>We have rethought it extensively. There are proposals in every major city and probably nearly every neighborhood for improved street designs. But enough of those who drive through those neighborhoods oppose those improvements that they rarely happen.
It doesn't help that half the time these proposals wind up being half-baked boondoggles that result in a great deal of money being spent for a situation that is at best net neutral. In my own city they redeveloped some main streets according to modern principals coinciding with a stadium development. They then patted themselves on the backs for how effective they were at traffic calming without reducing throughput at the points before and after the project zone at which they measured. Of course, nobody was talking about the fact that they basically just displaced the traffic from that main thoroughfare into the adjacent neighborhoods and turned "kids play here" streets into exactly the kind of car-filled hellscape they allege to be against. Of course, only the locals know this. If you're far away in some ivory tower the project looks like a success.
>and hard to admit that we take constant risks that sometimes result in harm.
Modern society is incapable of having the requisite tough discussions about the pros and cons of various risks/rewards when human life and limb is involved. I think the HN classes ought to take a good look in the mirror because we do a great amount of peddling the kind of rhetoric that perpetuates this immaturity.
>I think the only way to solve this is to take street design decisions (and funding for safety improvements) out of the hands of governments - there’s no level of local gov that is immune from the backlash. But how do we do that without some horrible other outcomes?
We don't. Further removed government doesn't exactly have a great track record. Time and time again you'll see local governments do absolutely asinine infrastructure things because checking some box to meet some criteria for state or fed funding results in a lower total cost after the higher level of .gov kicks in some fraction of the money even though the end result is not what they need.
I think the solution here is more direct local control. If some municipalities do figure it out and make improvements then their ideas and patterns of development will be copied elsewhere.