The Ideology of Traffic Engineering
Salvador Medina Ramírez
21 January 2024
The primacy of the automobile as a commodity within capitalism is in conflict with the other function of the automobile as a means of transportation.
Engineering has undoubtedly made great advances in civilization. Among its modern marvels are the provision of water and drainage and the construction of buildings and infrastructures that enable social reproduction. However, like all other modern disciplines, engineering is subsumed by the logic of capital. For this reason, as with other disciplines, its application is usually directed towards works that allow for the accumulation, circulation and reproduction of money.
Although this is known, especially among Marxists, it is not usually accepted within each discipline and this is especially the case in the field of engineering. On the contrary, engineering is presented as a technical discipline that has nothing to do with politics. When a development in engineering has a negative social impact, such as facilitating further exploitation of workers or destruction of nature, it is justified on the grounds that it was not the right technical solution, or that the technical solution was only meant to address a specific problem. In other words the presence of class conflict is repressed or ignored.
However, from time to time, criticisms or denunciations of the problems within the disciplines emerge from their own practitioners, as is the recent case of the book “Killed by a Traffic Engineer” (Island Press, 2024), written by engineer Wes Marshall.
This work allows for a critical reading that exposes the ideology behind the discipline of engineering and its consequences for social reproduction: millions of deaths per year. This may not be the author's intention, but that does little to negate what it makes visible. The book contains a powerful critique of traffic engineering, especially as it is applied in the U.S. Anderson shows that under the banner of "science", the building of road infrastructures that are dangerous - indeed fatal - to users are routinely justified.
All of these decisions are based on studies which present little evidence, often suffer from poor methodologies, or are simply biased because of the ideological drive behind them. This turns this discipline into one based on pseudoscience (p. 5), and as a function of this, manuals and guides are created and blindly followed, becoming entrenched as evidence and justification for a variety of decisions. Marshall writes:
“Despite manuals lacking the requisite science to back them up, traffic engineers put their faith in these manuals and adhere to them. Traffic engineers also don’t take too kindly to those criticizing these holy texts” (p. 33).
To illustrate this, the book makes reference to some of the deficiencies in the fundamental principles of traffic engineering. In the United States, traffic control manuals stipulate that at least three traffic accidents must occur over a period of four or five years (irrespective of the number of casualties) before the occurrence is deemed a problem (p. 336). If this does happen, the placement of a signalized intersection is authorized. This is irrespective of the context of the intersection, whether it is situated in front of a nursing home, a hospital, or a school, to cite a few examples where pedestrians tend to walk slowly and should therefore be treated as a problem (p. 336).
Traffic engineers assume that as long as vehicles keep a stable distance from each other at a constant speed, there will be no accidents. At the same time, speed limits must be constantly adjusted to the speed of 85% of vehicles (p. 162). This is done to ensure the free flow of traffic and to maintain a stable distance between vehicles, as congestion is supposed to cause traffic accidents. When these 'technical principles' are applied to a real case, the situation can be tragic. In one case, a 60-year-old woman was killed in Los Angeles (USA), when a few months earlier a 19-year-old man had been hit while crossing the same street. After the first incident, the local authority decided to carry out a speed analysis (based on traffic engineering) and, based on the above "scientific principles", increased the speed on the street where the hit-and-run occurred. The study showed that 68% of the vehicles on the marked road were travelling at 35 mph, so they decided to increase the speed to 40 mph. Over the next decade, fatalities continued to occur, and they continued to increase the speed limit, first to 45 mph and then to 50 mph (pp 153-154). It does not take an engineering degree to see the contradiction: higher speeds only increase the vulnerability of pedestrians, but the manuals called for higher speeds to provide greater 'safety'.
Another interesting example is that in the construction of dams, bridges, buildings and other similar infrastructures, the "design load" is a key consideration, i.e. the physical forces that these structures can withstand so that they can withstand extreme events and not collapse under weight, tremors or other external forces. The same concept is then applied to traffic engineering (p. 156) as "speed design". In civil engineering, it is desirable for the design load to be greater than the maximum possible load, as this makes buildings safer. In traffic engineering, higher speed designs result in wider roads with fewer intersections, more bridges and tunnels, etc. However, unlike built structures, when a road receives more vehicles than its 'design capacity' can handle, it does not collapse or fail. It simply becomes congested, which increases travel times, but does not result in tragedy. This concept has been used to justify the widening of roads, the construction of bridges and tunnels and other road solutions in the face of increased traffic (below design speed). However, it has been shown that more road infrastructure only induces more traffic and congestion and makes the road more dangerous.[1]
When this criticism comes from an engineer, it acquires greater power. Wes Marshall recognizes that there is a systemic problem and suggests that traffic engineering should be re-engineered to improve road safety (p.5). A noble and necessary goal, no doubt. However, he does not go deeply enough into the causes that have led to this situation, nor into the objectives of his critique.
Let's start with the question: why does road construction and its relationship with vehicles exist in the first place? The answer is that roads and cars exist because of the development of capitalism and the creation of the combustion car as a commodity for mass consumption.
Capitalism has subsumed science to create commodities of all kinds and purposes. One of the most successful examples is the automobile, whose production and consumption have allowed a great accumulation and reproduction of capital since its invention. As well as other industrial and financial capitals that revolve around the automobile: construction, transport, finance, insurance, etc.
In order to allow vehicles to be sold by the thousands and to occupy urban space with great "freedom" (impunity), in addition to the appropriation of the common space for the construction of thousands of miles of roads dedicated to them, something had to be done to order and regulate them. Without regulation, they could pose a problem for other economic activities and for the sale of cars. This implies the transformation of the common space (the streets) in favor of these goods.
In this sense, this discipline follows the logic of capital and ignores social reproduction. Although in both cases the circulation of goods, services and people by different means of transport is necessary, the primacy of the automobile as a commodity within capitalism is in conflict with the other function of the automobile as a means of transportation.
Traffic engineering tries to create a balance between them, but it is impossible. There is a fundamental contradiction between the functions of cars which, under capitalism, is usually resolved in favor of capital (and therefore in favor of speed). As Marx pointed out, capital seeks to "the annihilation of space by time", with the aim of accelerating the process of circulation of capital and ensuring its reproduction.
Therefore, under this mandate of capital, traffic engineering is ideologized to hide this contradiction, which cannot be resolved within capitalism.
Marx. Karl. (s. f.), “Exchange of Labour for Labour Rests on the Worker’s Propertylessness”, Grundrisse: Notebook V – The Chapter on Capital, Marx Engels Archive, recuperado en abril de 2021, de https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch10.htm.
Urban Renewal...Means Negro Removal. ~ James Baldwin (1963). Retrieved December 3, 2024, from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Abhj17kYU
Salvador Medina Ramírez is an economist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), with a specialisation in Financial Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Masters in Urban Planning from UNAM. I work on issues related to urban planning and urban mobility. I also write on public policy issues, theory and critique. His latest book is "El socialismo no llegará en bicicleta" (ITACA, 2022).
