A Lonely Desert Road, © Joseph Scott Gladstone, 2020
While my doctorate is in business, I hold a Master of Public Health degree and had worked in that field for several years before moving over to community economic conditions that contribute to public health and other social problems within communities.
Among my diverse interest is urban planning. While I don’t do much more in this area other than follow it, I do find things that are interesting and useful to know. Recently the Marketplace podcast shared some good news that is coming out of the pandemic’s impact on our economy. Some cities have or are considering closing downtown streets so that people may use them as walking boulevards. The problem with living in cities is that it’s really hard to social distance, there simply isn’t any physical infrastructure space to allow such. Since people are not going places, there are less cars on the road, so less need for streets.
Is this something that might stick around after the economy gets rolling again? Will city folks want their current wide walking paths be given back to cars? I hope not. But we’ll have to see what happens when the economy starts ramping back up.
Update: April 27, 2020
As I said in my introductory videos when class was moved online, things change very fast and it’s going to be challenging to keep up. But some good news today, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city will close some streets to vehicle traffic, expand sidewalks and create temporary bike lanes to offer New Yorkers more space to stay apart outside as lockdown measures continue. The idea was floated some time back, but there were safety concerns about the proposal. It appears that the concerns were settled. More about this as things progress.
For those of you who have surfed the other pages on my website, you will find that I enjoy talking about traffic systems, especially when they favor pedestrians, bikes and transit.
