HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Chuck Marohn, Strong Towns President, will be giving a “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” presentation to Hutchinson and Reno County residents on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at 6 p.m. at the historic Hutchinson Fox Theatre, 18 E. First Avenue. This presentation is open to the public and includes a 75-minute presentation followed by an open question-and-answer time with Marohn.
This presentation is hosted by the Hutchinson Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative and funded through Pathways to a Healthy Kansas grant received from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas. Hutchinson Healthy Neighborhoods is a partnership among Hutch Rec, the City of Hutchinson, and the Hutchinson-Reno County Chamber of Commerce.
Marohn is making a return visit to Hutchinson to build on the Strong Towns concepts he introduced to the community three years ago. In October 2018, Marohn led Hutchinson residents through a Curbside Chat that included a conversation about a model of development aimed at helping cities, towns, and neighborhoods become financially strong and resilient, ultimately challenging residents to fundamentally rethink how our city was built.
During this visit, Marohn will be giving his “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer” presentation, where he will lift the curtain on America’s transportation system in his newest book of the same name. In this book tour presentation, Marohn demonstrates how the values of engineers and other transportation professionals are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from the values of the general public.
By showing how transportation investments are a means to an end and not an end unto themselves, Marohn reveals how the standard approach to issues like addressing speeding and designing intersections only makes transportation problems worse, at great cost in terms of both safety and resources. By contrast, the Strong Towns approach to transportation focuses on bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns, all while improving quality of life for residents of a community.
For more information on Strong Towns and Marohn’s book, visit StrongTowns.org. Books will be available to purchase during the event.