West Coast baby
Apologies if I ended up just listing things you already knew. I think your reply annoyed me as your conclusion that we will know even better 20 years from now while correct can be used as an excuse to wait till we know better. If I have to wait 20 or more years to get pedestrian/bike first infrastructure where i live, when there’s plenty of examples of it working elsewhere I’ll be fuming.
You probably will yes for many areas. Public works are slow.
But you’re missing the point here. The point is that if we start making xyz changes now, say a bike lane, in 20 years we’ll have figured out “ooh shit we shouldnt built it like this oops”. Improvements which maybe solve one issue, may cause others, we’ll find out later. Nothing is a magic fix.
But as you said public works are slow. If we build it now, people benefit from the change while we figure out how to improve beyond our current thinking/physical situation. If we wait everyone has to deal with the current issues potentially forever since we should always wait because there will always be a better idea further down the line. Yes it’ll never be a perfect solution but its still objectively better than the status quo.
Also yes there my be unforseen issues caused by our implementation but there will be unforseen benefits as well. Is the glass half full or half empty…
There is also semi-related known benefits like in the case of major public works and investment in infrastructure, they are usually pretty good for the economy.
I understand your point that there is no such thing as a magic bullet solution. However you saying that in response to proposing well done cycle infrastructure as a solution is a perfect example of “perfection is the enemy of good”.
I’m saying it in response to someone stating one thing will fix basically every problem they care about without any complexity. It’s actually the opposite of what you think I’m saying here, because the prior line of thinking leads to people upset and angry about ‘bad implementations’ of their idea instead of learning of the exceptions.
