On Monday, February 15th an older man and a young man engaged in a fistfight on a public transit bus in Oakland, California. The fight left the young man bloodied, bruised and asking for an ambulance.
The incident – as is so characteristic of our world today – was videotaped via cell phone and then broadcast via YouTube. The altercation has ignited debate again about the safety of public transit.
Rod Diridon of San Jose’s Mineta Tranportation Institute spoke to KTVU for a story they were doing on the matter. As the MTI had recently completed a study on the subject, he was a prime candidate for an interview.
In his interview, Mr. Diridon noted that public transit is – for the most part – very safe. However the MTI was surprised that many public transit riders – women in particular – fear being harmed by a fellow passenger.
“It isn’t how safe the situation really is, it’s how they feel. And really it’s how they feel that matters, because it’s how they feel that determines whether they’re going to ride transit,” said Diridon.
What Mr. Diridon is getting at is the heart of the matter with any public infrastructure, transit or otherwise. Whether it works or not is irrelevant. It’s the perception that matters. It’s feelings. Statistics are basically irrelevant.
That’s an issue cable has to overcome, but it’s also a matter for the urban planning community at large. When urban planning sacrifices the emotional for the rational, it becomes inherently illogical.
We humans are emotional, gut-level animals. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just something we have to acknowledge. When we plan our cities, we’re building them for us humans. But to build a city for us humans, we have to plan for our emotions first.