Bajos (which, after watching the semis of the European futbol championship, I now know is the literal Spanish translation of “the Netherlands”). It seemed to me after our visit there last year that the Dutch approach – at least in urban areas – was more an even spread of smooth Skippy than this clumpy peanut butter version adopted in Spain. There might have been fewer no-car streets overall, but on nearly every street I encountered in the Netherlands there was a much stronger design tilt towards non-car modes. Every stroll and bike ride was pleasant because all of my senses and survival instincts weren’t continuously overpowered by the presence of big, loud, fast cars.

I learned, however, that first glances can be deceiving. In city after city we visited in Spain, we were pleasantly surprised to find that along most massive boulevards shuttling cars at rapid speeds there were dedicated bike lanes. Sometimes they were on the street (apparently the Spaniards favor armadillos over the ticklers that are so prevalent in DC), sometimes they were painted onto sidewalks (most often in a bi-directional design), and sometimes they were off the street entirely. Sometimes they switched sides of the road, sometimes they transitioned between being on the road and on the sidewalk, sometimes the paint had faded along a few blocks from an early v1 rollout of the concept…but they were almost always present and always a relief to see. In other words, it seemed like planners had not let the perfect be the enemy of the good and just got on with doing the best they could with what they had at the moment, and continued to make improvements as they experimented and learned. The infrastructure even went where seemingly no bike lane had gone before…to ports where ships and tractor trailers are the primary mode of transportation (like the giant port we biked to in València to catch a ferry to Mallorca…separate bike lanes straight to the ferry terminal from city center 😮!).

In fact, my initial panic when searching Google Maps to find that there were no bike lanes quickly dissipated…perhaps Google hasn’t implemented that feature yet but in any case, it’s just not necessary. I started making it a game to find the dedicated bike lane on every journey we set out on and I won the game pretty much every time. In several cities we rode for *miles**kilometers* on connected and protected bike infrastructure – through the city, around the city, to neighborhoods outside the city. France has gotten a lot of press for its efforts and I’m very eager to see the transformation myself, but Spain is humbly making huge strides to – in a bit of a premonition from my previous post – allow modes to co-exist peacefully without fully throwing out the garage with the sprinkler (or whatever the car-focused equivalent of baby with the bathwater is 😬).

After sharing the broad brush strokes of my dissertation research, a friend we were visiting during our last few days asked what I had taken away from sampling so many cities’ active transportation infrastructure. There was a lot I could have said (and plan to blog about in due time), but I reflected back on my first impressions as Spain’s all-or-nothing approach to planning and realized I had since revised my initial evaluation. Instead, I had started to view it as a “middle way” approach…and it’s one that I think is infinitely more achievable in a car-obsessed country like the US. Dedicate a few areas where pedestrians can roam free without competing for space with privately-owned vehicles (and reap the enormous economic benefits of such a set-up), and everywhere else carve out a sliver of space for people walking or on two or three wheels to get where they need to go without fearing for their lives, even if it means they’re doing so alongside polluting, noisy car sewers (at least for now). So please take note, Mayor Muriel Bowser:

“The middle path is the way to wisdom.”

-Rumi

Inevitably, the last stage of such research projects on these trips is two-sided: feeling entirely discouraged by how far we have to go in the US to make even a modicum of movement towards the safe, sustainable, socially-connected future I imagine for our communities…and also filling up my reserves of hope that change – however slow, however small, however simple – is indeed possible.

If you’re a lucky duck like me who gets the tremendous opportunity to travel, how does experiencing a different place shift your idea of what a peaceful transportation system could look like? ✌️🚸

What you’ve heard is true…superblocks really are all they’re cracked up to be. Even had to go wide angle to capture how expansive the space – and goodness – were.