Apple Pie & The Pace Car Story

David Engwicht
 
Stories can be told from many perspectives. All the characters in this story have their own history and stories. This is my story of the Pace Car.
 
In 1987, I headed up a 'freeway' fight in Brisbane, Australia. Route 20 was to be ploughed right through our community. I had no background in transport or urban design, but was determined that we must not simply move the problem into someone else's back yard. Instead we hunted the world for long-term, sustainable solutions. I also argued strongly that we must take responsibility as a community for our part in the problem (a large percentage of the traffic in this corridor was residents making short, local trips).

A year later our community group produced the book Traffic Calming which triggered the traffic calming revolution in many cities in Australia and North America.

But I quickly became aware of a number of limitations of Traffic Calming. So I began working on an alternative that would allow residents to tackle traffic problems themselves - without needing the intervention of the city or highway department. I began experimenting with programs based on getting residents to exchange a treaty with each other, a treaty in which neighborhoods agreed to put less traffic in each other's neighborhoods and act as a guest in each other's neighborhood. I had some successes, but mainly failures.

So the hunt went on.

I had visited Boise, Idaho a number of times to work with the city on alternatives to traditional traffic calming and to work with residents on street reclaiming experiments. Residents such as Ann Hausrauth were the first to implement street reclaiming in a systematic way, proving that the techniques worked.

In 2000, Idaho Smart Growth organized a public meeting for the residents of Northview Street - a street that had suffered a significant increase in traffic due to some road changes made by the Highway Commission. I was almost lynched at the public meeting by the residents because I dared to argue that they must find ways of taking their street back and not simply blame the city and Highway Commission for their problems. At the end of the meeting, after almost everyone had gone, I saw a woman talking to the organizers of the meeting. She was upset and crying. I stood on the edge and listened. Her parents had lived in this street. She had grown up in this street. When she married she built a house at the front of her parents house so she could stay in this street. But as the traffic had increased she had watched her street degenerate. It was a familiar tale. Then she told how she had been a victim of violent crime in her own home, the perpetrator one of the residents in the street.

Driving home I asked my host about this woman. I discovered her name was Lisa Reece and that she had headed up the community fight against the changes that had dumped the extra traffic in their street. I was so moved by her story that I asked my host if he would ring Lisa the next day and promise her that I would return to Boise to do an experimental street reclaiming on her street.

Six months later I returned to fulfill my promise. But I was told the residents were still too angry to work with me on an experimental street reclaiming. It was suggested by Lisa that I may like to meet some of the residents over supper and share some apple pie.
I arrived at the supper to find about 20 very angry residents. That day the Highway Commission had made another decision that would put another 4000 vehicles per day onto Northview. One resident was adamant, "I am 65 and retired. I am going to chain myself in the middle of the road and they will have to carry me away". I listened to this outpouring of anger for about half and hour and then Lisa spoke.

"When David was here 6 months ago, like you I was angry when he suggested we must find a way of solving this problem ourselves. But I began thinking about what I could do. I wasn't prepared to reclaim my street in the way he suggested - like letting my kids play on the sidewalk or even take my chair out onto the sidewalk. In the end I decided the only thing I could do to take back some control was to get in my car at peak periods and drive up and down my street at the speed limit and stop to let my neighbors out of their driveway. If there are no cars on the street, I wait for them at the corner and escort them down the street."

Almost everyone at the meeting responded that they would join Lisa in this strategy. As I listened I remembered that 12 years earlier, when fighting the freeway, I had made a similar decision, to drive within the speed limit. My decision was born out of a realization of how my car use was impacting the neighborhoods through which I drove. I also remember meeting many other people around the world that had made the same commitment. Immediately I recognized the seeds of a great idea.

"It is no use these drivers thinking they are just stuck behind some slow-coach," I said. "They need to know they are behind another one of these vehicles that acts as an escort. We need some kind of emblem on the back of the car. And we need you to not only be an escort vehicle in your street but in everyone's street. And we need to get people on the other side of town to reciprocate with you and be an escort vehicle in your street. That way you won't need to drive up and down the street needlessly. The whole city will be calmed to the speed limit."

I then told them the following story. As a cyclist, I have been the victim of road rage on a number of occasions. Some time back I put some red devil horns on the sides of my bike helmet. The effect was amazing. Motorists wound their windows down to talk with me. People smiled and waved. Kids pulled faces. Over the past two years, I reckon I have sent about 10,000 people to work a little happier. But I have also had no incidents of road rage.

Everyone agreed that humor must be central to the program.
I could not sleep that night. This scheme incorporated all the principles I had been advocating: residents taking personal responsibility for their part in the overall problem, creation of an inter-street treaty, and rehumanizing the street. Yet it was so simple. It used the devil to tame the devil! Or as Dan Burden commented, it is based on an outbreak of 'civil obedience'.

The next morning I had breakfast with a number of people including the head of the Chamber of Commerce. He could see a lot of sense in businesses supporting the scheme and having their vehicles become part of the scheme. It also just happened that this day was the second day of a two day course organized by Idaho Smart Growth. There were city councilors, city engineers, planners, highway commissioners, community police, fire department and concerned residents at the course. The second day of the course was to focus on developing some lateral approaches to traffic in Boise. I mentioned what had transpired overnight and immediately the group chose to work on developing this idea further. One resident suggested we call it the Pace Car Program and the city officials got excited by the possibilities. The participants came up with bumper sticker suggestions and the overall structure of the program.

Over the next three days we had working groups develop the pledge, design the Pace Car logo, etc. Within four days of conceiving the idea, 200 residents had signed the pledge and we were ready for a media launch of the program.

Since that time, dozens of people have added their own bits of genius to the program.
As a postscript, we discovered some time later that Lake Oswego in Oregon had invented the Pace Car concept in 1995 (although their program did not have the emphasis on humor). This raises some interesting questions about how innovations and ideas emerge as humans interact. For those of us involved in developing the 'Boise version' of the Pace Car concept, it raised interesting questions about intellectual property. Even if one individual is largely responsible for bringing the concept to birth, that individual's thinking has been shaped by thousands of interactions with others. Without these gifts of insight and wisdom there would be no innovation. This mutual exchange of insight, wisdom and innovation is the hallmark of vibrant communities and the real wealth of creative civilizations.

The Pace Car is based on rediscovering a sense of civics. We trust that those cities and residents who implement the Pace Car will share their experience and innovations freely with others. Who knows how the Pace Car may evolve or what other innovations it may give birth to.