Booked on Planning

Livable Streets 2.0

• Booked on Planning • Season 5 • Episode 1

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Streets can be good friends or quiet bullies. We talk with author and planner Bruce Appleyard about Livable Streets 2.0 and how design choices—lane widths, speeds, buffers, sidewalks, and bike protection—shape safety, community bonds, and the energy we feel the moment our feet touch the curb. Bruce shares the personal story behind the book’s legacy and why traffic’s “invisible harms” still fracture neighborhoods, then maps a clear path to build streets that give back.

We dig into cognitive mapping and what children’s drawings reveal about freedom, learning, and place. When kids can walk and bike, their mental maps grow richer, their confidence rises, and schools benefit from more alert, active students. Bruce connects these human-scale wins to economic outcomes, explaining how the “street slum” effect drains main streets and how people-first redesigns boost sales and foot traffic. Slower is safer—and also better for business.

Enjoy the stories, borrow the tactics, and help your city trade throughput for life. If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who’s ready to rethink their block.

Show Notes:

  • Author Recommended Reading: 
    • Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City by Peter Norton
    • The U.S. Traffic Calming Manual by Reid Ewing
    • Anything written by Dan Burton 
    • Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck
    • Right of Way:Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmidt
    • Arrested Mobility: Overcoming the Threat to Black Movement by Charles T. Brown
    • Great Streets by Allan Jacobs
    • Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall
    • Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town by Chuck Marohn
    • Streets and the Shaping of Towns and cities by Michael southworth and Eran Ben Joseph
    • End of the Road: Reimagining the Street as the Heart of the City by Billy Riggs
    • Life After Cars By Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon
  • Bruce’s website which features more information on the topic: https://rethinkingstreets.com/
  • To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!

To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/

RDG Planning & Design
Architects, landscape architects, engineers, artists & planners with a drive to make a difference.

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Stephanie Rouse:

RDG Planning and Design is a nationally recognized multidisciplinary firm offering professional services in architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, lighting design, strategic planning, urban and comprehensive planning and design, graphic design, engineering, and integrated and public art. Diverse in knowledge and experience, they are united in their pursuit to create meaning together with their clients and in their communities, and by their drive to live responsibly and do it well. Decades of dedication to success have taken them around the world, and today their commitment to communication and technology allows them to engage clients anywhere from their offices in Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. You're listening to the Booked on Planning Podcast, a project of the Nebraska chapter of the American Planning Association. In each episode, we dive into how cities function by talking with authors on housing, transportation, and everything in between. Join us as we get booked on planning. Welcome back, Bookworms, to another episode of Booked on Planning. In this episode, we talk with author Bruce Appleyard on his book Livable Streets 2.0. As the name suggests, this is the second edition of Livable Streets, released about 40 years after the original. Bruce's father actually pioneered the original book, which we get into in the episode.

Jennifer:

And as you can suspect, quite a bit has changed in those 40 years. So Bruce has updated it to include a chapter on things like autonomous vehicles and some of the new technology. And one of the things that he said that struck me that is very logical, but I'd never really thought about before is if we do have these autonomous cars, we can make them significantly smaller than the cars that we have. And I don't know why, but I'd never thought about that before. So it was an epiphany for me.

Stephanie Rouse:

Yeah, there's a lot of potential for the technology to make things even worse and create even less livable streets. But I think as we talk about in the episode, there's so much potential to make our streets more livable, make cars safer, and just make it a better environment for everyone.

Jennifer:

I agree. And another part of the conversation that I really enjoyed thinking about was you had a question about safe routes to school. And then Bruce was talking about how small children are really developed and have better cognitive abilities if they walk to school. I'd never thought about that either.

Stephanie Rouse:

Another interesting point I thought too, kind of with how we evolve, was this thought from a doctor at an event that he was presenting at was saying how he thinks that the reason that we survive, pedestrians will survive crashes at 25 miles per hour better than 30 miles per hour is that we've only evolved as a species enough to withstand the impact of what we can propel ourselves at. So anything beyond that, we wouldn't be able to survive.

