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PERSONAL STATEMENT <br /> Cars are wonderful servants but terrible masters. The most likely cause of death for children 1 – 19 is <br />being crushed by an automobile. This does not include deaths from suffocation and heart disease resulting from <br />automobile emissions or the large and increasing number of our children suffering from obesity, overweight and chronic <br />diseases resulting from inactivity. This is the first generation in a century that is expected to have a shorter life <br />expectancy than their parents. Providing our children an environment where they can safely walk and bike to school is a <br />solid step towards reversing this alarming trend. <br /> The choice between what is best for cars and what is best for people is not a false dichotomy. Nor is it a <br />mischaracterization to say that there are those in this city who believe that we should prioritize the car over the person. <br />Time and again, when measures are proposed that would clearly be in the best interests of human health and <br />prosperity, the most common objection raised is that it might make things harder for cars, and is therefore, not just an <br />inconvenience but an injustice. <br /> Income is the single best determinant of life expectancy, but a thriving economy should be throttled <br />because it might make traffic worse. In order to have access to our thriving economy, people need housing close to <br />jobs, but housing downtown and in our neighborhoods should be reduced because it might me more competition for free <br />parking on our streets. Incidentally, why on earth do we give land away for free to park cars but charge humans a <br />fortune for it? <br /> I have heard people stand at this dais argue that children have no business living downtown but should be <br />limited to suburban homes with big yards – away from the dangers posed by cars. The premise that underlies this <br />argument is that in case of a tie, we should eliminate children and send them out of the area rather than make it less <br />convenient for a car. <br /> You are not just our elected officials, but our leaders. And I ask you to show the moral courage to declare <br />that displacement of people, fatalities and debilitating injuries are not an acceptable trade -off for cheap parking and auto <br />throughput. <br /> Finally, I would like to quote from the vision zero "This change in thinking, from collision reduction to injury <br />prevention, represents a significant shift from an engineering to a public health perspective... The vulnerability of the <br />human body—not the collision itself—forms the basic parameter in the design of the transportation system. <br /> <br />This brings a moral imperative to the work. When we think in terms of people and injuries instead of collisions, it <br />changes the question from “what can we do?” to “what must we do ?”