If you study cognitive development theory, you learn that as people develop their mental skills, they go through various stages. Some people get stuck in the relativism phase, where they might believe that every side to an issue has good points, and it's not possible to decide. This is the phase after dualism, where everything is right or wrong, and before "commitment" when people understand that relativistic thinking is method, but that you can and should make choices.
In the "Bike to Work" day article in today's Express, the author of the piece states the DC Department of Transportation director Gabe Klein has to be agnostic about whether or not he prefers a particular transportation mode.
Not true.
The Department of Transportation is supposed to focus on the movement of people, goods, and services, sure, but it manages a transportation system, and should be focused on getting the system to function and operate _optimally_.
That means making choices.
A car takes up about 128 square feet and needs a bunch of dedicated spaces equal in size, distributed to multiple locations (home, work, school, shopping, etc.) in order to be stored. A 60 foot articulated bus takes up about 480 square feet--about four times the size of the car. But the bus can carry 60-100 people, while the car typically transports only one or two people.
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The 128 s.f. number is edited. I had written 240 s.f., but I was thinking of something else and I didn't recheck the figure I used. The number comes from 16*8 which is the typical amount of space allocated to a parking space for a compact car. Thanks to Spookiness for the impetus to the correction.
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Should a department of transportation treat all modes equally, or focus on optimality?
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