Manifesto Promotes ‘Ethics, Equity, and Empathy’; STREETSBLOGUSA,September 20, 2019

Aaron Short, STREETSBLOGUSA; Manifesto Promotes ‘Ethics, Equity, and Empathy’

A design firm publishes a new credo for engineers, policymakers, and planners.

"Maryland-based design firm is seeking to revolutionize the century-old credo that shapes how policymakers and engineers plan communities — in order to force planners to prioritize human beings over automobiles and think deeply about how their decisions affect road safety. 

Toole Design, which has 17 offices in the United States and Canada, last week released a manifesto that seeks to substitute new concepts for the traditional “three Es” — education, enforcement, and engineering — that have guided transportation professionals as they have built the infrastructure of our towns and cities.

The new “three Es” that Toole proposes — “ethics, equity, and empathy”  — replace the object- and rule-centered approach that dominates the discipline with a moral one centered on people."