Civil engineers generally have a conservative disposition. I’m not talking politics but their way of approaching the world. My fellow engineers tend to dress conservatively, keep a low profile, and avoid social situations, especially where they will be the focus of attention. I’ve experienced few things as awkward as the dance floor at the corporate Christmas parties I used to attend back in my engineering days. I still struggle to get the images out of my head.

Clearly, conservatism among engineers is a tendency and not a rule—there are many exceptions and gradations among individuals—but I don’t think it a stretch to suggest that your average civil engineer is more conservative in nature than, say, your average barista or even your typical high school teacher.

Question: How do you know you’ve encountered an extroverted engineer? Answer: When speaking, they look at your shoes instead of their own.

Civil engineers are actually trained to be conservative, and for good reason. When we think of things like a bridge, a dam, or even a drainage system, we need to be overly cautious—overly conservative—in our designs because failure, and the potential loss of life that comes with it, is not a risk we’re willing to take.

An interesting observation in the approach of civil engineers to street design reveals how our centralized development model—the top-down way in which federal and state growth policies influence local development decisions—has distorted the entire nature of not only the engineering profession, but what a conservative approach even looks like.

I live in a small town, one that struggles with budgets, debt, growth, and job creation. In any environment, but particularly in an environment such as ours, a conservative engineering approach to street building would be one that, ostensibly, moved vehicles efficiently at the minimum overall cost.

This wouldn’t be my approach—I’d have overriding concerns about moving people, not vehicles, as well as the safety of people walking/biking and how the public investments would impact overall wealth creation—but let’s just focus on streets as a traffic engineer might: it’s about moving vehicles and it’s about budgets.

In such a binary analysis, how does one justify twelve-foot lanes?