GEOG 3LT3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Transportation Planning, Popular Science
2 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
November 21, 2016
What was the context for planning in the 20th century
- The first meeting of planners happened in 1909 and they probably got to the
meeting by train, boat, and horse & carriage
- He has included pictures of people traveling around 1909
oThe problems with this image might have been
▪that horse droppings could have led to unhygienic conditions
▪there might be accessibility issues, maybe not everywhere could
handle this type of traffic
▪horses may occasionally get spooked and run wild
▪not everyone could afford a horse and carriage
▪road signs may not have been invented yet so traffic may have
been disorganized
▪the carriages may not have been very durable as they were made
of wood
▪furthermore the horses may have died and the owners may have
just left the carcass in the middle of the road
▪there were no lines on the road
▪there is no separation of vehicle and pedestrian travel
▪there would have been vacant lots with piles of manure from the
horses
- so planners were dealing with problems of limited accessibility, problems with
public health, and the fact that the cities in 1909 were probably very dense so
that people did not have to walk as far, so there was really limited space
Overview
- then the car came into the scene, it did not poop, bite or run wild. So people felt
that they had more control over vehicles than they did over say horses
- cars were supposed to increase accessibility and mobility for people
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
What was the context for planning in the 20th century. The rst meeting of planners happened in 1909 and they probably got to the meeting by train, boat, and horse & carriage. Overview then the car came into the scene, it did not poop, bite or run wild. They thought the car might solve the problem of city congestion but this has created a new problem and resulted in urban sprawl. Interestingly though in the span of 100 years the automobile has become the planner"s nightmare and not dream and now they have to deal with congestion and toxic emissions, just like they had to with horses. Much of the planning focus at this time was on adapting cities to be capable of handling cars and producing the needed infrastructure to support them. Planning became very complex from 1910-1920 because transportation became highly multimodal.
