Choice is not limited to just 6 lanes or 4.

The only thing that competes for time in my mind as much as transit is Florida State football and I was surprised to find the two come together on a website I frequent, tomahawknation.com.  The city of Tallahassee is currently doing a multimodal master plan as part of an effort to determine if Tennessee Street (US 90), the main east-west road going through town, should go on a road diet.  For two miles through the center of Tallahassee, running along the north part of both Florida State University and the downtown, Tennessee is 6 lanes.  The rest is only 4 lanes.  The idea is to dedicate the outside two lanes to buses, and maybe bicycles, and to cars making right turns (in much the same way as cars may enter a center lane for left turns).

It is a classic case of competing priorities: on the one hand there are bars and lunch places and more than 40,000 students, faculty, and staff along this road—that is, lots of pedestrians—as well as a huge demand for lane miles to accommodate student and other drivers.  In the interest of relieving congestion the road has been widened to within feet of the buildings and the sidewalks are very narrow (congestion not relieved).  The original impetus for the road diet was students getting hit by the mirrors of trucks as they walked on 4-foot sidewalks.  So on the one hand the road diet would create a safer street for pedestrians in a high-foot traffic area and allow better transit performance but also reduce the capacity of the roadway.  Some folks don’t think that sounds like a good trade.  And that brings me to tomahawknation.com. 

The post in question focused on the problem of gameday traffic, the idea being it is already difficult to get to the stadium and reducing Tennessee to 4 lanes will make it worse.  The argument is specious:  games are only played six days out of the year and the rules are completely different in Tally on game day, including making multiple roadways one-way to accommodate flows of traffic.  But what I found curious among the 500 hundred-plus comments was the general outrage of the proposal which is a pilot project.  Florida DOT is going to resurface in 2014 anyway so if it does not work out well after a year or so it could easily be undone at the expense of the state.  The opposition was often phrased as a matter of choice: the city was limiting the transportation options of residents without their consent.  This comment nicely sums up some of the opposition:

[The choice to drive and park] is not fully removed, but it forcibly changes the choices people can make.  Soft tyranny (and I am not saying changing the road is on the same level here, but the principle is the same) is slowly nudging people into doing what you want them to do.  Nobody notices the little changes, and you haven’t technically forced anyone to do anything – you simply slowly remove all other options until they are forced to choose the one you think is best for them.

If this conversation is really about choice this commenter is phrasing that choice as being between fries or onion rings.  Those are options certainly, but not really choices because they are essentially the same thing.  Some people, myself included, would prefer better transit and sidewalks/mixed vegetables which are fundamentally different from wider roads/fried foods.  And while I am no doubt in the minority in my vegetable/transportation choices it is because my experiences (using transit in major American and European cities) have shown me the joys of the alternatives.  American’s love choice in everything except for transportation.  In conveying this idea I like to use the parable of sushi in a burger joint.

A man goes into a café that is famous—world famous—for its hamburgers.  He takes a seat and looks at the menu and sees that in addition to the fabulous half-pound hamburger the café is now offering sushi.  The man has never had sushi but for some reason he is curious.  The waitress comes over and recommends the hamburger.  The man says he would like to try the sushi.  The waitress says it is not ordered very often so it takes a long time to prepare.  Would he prefer the hamburger?  It’ll be ready in a jiffy.  He looks around and sees everyone else in the joint is eating hamburgers, delightedly licking mustard, ketchup, and Angus grease from their fingers.  The televisions on the walls are showing commercials not just for the hamburger itself but for every ingredient contained therein.  Pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise all star in their own 30-second spots promoting themselves but together glorifying their common cause, the hamburger.  There are no ads for sushi.

The man has decided and says he wants to try the sushi.  The waitress rolls her eyes and now the other patrons weigh in, giving him strange looks.  A few heckle him that he should really try the hamburger.  “Best in the world,” a fat guy in the back calls out, “Sushi’s for weirdoes and Californians.”  “They are the same thing!” another yells to riotous laughter.  The man perseveres, eats the sushi and really enjoys it.  When he goes to pay the gal at the register says, “That’ll be a buck fifty.”  “A dollar fifty, is that all?” the man says, adding out of curiosity, “How much is a burger?”  She gives a knowing wink, motions to the people behind her with her thumb, and says, “For them it’s only 50 cents,” she says slamming the door of the cash register.  “Oh,” he says sheepishly, feeling the others were getting a better deal.  “What’s that,” he says pointing to a large safe against the wall.  “That’s where we keep the membership fees, hon,” the cashier says with a wink.  “They pay seven grand a year to get them cheap burgers.”