For 30 years Fairfax County, and other local jurisdictions, have waged a battle against the destruction of the night sky. As resident’s escaped urban areas into suburbs created to mimic rural landscapes they wanted to feel more independent from neighbors, commercial developments, and most importantly the new massive highways created to help commute them into urban cores. The light pollution standards created by zoning ordinances across the country were meant to provide more pristine surroundings to residents and had the added benefit of reducing jurisdictional electric demands as well as maintaining natural circadian rhythms for migratory birds and other wildlife.
Lower pollution created from burning coal for electricity, more natural lands, better environment for animals. All of those things are agreeable to the majority of people. However, an unexpected evolution began so many years back as the suburban frontier continued to expand and morph. What was previously the development frontier became dense and populated. As more people escaped the enclosed urban dense regions and branched into low density suburbs, older suburbs became pseudo-urban regions.
Fairfax County has reinvested in these dense cores in an effort to provide better transportation and land use options in line with strong town values and principles of design. Multi-modal options mean less car trips per person in areas that are walkable, bike-able, or transit accessible. Better land use means the standard trip to the grocery store or local restaurant could be as close as a block away for urban residents.
Unfortunately, along with these strong town principles for transportation and land use hasn’t been policies on safety. So long as a person’s life is in danger from steep vertical crests or obscured intersection geometry they will remain unlikely to bike to a destination. So long as pedestrians do not have signage indicating that vehicles must stop on red, or no turn at all on red, they are in danger of being struck. And so long as street lights in urban cores are not reviewed for the benefits they provide, instead of viewed in a continued suburban mind set, there will be growing crime and growing danger to everyone.
I drive nearly every day (though I spend less than 10 minutes on the road in total) so I know that driving in urban areas can be frustrating. Every time I see a pedestrian jay walking on a mid-street block wearing black clothing I get agitated because those are the residents who make it difficult to get good planning and compromise in place. I as a driver would be devastated if I ever struck a pedestrian, and smart growth advocates need to realize that drivers lives are put in peril by bad cyclists and bad pedestrians also.
That being said, it is rarely the fault of a pedestrian or a driver when a tragedy occurs. The blame falls on the situation almost every time. The lack of a simple sign, a negligible cost, or reflective paint or strips for cross walks, or proper bike lanes and crosswalks are the creation of too much elapsed time since we reviewed whether the design standards we are using are too cookie cutter in dense areas.
The best way to get people moving without cars is to start treating them like they are you.
Would you want to walk on an 8’ isolated trail without any lighting? Of course not, unless you have been trained in martial arts.
Would you want to bike that quarter mile, if that quarter mile has people zipping by you at 45 mph with no shoulder?
Would you want to cross a road whose intersection is designed with migratory birds in mind, instead of highlighting the human being who is trying to cross it?
I am total agreement that in outer areas where the residents want an isolated and individual scenery that these considerations are not as important. This is because instead of a quarter mile bike ride it is 3 or 4 miles making it unlikely for people no matter the design speed. This is because instead of an intersection of a road, it is a state highway blocking your way to the grocery store. No one is saying that every outer suburb that works fine the way it is has to be retrofitted.
We are talking about inner suburbs that retain the name suburb from history alone, not by the actual reality that many of these burbs are now more dense than the cities they surround. By building better and safer cities we can preserve more natural lands. The net effect of making denser cores is a positive for the wilderness and at the heart of those areas must be good lighting and less worry about arbitrary aesthetics like sky pollution.
The night sky from Tysons might get a bit more muddled, but that is a small price to pay to save even one person’s life from poor street light design.