Strong Towns Gift Guide: DOT Decoder
(Original image: Oregon Department of Transportation, Wikimedia Commons.)
Road Improvement Project. Highway Safety Upgrades. Correction.
Few people question the lexicon of departments of transportation and their engineers. There’s a reasonable expectation that project titles and messaging factually reflect the scope of the work proposed, that engineers are guided by reason, and that honesty and accuracy are at the core of the profession that shapes how we live, move and play.
Yet, time and time again, project documentation reveals biases baked into the profession. The terms chosen to describe upcoming road work — improvement, correction, upgrade and so on — obfuscate what is actually being proposed. Not only are they not descriptive, they aren’t neutral. Instead, they ascribe a positive or negative bias to projects, informing how our political leaders ought to interpret and, consequently, underwrite them.
With this in mind, Strong Towns has developed the DOT Decoder. It’s the ideal gift for the concerned citizen who's confused by what’s coming down the pipeline and how it will affect them, the engineer in need of more objective vocabulary, the journalist tasked with reporting on a freshly funded highway expansion, and the elected official who's planning to announce a project to the community.
Improvement
What they say: Improvement.
See:
The North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP) — a $9 billion highway expansion project that necessitates the displacement of hundreds of residents and the destruction of hundreds of homes and natural areas.
“The baseline for the project is a no-build option that makes no improvements to the northbound section of I-5 between Kuebler Boulevard and Delaney Road.” — a statement from the Oregon Department of Transportation regarding the I-5 Northbound Widening Project.
What they mean: In its most egregious use, “improvement” becomes a direct stand-in for “expansion.” Who’s to say a wider road or more of them is an improvement? Furthermore, who wants to argue against a project that is an alleged improvement to whatever exists at present? Worst of all, the term offers no insight into what is actually at stake, nor what is being improved.
Neutral alternative: Say what you mean. If the "road improvement project" necessitates expanding the lane width from 10 feet to 12 feet, then the project is a road widening.
(Image courtesy of Ian Lockwood.)
Delay
What they say: Delay.
See:
“How PennDOT plans to address congestion as Philly ranks 4th nationwide for roadway delays.” — a Philadelphia ABC news affiliate headline in 2023.
“The results show that even minor delay to emergency response by calming devices imposes far greater risk on the community than vehicles, speeding or not.” — a statement from a report on traffic calming from the National Motorists Association.
What they mean: “Obviously, delay is a negative word; nobody likes the idea of being delayed. It connotes that there is an unwanted or problematic increase in travel time that, ideally, should be remedied,” Ian Lockwood, an engineer with Toole Design, wrote in a piece about biased language in the profession.
For one, it’s important to contextualize why slower speeds or increased traffic are being forecasted. If a speed limit is being lowered or a road narrowed, travel times may increase, but perhaps the average speeds were totally incompatible with the surrounding environment to begin with. Perhaps the configuration was resulting in routine crashes and close calls. “However, for a professional to call the increase in travel time a delay shows a bias,” Lockwood adds. “Delay implies that motorists have a right to high speeds through the downtown and that society needs to set aside other considerations to provide motorists with high speeds.”
Not to mention, delays aren’t a guarantee. A reconfiguration of the driving environment often induces new behaviors and travel patterns, even opening up modes of mobility previously considered impractical or unsafe.
Neutral alternative: Change in travel time. Reconfiguration.
Efficiency
What they say: Efficient. Efficiency.
See:
“In a significant move aimed at enhancing road safety and traffic efficiency, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has commenced a crucial infrastructure project along US-43 in Clarke County this week.” — from the Clarke County Democrat’s reporting on the construction of a new turn lane.
What they mean: Efficiency is largely a euphemism for speed and traffic flow, another nonneutral descriptor. In centering motorist flow, the context of the street or road is minimized. A narrow, cobblestoned, tree-lined street would likely be deemed inefficient, even if it’s every local’s favorite hideaway, every kid’s top trick-or-treating destination and every influencer’s dream backdrop.
Efficiency also speaks to a single dimension of what streets, roads, and, more broadly speaking, pathways can be. On urban corridors and neighborhood streets, street life is made up of more than just roads whose purpose is to get everyone from point A to point B. There are storefronts, front doors, backyards and parklets. There’s foot traffic and bus service and maybe even a growing bike lane network. There are places to sit, linger, catch up with old friends and shop. If these areas are measured only by how easy they are to get through, we miss the fuller picture of what they offer.
Neutral alternatives: Faster vehicular speeds. Higher traffic volumes. Uninterrupted traffic.
The creators of the DOT Decoder are currently prototyping another instrument that will aid in the translation of Plannerese, which includes terms like, “sustainable,” “economic opportunity” and “innovative.”
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.