Jennifer:

Yeah, I'm really grateful as a species overall that we've come to be able to run at potentially 20 miles an hour because I'm pretty sure I can do like one mile an hour. Yeah, I thought that that was pretty ambitious for most of us. But you know, people like Kurt exist. So there's there's always that. Well, let's get into our conversation with author Bruce Appleyard on his book Livable Streets 2.0.

Stephanie Rouse:

Bruce, thank you for joining us on Bookdown Planning to talk about your book, Livable Streets 2.0. As the name suggests, this is the second iteration of the book, the first of which was written by your father. Can you talk about the difference between the two books and how it's evolved?

Bruce:

Well, great. Thanks for having me. Yeah, really the first book provided the seminal research on the invisible harms of traffic on people and communities, including how traffic affects our social and cognitive connections across our streets. And it showed that a lightly trafficked street really knit a community together and had much stronger senses of place and a sense of our surroundings, whereas a heavily trafficked street really ripped the community apart. And the light traffic street had three times as many friends and twice as many acquaintances as the heavily trafficked street. And what my father really focused on residents and on traffic calming. So he his book, The First Iteration of Livable Streets, was really the seminal manual, not only just on the research of the effects of traffic on communities, but also providing a manual for traffic calming throughout the world and also especially for the for U.S. audiences. What I did, it was a big task to undertake. It was like editing the Bible and then writing a New Testament. I doubled the size of the book from 300 to 600 pages, focusing as well on pedestrian and bicyclist needs and how to design and prepare for pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as updating any of the literature and the research that supported and built on my father's work, as well as providing my own research looking at the effects of traffic and inadequate pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure on children during their walks to school. So those are the big items that I brought up. I updated the book, I updated the research, I updated my own research that was a combination of my father's Louisville Streets research and Kevin Lynch's cognitive mapping research, and then provided updated knowledge on how we can plan and design for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Jennifer:

You have such a personal connection to the book. As you mentioned, your father wrote the first version of the book shortly after you actually had a near fatal accident. And then, of course, your father was tragically killed by a speeding driver shortly after completing the book. So what actually compelled you to want to update it and touch this really personal cord?

Bruce:

Well, thank you for bringing that up. These are bittersweet topics. When I was four years old, I was hit and nearly killed by a speeding driver. And that was the same year my father started his seminal research on street livability and the effects of traffic on families and communities. Then, tragically, a year after Livable Streets came out, when I was 17, he was killed by a speeding drunk driver. I basically took him to the San Francisco airport, hugged him goodbye, and never saw him again. So a few years later, one of his students came to me and said, Look, I've got uh trouble with traffic in my neighborhood. You need to help me out. Your father would understand. And I started to draw the stronger connections between what happened to me in my own life being hit by a car, what my father wrote about, and how important this was to still work on this work. And people along the way had come to me and they were asking me for copies. It was getting stolen out of libraries and it wasn't being reprinted. So that it was all these things coming together that compelled me to update the book. And as well as I had gotten really involved in the Louvre Streets movement and creating environments for pedestrians and bicyclists. So I wanted to bring that into the work and update the work in that way.

Stephanie Rouse:

And remind me that there's over 40 years timeframe difference between the two books, correct?

Bruce:

That's correct. It was rather than reprinting the old book, there was enough space to bring in new knowledge, new research that was related to my father's research, looking at community severance and things like that. And then also updating with the best knowledge on pedestrian bicycle planning and design.

Stephanie Rouse:

Yeah, it's it was interesting reading the updated version because your father was talking about concepts like complete streets before complete streets even became a movement. And now that's ingrained in so many communities. And so really seeing how that's changed over time and how we're really building on that knowledge, it helps us uh a former transportation planner to really feel encouraged. Like this work's been been going on for so long and it's been advancing, and it sometimes can feel slow, but it's we're we're getting to a better place.

Bruce:

We're getting there, but we still have a long way to go. We still have a lot of resistance for different projects. And that's my hope is that the book itself provides great examples that people can turn to to improve their environment for pedestrian bicyclists and for the community in general.

Stephanie Rouse:

So in the book, you discuss this idea of cognitive mapping, which was first made popular by Kevin Lynch and used by both you and your father in your studies. What is it and how does it help in understanding street design?

