OP-ED; Hub's pedestrians could be on a roll

Thomas M. KEANE, Jr.
845 words
19 July 2002
Boston Herald
All Editions
023
English
(Copyright 2002)

Dean Kamen thinks himself a revolutionary, a man who will end the automobile's dominance in our lives. But like many revolutionaries, he's encountering a lot of resistance - even from those one would have thought were his natural allies.

Kamen is the New Hampshire inventor whose life story reads like a combination of Thomas Edison and Mother Teresa. Like Edison, he's a never-ending font of ideas, some of which have made him a multimillionaire. But he's a do-gooder, too, applying his genius to helping the handicapped get around and promoting the sciences in high schools. About a year ago, as word leaked out about a new Kamen invention, then called "Ginger," there was much expectation that the new invention would prove as profound as the light bulb.

"Ginger" turned out to be the Segway, what Kamen calls a "human transporter." At its well-publicized unveiling last December, there was some disappointment. To many, the Segway looked like little more than a motorized scooter. Instead of the revolution in transportation Kamen had promised, it seemed to be just one more vehicle to clog up the roads.

Now Kamen's company, Segway LLC, is at the State House, playing a new role: lobbyist. It's pushing for a state law that would require communities to allow Segway users on sidewalks. Segway is hoping to avoid the same fate as bicycles, skates and skateboards, all of which are banned from sidewalks in many Massachusetts cities and towns.

City officials, transportation planners and even groups that advocate for pedestrians are all lining up in opposition.

That may seem surprising. Segway, after all, thinks of itself as a device for pedestrians, a bridge between machines and walkers. But that's not the way those who toil in the world of urban transportation see it. To them, sidewalks are sacrosanct spaces reserved exclusively for pedestrians. Vehicles belong on the road and Segways, they argue, are vehicles just like mopeds. Indeed, some have gone so far as to suggest that Segways should be subject to the same rules as other vehicles, including licenses, mandatory safety classes, insurance and helmets.

But are Segways really vehicles? Kamen thinks not: Users of the new machines are still pedestrians - enhanced pedestrians, to be sure, but pedestrians nevertheless. But it's more than principle that underlies this argument. Kamen worries that consigning Segway users to the roadways will effectively kill the device. Roads are dangerous. At a few tons each, cars and trucks easily outmatch pedestrians, even enhanced pedestrians. Sure, some fools - the same reckless souls who dare ride bicycles and motorcycles - would use the Segway on the street. But Kamen's vision of a new system of pedestrian-oriented transportation, one used by grannies as well as kids, would likely never occur.

And that would be a shame. Because, initial doubts notwithstanding, Kamen's Segway does have the potential to be as revolutionary as he has promised.

The reason has to do with "sprawl," the shorthand name for a well- known phenomenon: People are leaving cities and spreading out across the state. According to the "Civic Initiative for a Livable New England," sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects and other groups, the state's urban population density (the number of people per urban acre) is down by 55 percent since 1950. The amount of farmland has shrunk by 50 percent during the same time while the amount taken up by subdivisions and the like has gone up by 200 percent. Miles traveled by vehicles climbed 75 percent since 1970, even while population increased by only 10 percent.

The costs of all this are felt in many ways, from environmental damage to a reduced quality of life - people spend increasingly more hours of their days simply driving.

Yet, for all of the concern, there are few good solutions. Planners talk about things such as "smart growth" and "sustainable growth." To many, though, it really sounds like what they're saying is they have to give up their cars.

The fact is, cars - the root cause of sprawl - are liberating. They're easy to use and let people travel as they please. Kamen argues that the Segway will give its users the same kind of freedom. It's simpler to use than a car, as well as being cheaper and vastly less dangerous.

If the device were widely adopted - and that's a big if - it could change the way we travel and hence the way we live. Dense, urban areas would become newly popular places to live and work. Smart growth would no longer be incompatible with a freedom to live and move as one chose. Rather, it would be a logical consequence of it.

Kamen may be completely wrong. But the vision is intriguing. Rather than resisting the Segway, those who claim to be advocates for pedestrians should be fighting to give it a chance.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.

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