The Trouble with Mr. Spats
Mr. Smeds and Mr. Spats
by Shel Silverstein
Mr. Spats
Had twenty-one hats,
And none of them were the same.
And Mr. Smeds
Had twenty-one heads
And only one hat to his name.Now, when Mr. Smeds
Met Mr. Spats,
They talked of the
Buying and selling of hats.
And Mr. Spats
Bought Mr. Smeds' hat!
Did you ever hear anything
Crazier than that?I love poems by Shel Silverstein. This poem about Mr. Smeds and Mr. Spats always stayed with me, and bothers me in strange ways. Who was Mr. Spats? Why did he need so many hats? Wouldn’t it be crazy; to have 99% of everything, but to still want more?
And yet - this pretty well describes how we divide up our street space in Pasadena. 99% of the street space goes to cars, and we have discussions over the 1% (or less) we devote to bikes. This is a big problem! As a city, we would have huge rewards if 10% of trips were made by bike. We know that when more trips are by bike, our city will be quieter, healthier, wealthier, safer, and more equitable for everyone. And, we know that to make this work, we’ll need to build safe spaces for people to ride.
More recently, it dawned on me - we see Mr. Spats all the time! Mr. Spats drives around town in an SUV, angry that the roads aren’t wide enough and the parking spots are too short. Mr. Spats shows up to city council meetings, complaining that the hundreds of miles of car lanes we have in Pasadena aren’t enough, and adding a single bike lane would really bring him down. Folks advocating against street safety are sometimes called NIMBYs, but that label misses a key point. What’s incredible to me is that 99% of our infrastructure is for cars, but that only serves the population that drives. For those of us who get around by bike, scooter, or walking, the folks advocating for more space for cars seem selfish, because they’ve already got nearly everything, but they somehow want more. That’s why this pro-car spirit, that ignores the needs of other road users, should be labeled Mr. Spats.
Below, I’ll present some facts and figures showing Mr. Spats at work in Pasadena, and how much better our city might be if we planned — even just a little — for someone other than Mr. Spats.
Mr. Spats wants all the curb space
Curb space usage in Pasadena
Street space near the curb is valuable. It is a convenient spot to park a car, unload a truck, or to place a protected bike lane. So, how do we divide this valuable space in Pasadena? That’s easy: we give over 99% to cars, and less than 1% to bikes. In fact, this got tested in the discussion of a Union Street protected bike lane. City staff proposed building Pasadena’s first protected bike lane, using 0.3% of Pasadena’s curb space for bikes. Even though this will leave 500 miles of curb space in Pasadena for cars, Mr. Spats went ballistic, holding up the process for months or years by arguing that adjusting 1.5 miles of parking spots on just one side of the road would devastate people who like to unload in front of their favorite shop. Mr. Spats couldn’t possibly park around the corner or across the street - that would be very difficult! He wants all the curb space, not just 99.4% of it.
Mr. Spats wants all the travel lanes
As I wrote in an earlier article, Pasadena would have huge benefits if 10% of trips were by bike instead of car. This change would make our city cleaner, quieter, safer, more business-friendly, and easier to get around. But, we know that the number one reason people drive cars instead of ride a bike for short trips is that they are afraid of getting hit by a car. The way to solve this problem is to build safe places to ride, like protected bike lanes. If we want more people to ride bikes, what fraction of our street space should be committed to safe bike lanes? I would argue that 10% would be a good start. But, that’s not what Mr. Spats wants. Currently, Pasadena has 0 miles of protected bike lanes, around 4 miles of buffered bike lanes, and about 40 miles of scary, unconnected, unprotected bike lanes that most people won’t use. In comparison, we have 900 miles of travel lanes that primarily support cars. Could we reduce car traffic in the city by creating 10 or 20 miles of protected bike lanes? Mr. Spats says NO! - he wants all 900 miles of travel lanes for himself.
