Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Discover insider secrets of how America’s transportation system is designed, funded, and built – and how to make it work for your community

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn Jr. delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America’s transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did, and how to modernize transportation to better serve local communities.

You’ll discover real-world examples of poor design choices and how those choices have dramatic and tragic effects on the lives of the people who use them. You’ll also find case studies and examples of design improvements that have revitalized communities and improved safety.

This important book shows you:

• The values of the transportation professions, how they are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from those of the public.
• How the standard approach to transportation ensures the maximum amount of traffic congestion possible is created each day, and how to fight that congestion on a budget.
• Bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns on transportation projects, all while improving quality of life for residents.

Perfect for anyone interested in why transportation systems work – and fail to work – the way they do, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is a fascinating insider’s peek behind the scenes of America’s transportation systems.

Introduction: Conversation with an Engineer ix

1. Embedded Values 1

2. The Difference Between a Road and a Street 15

3. Whose Mistakes Do We Forgive? 31

4. Understanding Roads 45

5. Great Streets 65

6. Traffic Congestion 83

7. Intersections and Traffic Flow 101

8. Transportation Finance 121

9. Public Transit 145

10. Transportation Technology and Fads 165

11. The Routine Traffic Stop 183

12. Reforming Transportation Professions 201

13. My Confession 223

About the Author 235
Acknowledgments 237
About Strong Towns 239
Index 241

CHARLES L. MAROHN, JR. is Founder and President of Strong Towns, a nationally-recognized movement to build strong and resilient communities. He is the author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.

The costs of the North American transportation system are too high—not just in money, but in time, safety, and quality of life. Most Americans sense the transportation system is working against rather than for them, that the money spent on transportation may temporarily address a problem but ultimately makes their lives worse. They also feel powerless because they can’t put their finger on why it’s so bad, or how it can be made better.

Americans are rightly frustrated, yet what most suspect to be wrong about transportation is only part of the story. The reality is worse in many ways, with our efforts to fix these systems only reinforcing the problems we are hoping to solve. A new approach is needed.

Strong Towns founder and president Charles Marohn, Jr. is a professional engineer and planner with decades of experience. In his work, he saw firsthand how the conventional approach to traffic engineering is making people less safe, bankrupting towns and cities, destroying the fabric of communities, and actually worsening the problems (like congestion) engineers set out to solve. He founded Strong Towns in 2009 to advocate for a smarter, more resilient, and more fiscally responsible approach. Over the last 12 years, Strong Towns has grown into an international movement of people from all walks of life who are challenging the status quo and changing how we build cities in the U.S. and Canada.

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, Marohn pulls back the curtain on the North American transportation system. He explains how transportation got so bad, and why it keeps getting worse. He writes about the deadly toll of bad design, why the conventional approach puts cities on the road to insolvency, and why public transit is in trouble. He also talks about how transportation can be fixed—and why fixing it will involve not just engineers, but local residents and officials who have become effective and empowered advocates, connected with others to make real change.

No one should be consigned to living in a community where transportation gets worse while costing more. Rather than being a burden, transportation should fit with your life. It is possible to build a transportation system that makes you, your family, and your community safer and more prosperous.This book will show you how.

Praise for CONFESSIONS OF A RECOVERING ENGINEER

“I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time. It’s been more than a decade since its title essay rocked me to my core; reading it was my Meg Ryan When Harry Met Sally moment. Over the intervening years, Chuck’s message has become all the more necessary, and America may finally be ready for it.”
—JEFF SPECK, city planner and author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules

“This should be required reading—and the default approach to transportation—for anyone who cares about building safe streets and strong communities, whether transportation engineers, urban planners, policymakers or advocates.”
—BETH OSBORNE, Director of Transportation for America

“Marohn shows how the manuals, standards, and professional practices of traffic engineering reflect judgments about who matters and who doesn’t—judgments that deserve to be visible so that we can all debate them.”
—JARRETT WALKER, transit planner and author of Human Transit

How American roads are designed and how we can do better

We all want to live in a place where the transportation system serves us. But with crumbling roads, skyrocketing costs, maddening amounts of congestion, thousands of traffic deaths each year, and unreliable public transit…it feels like the other way around. So who’s serving who?

In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity Charles Marohn pulls back the curtain on the assumptions and approaches that go into building and managing America’s transportation systems. He demonstrates how, with a different approach, any community can spend less and provide transportation systems that make their residents safer, wealthier, healthier, and more prosperous.