Blaming engineering for fiscal problems caused by elected officials shows a poor understanding of how roads are built. What we have is deemed to be the best solution, barring occasional problems that can be addressed.Īmadeus3698: The money is something over which the engineer has no control the state/county/city government does. But we don't have enough resources to build those structures, and the citizens don't want to drive slowly. We could also slow traffic down arbitrarily to meet whatever safety goal we have in mind. We could provide barriers between streets, bike lanes, and sidewalks, and provide pedestrian and bike bridges to avoid crosswalks. From the Reddit thread:ġwiseguy: Given enough resources, we could greatly improve safety of our streets. You can spend more and get more safety or you can spend less and get less safety….the choice is yours. This not only frees them from some of the market constraints others must deal with, it provides a certain level of propaganda value as well.Įngineers commonly play off budget and safety against each other, as if they are two dependent variables on a sliding scale. What makes the local municipal engineer different is that their revenue largely comes from the taxpayer. News flash: most non-engineers do as well. Project engineers work in a world where there are financial constraints. There isn’t enough money to do what should be done. One does not need an engineering license to be taken seriously on any topic that would come before a local elected body. Transportation engineering is, as they say, not rocket science. Twinnedcalcite: Not always, a civil engineer could be a urban planner but an urban planner may not be an engineer or architect.ġwiseguy: It's easy to second-guess somebody else's work when you don't actually have to take any responsibility. But too often licensing is a way to protect a profession from criticism, stifle dissent and deflect uncomfortable realities. We certainly want the people who design and build critical infrastructure to know what they are doing. Engineering societies have helped establish and enhance licensing requirements in all fifty states. You have to get a rather challenging undergraduate degree, work as in an apprentice role for a number of years and then pass a difficult test. Getting an engineering license is not easy. You don’t have a valid opinion if you’re not a licensed engineer. I’ve gone back over their critiques and identified the five most common lines I’ve heard engineers use to deflect criticism. Some engineers on Reddit took exception to this assertion. This is the very definition of gross negligence. As a general rule, engineers show a conscious indifference to pedestrians and cyclists, misunderstanding their needs where they are not disregarded completely. The engineering profession - with a growing number of notable exceptions - employs a systematic approach to design prioritizing the fast and efficient (but not safe) movement of automobiles over everything else. This last summer I wrote a series that looked at child pedestrians being killed in automobile collisions, the finale of which included this line: There are, however, a number of reliable threads that I’ve heard engineers use time and again. Having a huge budget and all the clout that comes with it doesn’t hurt either. Chief among them is to resort to quoting industry standards. There are a handful of ways engineers deflect criticism. When a member of the general public shows up at local meeting to express concern over a project – for example, their quiet local street being widened as if it were a highway – they more often than not find themselves verbally outgunned by the project engineer. Transportation engineers can be intimidating.
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