Modal balance & multi-modal corridors

Modal balance is a dead concept, a weird rhetorical legacy of past planning theory. Planning now is about which modes do we prioritize and where. I explicitly differentiate between the old paradigm of 'share the road', where all users are expected to make use of arterial roadways, and what I'll call the "Streetmix" paradigm (after the website), which says "we have 60' of ROW, how are we allocating that to car lanes, bike lanes, landscaping, sidewalks, and street trees?", and realizing that there is often more value created by not following the historic default of prioritizing auto capacity uber alles.

More broadly, it gets into the issue of what it means to have a multi-modal corridor. It's sometimes used in minimalist way, to suggest where it's possible for multiple modes to be present. Most corridors are nominally multi-modal, in the sense that it's nominally legal for other modes (pedestrians, bikes, etc) to travel along them (freeways being the exception). But at a higher standard, having a multi-modal corridor means having infrastructure for multiple modes -- sidewalks for urban streets, or a divided highway that has bus stops. 

But for anyone who actually makes use of non-auto infrastructure, non-auto modes are clearly second class. Because for transportation, it's the network that matters. Sidewalks that end mid-block aren't very useful. Bus stops where the ADA-compliant sidewalk stops beyond the bus stop are a bit of a cruel joke.  So the next tier of quality for a multi-modal corridor is one that is designed to encourage use by multiple modes, rather than merely permit, tolerate, or minimally accommodate them. 

Recognizing that automobile access has been prioritized over that of other modes is the first step, because it opens the door to the option that other modes might be similarly prioritized. Traffic planners intuit that is dangerous, and so there will be endless whatsaboutism that the corridors are already multi-modal, designed to obscure the fact that most planning prioritizes the automobile. 

After someone can be made to recognize that a corridor where cars occupy 99% of the space, and have (effective) priority at all conflict points, and admits that cars are being prioritized, they will then attempt to justify that priority. After several years arguing with people making goon arguments on Twitter, these will include the chestnut that the gas tax pays for it. If they can be made to accept what the gas tax actually pays for (ie, not the existing ROW), an awkward silence may ensue, and then it's possible to have a real conversation about how we allocate an expensive, limited public resource to maximize transportation and economic development benefits, and what that means about prioritizing different transportation modes.