I fell for this, right up until I actually looked at the URL
St. Paul Announces Sweeping Transportation Policy Changes
https://streets.mn/2022/04/01/april-fools-st-paul-announces-sweeping-transportation-policy-changes/
In a surprise joint press conference, today, April 1, Mayor Allcity, flanked by Public Works Director Carskill, all seven city council members, Jim Stitchesray, and Ramsey County commissioners announced sweeping changes to city transportation policy. The attendees all arrived together leading a bike train of elementary school students along Wheelock Parkway to Como Park Elementary. Mayor Allcity announced that in light of our declared climate emergency, degrading city and resident finances, and public safety and health challenges brought about by car dependency, our streets and transportation systems will no longer prioritize private car drivers above all other transportation modes. Instead, people walking, biking, and rolling (hereafter simply referred to as “people”) will no longer be treated mostly as an afterthought by city planners and engineers and the safety and convenience of low-carbon, active transportation modes will be prioritized. This announcement is in keeping with multiple policies already enacted by the city and county (see here, or here), which public works has too often continued to either ignore or creatively interpret up to this point.
I was looking at the alleged new planning rules, and immediately thought, “No way they actually talked to real engineers about this shit.”
I particularly liked the elimination of “beg buttons” that force poor pedestrians to push a button and wait for the lights to change, to cross the road. I figured that would kill a lot of walkers. It would also waste a lot of gas, and drivers would be randomly stopping (or trying to stop), instead of maintain smooth flow through timed lights.
There was more, and the supposed efects would have been synergystic; multiple=ying the chance to get people killed, and merely gridlock the city.
I fell for this because 1) it’s gotten hard to sort the jokes from lefty pseudo-reality, and 2) just about every one of the supposed new rules is something — on an individual basis — I’ve seen advocated for real. But it’s definitely a mea culpa that I initially overlooked the “humor” tag below the photo.
Well done, Mr. Mensinger! Replacing the city road maintenance vehicles with elecric cargo bikes was a nice touch.