Bruce:

Well, it's really important. It it could help us understand how people view their world and what things need to be improved and what were where the problems exist. And it was made popular by Kevin Lynch, as you mentioned. Essentially, it's providing a person a blank piece of paper. Well, there's two different types of cognitive mapping. And my father used what I would call an annotative cognitive mapping method where people would mark on a map the places that you're asking about. For example, where are the locations of your friends and acquaintances? And people would mark that on a map. With traditional cognitive mapping, you provide people a blank piece of paper and then you ask them questions. And so I use this with school children, nine and 10-year-old schoolchildren, to find out the effects of traffic and the lack of pedestrian infrastructure in their experiences of trying to travel to school. And I've had some really interesting findings with that. One child was driven everywhere and saw their world as a series of unlinked paths with a very sort of sterile sense of what their community was like. One path would go to the shopping mall, the other one would go to the school, the other one would go to church. But there's no sense of what's happening in between. Whereas another child in the same group, given the same instructions and the same amount of time, was able to walk and bicycle everywhere, saw the world as a much richer environment for play and exploration and a greater sense of place, and really testifying in their map that they dislike nothing in their neighborhood, that they like everything and they bike everywhere they walk. And so, really wonderful experiences that we can capture through cognitive mapping. And then I also use it to look at the effects before and after a pathway was built along a busy street to school, and found that it really the pathway made a huge difference in the lives of the of the children in terms of a calming sense of place, fewer mentions of danger and dislike, a stronger sense of understanding of what it's like in their environment. And so I find that these are really important elements, important methods that we can use to better understand the invisible harms of cars on our lives and how we can make things better with better infrastructure and better walking and bicycling environments. And this is one of my favorite passages that comes from both my father and myself. The promise of our streets. We should raise our sides for a moment. What could a street, a street on which our children are brought up, adults live and the elderly spend their last days, where all people can move naturally with dignity and freedom under their own power, and where we're all able to celebrate our humanity together? What could such a street be like?

Jennifer:

You identified a livable street as a good friend that gives you energy while an unlivable one drains you. And I thought that was a really interesting way to think about it and have definitely experienced that myself. So, what are some design aspects that help give you that good energy?

Bruce:

Great question. You know, really it's all about lowering speeds and creating buffers from traffic and providing adequate walking space, as well as providing a nurturing environment with mixed use and retail that can make it a vibrant place to spend time. But slowing speeds is probably the biggest one. And providing buffers from traffic are probably the key to making a place feel more comfortable, more engaging, more enriching and energizing and restorative. This goes back to the research that both my father and I conducted, looking at the effects of traffic on communities and children. Again, he found these, and I have found these invisible harms that traffic, beyond just collisions and casualty rates, but that there's this invisible harm and push that traffic has on our social ties, our sense of well-being, our sense of place, the threatening envelope that cars present, especially speeding cars, present to people, could basically have a draining sense of your energy along a street that provides no protection or no buffer from the traffic. And if it's speeding traffic, the worse it is. So all these things kind of come together to determine whether we have a street that's giving us good energy or one that is draining us.

Stephanie Rouse:

So we've talked about safety of children a few times. Safe routes to school is a popular movement that's really focuses on better street design, connectivity to improve safety for kids that are walking or biking to schools. We have a program here in Lincoln where we're mapping out the safest routes to school and trying to make improvements. But there are benefits beyond just safety. Can you talk about some of the ones that you've highlighted in the book?

Bruce:

Yeah, and I've mentioned some of these already. It's sort of like it's the energy you get from your street environment, you know, to not be threatened and not feel drained by the environment. And in my research, where I looked at cognitive mapping of children on their walk or journey to school, found that children have much stronger connection with their community when they walk or bike and that they develop further along a cognitive development continuum of spatial knowledge. And not only that, there's physical health benefits that help children become much more aware and cognitively engaged in the school environment that helps their performance. I think also just physical health in general and the children's ability to have independent mobility and to explore their environment are all really important parts of this. So please get the book and because it talks about this research that I'm mentioning.

Stephanie Rouse:

And there's lots of great graphics throughout the book that help illustrate the, you know, you have images of the before and after maps that you're talking about that you worked on with the students. You can see how things changed. And I thought that was really helpful in describing exactly what you were talking about in the book.

