by Charles Marohn || Retired Engineer

A while back, a woman riding asked me what could be done to to better educate engineers so they would start to build streets that were about more than just moving cars. My answer rejected the premise of the question: We should not be asking engineers to design streets.

Roads vs. Streets
A quick recap for those of you who are new here: Roads and streets are two separate things. The function of a road is to connect productive places. You can think of a road as a refinement of the railroad—a road on rails—where people board in one place, depart in another, and there is a high-speed connection between the two.

In contrast, the function of a street is to serve as a platform for building wealth. On a street, we’re attempting to grow the complex ecosystem that produces community wealth. In these environments, people (outside of their automobile) are the indicator species of success. So, in short, with a street we’re trying to create environments where humans, and human interaction, flourish.

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