"The problem is that, quite frankly, engineers aren't comfortable with fuzzy stuff like how "safe" someone feels and hide behind the safety of easily calculated metrics like travel time delay and level of service."

This is precisely the point I found myself at sometime in 2007. I spent a lot of time trolling through my old notes and digging through the internet trying to find data that would push a pro-bike, pro-human, agenda with an engineer.

"Fuzzy stuff" like feelings of safety are, in fact, determinable using good social science. This was demonstrated effectively by Donald Appleyard in his Livable Streets surveys in the 1960's and 1970's.

Further, I have found a whole host of pre-made data sets and scientific standards that could tie nicely into a package of reform in transportation engineering (locally, and maybe regionally or nationally).

This would include:

Board of Equalization records of retail sales tax income;
California Office of Noise Control noise standards;
U.S. Census data;
CARB and SCAQMD air quality standards (applied in small areas)

The survey technique would not have to very sophisticated either: pay a grad student (or undergraduates) to record coded type of human behavior on the roadway (viewing video tape).

Set up a monitoring device or devices (air and noise quality measuring devices) in a study area.

Grab data from various government agencies.

Send out a "Radius Map" style of survey to a study area with a Donald Appleyard style Livability Survey.

Create a reporting agency that collects and compiles a database of injuries, deaths, and incidents in an area.

This technique could be added into the community planning process, and would allow politicians to see what is actually happening in their districts. It would allow an engineer to make the tradeoff with vehicle speeds and retail sales tax income, lower crash rates, and true accessibility for a wide swath of the population.

"10 or 20 or 30 years ago to hold onto their position and keep their same world view, because there is no reason to change if you're not financially rewarded for it"

Simply put, I quit that job....the "re-education" process was all but hopeless. I stuck out, a LOT.

That said, I do believe there are some minds that could be reached at LADOT. I think the "education" would have to come in the form of "FUN" though.

Perhaps a group ride planned just for all LADOT employees?
Then the Mayor Tony shows up for a photo-op?

God I wish Garcetti would run for Mayor.

If by some chance we could get one of our Streetsblogging pro-bikers into that new job at LADOT, that could be an opportunity to educate from within. Kind of a long shot, yeah, but not entirely impossible.

The real obstacle is the middle managers and supervisors in terminal positions, protected by civil service and unions, who basically decided when they stopped getting promoted 10 or 20 or 30 years ago to hold onto their position and keep their same world view, because there is no reason to change if you're not financially rewarded for it. If you can find a way to "re-educate" those people without having the union scream bloody murder, I'm all for it.

Quite possibly one of the biggest obstacles that a better more bikeable Los Angeles faces is the car focused single-mindedness of those traffic engineers over at LADOT.

Methinks an educational campaign is in order, or at least a dedicated in-your-face kind of a PR blitz directed squarely at those aforementioned engineers.

Transportation planning measurably affects our quality of life and our local economic circumstances. Our quality of life is NOT just the ability to get around (as transportation engineers commonly mis-define it). You can measure, through survey, how many people in an area feel safe around their home, how many friends they have, how engaged they are in civic affairs.

You can also measure economic health locally by tracking commercial vacancies, defaults on small business loans, retail sales tax income.

Using these types of measures, transportation planning can become a more robust field - not just sewer pipe engineering for cars!

"We just got a new manuscript called Traffic which was done by this really creative planner and advocate from Italy who’s core thesis is that transportation planning is being done by people who construct it as an engineering paradigm. How do you get people from place to place the quickest. Everything flows from that."

This is so true! I read through the Institute for Transportation Engineer's history (off of their web-site), and this is how they describe the growth and development of their field:

It must be remembered that as the 1920's began, the transportation scenario in the United States was changing. People and goods now traveled in automobiles and trucks and the horse drawn vehicle which had predominated was disappearing. Buses and streetcars were a common sight in the 1920's. The streetcar, in fact, dominated arterial streets in most urban area and because trolleys were placed in the center of the street, the marginal roadway access left on the side made for very poor performance for automotive vehicles.
Maintaining any kind of a safe traffic movement under these conditions ultimately helped to bring about a new professional, the traffic engineer. Practicing the use of engineering techniques, organization, and traffic control the traffic engineer was to be responsible for keeping traffic moving in the cities, especially automotive traffic.
-Istitute for Transportation Engineers, "The Early Year: Establishing and Identity", pg. 1

http://www.ite.org/aboutite/History.asp

What? A reform mayor? What is this heretical nonsense. We're doing just fine with San Antonio at the "handlebars!" We've got momentum...we've got it going on...we're on a roll...we're gonna get a bike rack at City Hall East...someday.

That's great. I am not a big fan of putting everything in a little box either. Too bad I didn't know of this program, maybe I wouldn't have wasted so much time in the philosophy department talking about things I can do nothing about...

Browne