Bruce:

Yes, absolutely. The maps are really key. I'll make available a collection of the maps that I'm discussing about both my father's research and my research. So you could see that in the podcast.

Jennifer:

I think it's really interesting that you mention the research that you've done with spatial awareness. And this is probably too much to share with our listeners about me, but I'm very bad at spatial awareness. I also grew up 12 miles from anywhere. I was driven everywhere as a child. So I think it's interesting. Maybe I wouldn't be such a terrible spatially aware person if I had had more opportunities to walk instead of living so very rural.

Bruce:

That's a really good point. It's likely to have had an effect. There's the two maps that I put side by side in the in the book of the child who is driven everywhere and the child who's able to walk and bicycle everywhere. And again, the same amount of time, same instructions, and their worlds are drastically different. And I think that in my research and the methods I applied for the publication, the peer-reviewed publication that highlights that work, it seems very clear that children develop further along a cognitive development continuum of spatial knowledge with the ability to walk and bike on their own.

Jennifer:

You also talk about street slums in the book. So, what is the street slum effect and how does improving a street's design act as a tool for economic revitalization and redevelopment?

Bruce:

In the same way that a street can take away your energy and not be a friend, if we've got environments that are really hostile to pedestrians and bicyclists and have high-speeding cars that have no buffers from affecting the people who are walking by the street, these places can become places where people don't want to go to. The question is, do you want to have a causeway or a cause to be there? What you can do by redesigning the street environment is you can actually create a cause to be there, which can lead to great economic gains. And it can improve the lives of your community and of your downtowns and of your main streets. And I'm actually working on a project right now, research project with Dan Burton, looking at many of his Livable Streets projects that he's brought about. And we are studying them all and looking at all the lessons learned. And one project we're looking at is University Place near Seattle in Washington that saw a nearly 8% increase in sales after one of the projects. So you really can see how these street livability projects can raise up the economic profile and the economic vitality of the street itself.

Jennifer:

That's really encouraging to hear because we have a project here in Lincoln that we're getting started on, also in our university place neighborhood that is primarily reducing street lanes and trying to create that friendlier street environment. And I don't know that as many of our residents are super hopeful that it will help with economic prosperity. So now we can take this case study to them.

Bruce:

Absolutely. And happy to provide any information you need.

Stephanie Rouse:

So you discussed the concept of livability ethics in the book. What is this? And how can stewards who are not just planners, but engineers, designers, police, educators, lawmakers, and the media adopt this?

Bruce:

So this is an interesting topic because I was approached by a community at one point who wanted to fight, you know, moderate density, affordable housing development around a transit station. And they wanted to use my father's research to fight the project. As you can imagine, I would, you know, I thought my father would just turn over in his grave if this was what he saw his research being used for, right? But if you think about it, his book is really focused on traffic volumes. So if you have higher density development, you might have more cars. It made me develop the concept of livability ethics to say, look, we need to mediate between livability pursuits in conflict, that one person's argument about how they might have a little more traffic on their streets shouldn't outweigh one's ability to have affordable housing. And so I wrote the paper on livability ethics with my colleagues to talk about the complexities of livability and to say that we need to be able to mediate between livability pursuits and conflict and be able to weigh which ones are the most important ones for us to follow. Because everybody can make livability arguments all kinds of places. They could say, well, that high-rise affordable housing development is going to block my views in some fashion. We should say, well, there's certain things you have to give up living in an urban environment, such as, you know, a partial obstruction of your view for the ability of someone to have affordable housing. And that's where the idea of livability ethics comes from.

Jennifer:

As we mentioned earlier, there's 40 years between the first version of the book and your updated version. And a lot has happened in the technological world since the origination of the book. And of course, you had to address those new technologies coming online. And I don't think we can talk about a transportation book without talking about autonomous vehicles or my favorite delivery robots. How do you see these playing a role in a more human-scale street life?

