Here is (yet) another piece to fit nicely in our ongoing Car Industry Strikes Back series.
Yep. All this growing momemtum for liveable cities, civilised streets after almost a century of destructive, car-centric traffic engineering is really starting to irritate Big Auto. Smart is no exception. In an almost laughable direct extention of the automobile industry’s invention of the concept of jaywalking (as highlighted in this TED talk), Smart decided to use “fun” and “gameification” in order to keep the sheep that are pedestrians down. Under the thumb. Under control. In the name, of course, of their kind of safety. They call it:
They are really grasping at straws, Big Auto. This generation is abandoning the automobile and so here comes the spin… new, smart generation… for loving the city. Those of us who love cities rarely have a love of the automobile. We’re tired of death, injury, destruction. The new smart generation can see through Big Auto’s attempts to spin things their way once again. “To hook them back to the car” as this former head designer at BMW actually told the crowd during his keynote.
So, funny dancing crossing lights to keep pedestrians “safe”. Give me a break. 30 km/h zones like in over 120 European cities keep pedestrians and cyclists safe. Traffic calming does, too. External airbags on cars - placing the responsability on the potential murderers, too. Reducing the number of cars in cities is a no-brainer for the new, smart generation. Eliminating car ownership in cities altogether is actually a thing.
We who are new, smart and of this generation don’t buy this blatant ignoring the bull. The paradigm is shifting. We are rejecting the car-centric streets that we inherited from the past century. Let the pedestrians dance wherever the hell they like in the Life-Sized City. It’s the future of cities. It’s back to the future, too. Seven thousand years of liveable cities will NOT be ruined by 90 odd years of deadly mistakes by traffic engineers and Big Auto, who have more deaths on their conscience that most dictators. The liveable city is rising once again, carried on the shoulders of a new, smart generation.
