Naked Streets

Want to calm the traffic in your neighborhood? Take down the streets signs.

Today’s reading is from the word of the Lord to Isaiah:

“Do not remember the former signage, or consider the stoplights, yield signs or speed limits of old. Urban planners are about to do a new thing; even now it springs forth in Holland and London, and perhaps soon in Saskatoon, do you not perceive it? They make a way in the trafficked wildness of urban centers and smooth all traffic flow in the wasteland of our busy streets. Urbanites honor them, both the pedestrians and the drivers; for these engineers give a strange new order in our cities, a new flow in the avenues and boulevards ... They will not burden us with gridlock, nor long lines at red lights; they will not encumber us with cross-walks, or bike paths; they will not hinder us with yellow center lines, or stop signs. They will blot out traffic rules on city streets, and remember our violations no more” (Isaiah 43:18-20, modified).

That’s really not a reading from Isaiah — like you didn’t know — but it’s true.

Urban planners...