Bruce:

Well, I think it's really important that we look at this. I think there are pluses and minuses, and we need to think about and kind of help shepherd the technology in the best way possible. I think there's a lot of promising signs so far, but I do think that in the beginning, one of the things that often has troubled me about automobile technology and the rise of automobility is that pedestrians become viewed as a problem. And at one point they were, or they might still be in certain cases referred to as flow interrupters, right? And with the rise of automobility as documented by the book Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton, we saw the criminalization of pedestrians through jaywalking laws. And one of the things I'm really concerned about is that with the rise of autonomous vehicles, that we might have another recriminalization of pedestrians again. You know, so far things seem to be working out fairly well in some of the places in this country that we're kind of testing them out. But in other environments, I could see that pedestrians could be relegated to gates and crossing in only certain locations and controlled in a way that I don't think it's really helpful for street livability. So that's one thing. It's also important for us to think about the vehicles themselves and make sure that they're at a smaller scale. I should mention a paper I wrote about this looks at the streets, the drivers, the vehicles, and the street users. What we can also think about is taking advantage of the technology in autonomous vehicles and put them in current vehicles right now, such as intelligent speed assistance technology that can help lower the speeds of vehicles and keep speeds down. I mean, one of the big problems of our street environments are the speeds of vehicles. And if we are able to control those speeds to moderate levels, they're much safer, they're much less threatening, and all of that. So there's anti-braking systems as well. And I think we can also think about just making the vehicles smaller because hopefully they're traveling at lower speeds and they're able to avoid collisions more intentionally. That can mean that the vehicles themselves can be smaller. Those are the things I think we should think about with in terms of autonomous vehicles.

Stephanie Rouse:

I know it's so hard to decide which direction we're going to go. It feels like there's so much potential for them to be a good tool for us. But then at the same time, there's so many opportunities for this to just set us back even further from a walkable, bikeable, livable community. If we just all convert to vehicles because we don't have to physically drive them and then they're they're continuously circulating, or if they're unable to recognize humans. And as you mentioned, we're starting to gate off our streets so that even just walking and biking is more hostile. So I really I hope it goes in the direction that you were just describing, where we're using them as tools to reduce speeds and make places more livable.

Bruce:

Yeah. So I think that I had a really interesting talk with Sawyer Goodyear just recently. And she said some really poignant things about how you're not dealing with the human driver of a vehicle that you're coming across. And there's there's a real impersonal dehumanizing nature of that that comes through that we should think about as well. But I think that a lot of the research shows that autonomous vehicles could lead to just more driving. And then, of course, we'll have zero occupancy vehicles traveling back and forth. So there could be a lot of more congestion and longer trips and more vehicle miles traveled. So all those things are things we need to think about. I think there could be a big effect on sprawl, and that we should have a framework to manage this future if this is the path we want to go in.

Stephanie Rouse:

So implementation is key to creating more livable and equitable streets, but can often be the greatest hurdle for communities. What are some key steps or considerations that planners and other city officials should consider once they've completed the planning and outreach for their plans?

Bruce:

Well, this is a really good topic that we're dealing with in our review of livable streets projects throughout the country. One of the things that often happens is when you touch the street environment, a lot of people come out in opposition because they don't like change. The public right-of-way is something that people can all relate to. Overcoming opposition is really important. So you need to have your ducks in a row, you need to have your arguments clear, and you need to be very diplomatic and reach out to people, but don't expect them to support everything as any anytime you want to touch the street. People often resist to change. So be prepared to stick to it and turn to successful examples, like those presented in the book, and which we're documenting in our Center for Pedestrian Bicyclist Safety report with Dan Burden on Livable Streets projects throughout the country. Also, you can try temporary treatments to build trust, because sometimes nothing is more permanent than a temporary treatment. And we saw that in Berkeley where they put the diverters down. And while it was they were put in 50 years ago and they're they're quote unquote temporary treatments, they're still there and protecting neighborhoods throughout the community. If you want to build for people in place and uh build your downtowns and oases to give people a refuge from traffic, you need to stop incentivizing auto design and give people equal breaks for walking and bicycling. You know, you really want to look at things like lightening the parking requirements, looking at mixing uses, doing things to take out the rules that force auto addiction, and really incentivize walking and bicycling through good infrastructure. So this is a passage, one of one of the more powerful passages my father wrote on our auto dependency. And he wrote it in the paper: streets can kill, third world beware. The automobile satisfier of private needs, demands, and whims has created an insatiable demand for access and the whole profession of planners and engineers, both serving and further stimulating that demand. One of the things that this points out is my father really had a great skill with words and a very poetic voice, a very poetic and passionate voice that he used throughout the book. At the end of the day, just want to you want to stop incentivizing the wrong things.