Miles of travel lanes
Mr. Spats wants all the parking
Parking Spaces
Pasadena has a LOT of parking, both on the street and off-street in garages, driveways and parking lots. In busy shopping areas, the majority of parking is off-street, in parking lots. And yet, Mr. Spats will furiously defend all on-street parking. For example, a community workshop generated ideas for making the Allen Street Metro station safer and more accessible. The community decided to repurpose 13 typically empty on-street parking spaces to make Allen Street safer and the Metro station easier to access for people walking and biking. This would seem to make sense, since people using the Metro are … you know … not driving. Is it OK with Mr. Spats if we convert 0.02% of Pasadena’s on-street parking to reduce injuries and encourage Metro use? NO! Mr. Spats complained, arguing that empty parking spaces are worth a few pedestrian injuries and deaths.
The system we want
Pasadena Mode Share 2035 Goals
To design our roads correctly, we need to think about the transportation system we want, rather than the system we have. Currently, cars are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Pasadena, and our reliance on them has resulted in poor air quality, wildfires, and climate change. Even a small increase in the number of car-free trips will have real benefits for Pasadena.
As one window into our city’s own goals, the Pasadena Climate Action Plan sets targets for how people will move around the city in 2035. The goals include raising the rates of non-car travel, including bikes, public transit, and walking.
The plan calls for EVs to make up 26% of trips by 2035, and given that almost 60% of EVs sold are e-bikes — and that cities such as Davis, California and Key West, Florida already have more than 15% of their trips made by bicycle — a realistic goal might be for bicycles to make up 12% of trips in Pasadena by 2035. The chart at right also includes goals for transit and walking based on the Climate Action Plan. All the non-car modes support each other, because people often walk or bike to a Metro station or bus stop.
Using the curb for bikes
Protected bike lanes are easy and affordable to build if we make space for them. This protected bike lane in Mexico City uses small, low cost barriers to make a safe place to ride. Mr. Spats would be very upset. Photo by Aaron Salinger
Enclosed Bike Parking
Enclosed bike parking provides a safe place to park bikes. Installations like these are popular near metro stops and shopping in other cities, but we don’t have any in Pasadena. This pod can park 10 bikes in the space of one car. Image from designboom.com
Planning for Success
What will it take to reach around 12% of trips by bike? The National Association of City Transportation Officials reports that more than 60% of the total population are “interested but concerned” about biking, and that 80% of those would be willing to ride on streets with a separated or protected bike lane. That means that with better infrastructure, almost half of our neighbors would take trips by bike. The same report indicates that bike ridership on streets with protected bike lanes increases by as much as 171%. In short — people don’t ride bikes when when they don’t feel safe doing so. Clearly, we can’t have 12% of trips by bike, if 99% (or 99.8%) of our infrastructure doesn’t support them
Instead, let’s imagine we repurposed 5% of our travel lanes, and 5% of our on-street parking for bikes. That would leave 95% of the travel lanes and 95% of the curb space for cars. But, with that tiny “sacrifice” by Mr. Spats, we could build 60 miles of protected bike lanes. This would be transformative for Pasadena, improving every aspect of city life.
Mr. Spats will continue to complain. He’ll insist that 99% of the streets just aren’t enough for him. But Pasadena residents and leadership need to think about a city design that’s fair and reasonable, and that matches our aspirations for how people should move around. Keeping 99% of the space for cars will leave us in a backwards place, applying 20th century solutions in a 21st century world.
Did you ever hear anything crazier than that?
Watch this video to learn more about protected bike lanes.
Notes
The statistics for lane miles and parking spaces in this article are estimates created by the author. See the linked spreadsheet for details, and get in touch if you can help improve these estimates.
“Mr. Smeds and Mr. Spats” poem and image from A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstein
High-Quality Bike Facilities Increase Ridership and Make Biking Safer, National Association of City Transportation Officials (2016)
Data on electric bike sales from Bloomberg News, “America’s Best-Selling Electric Vehicles Ride on Two Wheels”, by Ira Boudway (2022)
Data on biking rates from the 2019 American Community Survey
More information about the many, many advantages of a bike-friendly Pasadena can be seen on the Roseway Network project page.
Related discussion can be found in the blogs on protected bike lanes and the case for biking in Pasadena
