Dedicated Lanes for Everyone

Since the weather was unbelievably beautiful this past Sunday, I spent some quality time at Lake Calhoun. It's a beautiful park in southwest Minneapolis, a little over 3 miles in circumference. In good weather, people flock to this park! Today, I saw hundreds and hundreds of park visitors: walkers, joggers, runners, roller-bladers, bikers, teenagers, old (er, senior) folks, couples, families, people pushing strollers, and of course, people walking dogs. The dogs are particularly happy to be there, hunting squirrels and barking "Hello!" at every other dog.

With all these people (and animals) frequenting the park, you might wonder how all this pedestrian and non-motorized (bikes and rollerblades, that is) traffic is managed. The answer is: dedicated lanes! There is one four foot wide lane for bidirectional pedestrian traffic; outside that lane is another single-direction lane for bikers, rollerbladers, and seriously fast runners. Beyond that, there is a bidirectional road for vehicular traffic. It's a pretty impressive operation--with separate lanes for specific kinds of traffic, there is plenty of space for everyone to move at his/her appropriate pace.

This got me thinking: what if we had dedicated lanes for all kinds of traffic everywhere? Imagine I-35W, with concrete medians separating car, bike, stroller, moped, scooter, running, walking, and old-people-with-walkers lanes! To be complete, we should add more lanes for faster-than-car travel, including traditional rail and high-speed rail. I guess if you really wanted to make it complete, you would dedicate the air above the lane in question for air traffic, and run subway lines underneath it. Why should a given road be restricted to a specific mode of travel?

Coming this Friday: All Luxury, All the Time!