Jennifer:

Although I've never in my life met more resistance than when we've tried to remove parking minimums. And I don't get that.

Bruce:

Right. So all these things, I mean, a lot of what the book deals with, and the report we're writing with Dan Burden on Livable Streets projects, there's resistance to the to making the changes we're talking about all the time. And it you just have to walk softly and diplomatically and carry a nice big plan with you and keep at it. Those are some of the things that you really need to work on and just try to walk and kind of keep walking people through the process and be prepared to do so.

Stephanie Rouse:

One of our authors from last year, Veronica Davis, she was saying how when she does a big infrastructure project like this, she comes, as you said, you come with what you're planning to do and you're sticking with it, but she'll give them options that you we could do this, this, or this, but we're not doing nothing. That you're getting a sidewalk, it can be designed this way, this way, this way, but we're not not going to put the sidewalk in.

Bruce:

And isn't it funny that that you have to actually advocate for sidewalks and that you have to walk people through with that? And that people actually, of all things, a sidewalk people could be resistant to. And it often comes to people whose land abuts where the sidewalk's going to go as the people who are fighting it. And again, I think it's just something that, like I said, uh, speak diplomatically and and carry some good plans and um just keep at it. And don't expect it to be a cakewalk.

Jennifer:

Yeah, if I could tell young planners like one skill that they should just work on, it's persistence. It might take five years, but you could get there if you just keep chipping away at something.

Bruce:

Absolutely.

Jennifer:

So, one of my favorite things to do when I was working in long-range planning was to pretend that I had a magic wand. And so if I had a magic wand and I was able to give you complete control over a city block right now, what are some of the first radical changes that you would make because you didn't have to be persistent because you had a magic wand?

Bruce:

First, I would think about a couple of things I talk about in the book. One is shortening the distance and breaking up the task for crossing, so helping people get across the street. And then the second one is getting people along the street safely and comfortably. There are several things I would look at at once. It's amazing that you have to ask this question, but are there adequate sidewalks? Because in many places throughout the country, there aren't sidewalks. So that's really a key thing, right? Make them about six at least six feet and as up to 15 if you can in in commercial areas. Then ask, are there bike lanes and make them at least six feet and protect it if possible? Then ask the question are there too many lanes? Under 30,000 vehicles a day. Seattle is considering a road diet to one lane in both directions, going from four lanes, two lanes in both directions to one lane in both directions. And they're doing this actually in Seattle for a road that carries 30,000 ADT. So I think that's a good thing to think about. If you're at that ADT or lower, then you might want to consider a road diet where you actually lower the number of lanes. And that slows the traffic down. If you're talking about downtown main streets, eliminate all turn lanes. You shouldn't need them for your main streets. You should also ask, are the lanes too wide? And if so, consider narrowing them from nine to ten feet. And then lower the speed limits to 20 miles an hour, if possible. And hopefully your lane narrowing and lowering the number of lanes could actually lower your traffic speeds. And recent research has come out showing that that narrower lanes are safer than wider lanes. And then ask, are you providing adequate lighting? So make sure you provide lighting. For downtown main streets, as I mentioned, I would eliminate all dedicated right turn lanes and use medians with a crossing nose. So consider putting in medians and bring speeds again down to 20 miles an hour or less. Throughput is not your goal, but you should also provide inset parking parallel or diagonal. And back in diagonal parking is one thing my colleagues really uh look to and value. I would also consider doing things for vehicles, make them smaller, as I mentioned, require intelligent speed assistance technologies or ISAT technologies that would dynamically limit speeds rather than relying on the driver to determine whether they're going to follow the speed limit sign or not. And remove the enormous screens in cars as they're shown to provide distraction and seem to be related to the increase in pedestrian fatalities in the last few years. Beyond this, I would also consider tighten up the curb radii and creating curb bulbouts, but don't interfere with the bike lanes. And create buffers between cars and the sidewalks at least six feet and provide signals at intersections or rectangular rapid flashing beacons. So that's my that's my first list with the magic wand.

