Comment by imgabe

Sure, that's great if you all work for the same organization and everyone involved asked themselves that and they all benefited from the organization's overall success.

But that is not the case here. That is not how bike lanes or many other things get built. The engineer is a consultant that works for one independent company. The contractor is a different independent company. The client is another company or a government entity. Possibly the client involves several different entities with competing demands and priorities.

And "success" for the engineer doesn't really mean building a good thing. It means a happy client who will come back for repeat business.

How does this problem get fixed? Well, eventually someone hits that curb and breaks their neck and sues the city. Then the city hires an engineer to create design standards that they include in future contracts when they build new bike lanes.