Engineer Sam Schwartz, former New York City traffic commissioner, did a nice blog post today titled A Traffic Engineer’s Lament. He bemoans the fact that engineers no longer run transportation departments in most cities and states in America. He further laments that the traffic engineering of the last century focused so strongly on cars. Here’s an excerpt:

An example I’ve used time and time again in New York City is that the Brooklyn Bridge, when it was largely a rail and walking bridge, handled 430,000 people daily.  In the 1940’s, we ‘modernized’ it by removing the rail; its daily person carrying volume dropped to 180,000.

During my lifetime, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island was built with 12 car lanes but no bikeway, walkway or transit right-of-way. As a teenager I was able to bike from Brooklyn to Staten Island by taking a ferry. Once the bridge opened, the ferry stopped running and driving was the only choice—here in transit-rich New York City.

Schwartz preaches the benefits of Active Transportation, defined as any form of transportation that is all or partly human powered, as one of the ways to revive America. Traffic engineers and medical professionals should jointly embrace Active Transportation designs as a way to create healthier communities.

To me, the blog reinforces an important point about engineers. We have a tendency to maximize the gain in a given system, but too often won’t look beyond the current rules for what is truly the highest and best use. I challenge you and me to go beyond the short term maximum efficiency and strive to deliver a better value.

Just yesterday I was meeting with a customer on a large apartment and mixed use community and he challenged me to think beyond the normal way we build. He wants us to conceive of our best view of the future and try to deliver the best parts of it in this project. Of course I know we still have to make the costs work, but I love the challenge.

Consider your current project and think about improvements. Get in the habit of improving your processes. It pays.