Jennifer:

It's a great list. I recently spent some time in Belgium and they have speed monitoring. So basically, it tells you you're entering a speed zone and there's cameras that will take down your driver's license. And then they know how long it should take you if you're doing the speed limit or under to get to the next camera. And if you get there too quickly, you just automatically get a ticket. And I thought that was actually kind of one of the coolest pieces of technology I've ever seen. Because like you're not speeding, because you know that that ticket is coming, but we don't need police enforcement. So it reduces the amount of police out actively on the road, but you're still that enforcement mechanism is still there. I thought that was really cool.

Bruce:

Yeah, it's a great mechanism. They also do it in Rwanda. And if you're caught speeding by their speed cameras, you get a text pretty much right away and a pretty hefty fine. So it has a really great effect, as you mentioned, on moderating behavior. And speed is really one of the biggest problems we have in terms of our fatalities. One of the things I show in the book is a graphic showing the increase in fatalities based on different speeds. And there's this dramatic rise between 20 and 30 miles an hour. And I always wondered why there was always this dramatic rise between 20 and 30 miles an hour. I was presenting this at a workshop and a neurosurgeon raised his hand and said, you know, I think I might know what this is all about. And we talked about it. And I said, so you think that we actually have evolved withstand head trauma at the highest speed we can run, which is around 25 miles an hour. And I think that that really tells me that we should think about our physiobiologic limits in terms of the speeds we allow cars to travel on. What's also interesting is the greatest volume throughput on surface streets is around 25 to 30 miles an hour. So it really speaks to how we don't really need speeds much higher than about 25 miles an hour. But I also think we should think about 20 as plenty. So I think that's a good thing for us to shoot for as well.

Jennifer:

So this is booked on planning. And always our last question is what books would you recommend our readers check out?

Bruce:

Really like this question. And a couple of things that really are important. Anything by Reed Ewing is really great, especially the book he wrote with Steve Brown on U.S. traffic calming, the U.S. traffic calming manual. And Reed Ewing really uh stepped up in my father's place to really become the expert on traffic calming in the US. Anything written by Dan Burton. So whatever you find by Dan Burden, get that and read it. I write in the book that if a history is written, which I guess it was in the book, that we're gonna recognize Dan Burton as one of the main influences on changing our street environments. And he was, he's been really just generous in giving his time, his presentations, his skills in order and presenter. So Dan Burton, anything written by Dan Burton, I would get that. Another book that I really enjoy is Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck, which provides a great quick reference for everything, not just about walkability, but about mixed-use environments and placemaking for bicycling as well. A couple other really good books to look at: Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton, a great history on the rise of automobility, and his other books as well, Ride of Way by Angie Schmidt, Arrested Mobility by Charles T. Brown, which talks about the equity of our street environments, Great Streets by Alan Jacobs. Alan Jacobs was a really close colleague of my father's and followed up my father's work on Livable Streets with his own book, Great Streets, talking about the wonderful streets and places around our world. And then some other recent ones: Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall and Confessions of a Recovering Traffic Engineer by Charles Morone. So I hope those all get you all started on something that can also help you with reading Livable Streets 2.0.

Stephanie Rouse:

Yeah, a lot of great books, mix of authors we've had on the show, recommendations we've had from other authors, and then brand new recommendations. So it'll be great to add to our recommended reading list.

Bruce:

Great, wonderful. I'm glad it I'm glad it's helpful.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, Bruce, thank you so much for joining us on the show today to talk about your book, Livable Streets 2.0.

Bruce:

Thank you so much. It's been great spending the afternoon with you. And I hope you all get a chance to read the book. And if you have any questions, uh please reach out to me and I'm happy to discuss. Thanks so much.

Jennifer:

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Bruce Appleyard on his book, Livable Streets 2.0. You can get your own copy through the publisher at Elsevier by supporting your local bookstore or by supporting the show at bookshop.org slash shop slash booked on planning. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and please rate, review, and share the show. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time on booked on planning.

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Jennifer Hiatt

Co-host
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Stephanie Rouse, AICP

Co-host