Bad urban design makes for poor living conditions and when cars are involved it can mean lethal conditions. As people know all to well, the last century’s bizarre love of the automobile has given us a lot of issues that we need to deal with today. Some solutions are really
Continue readingTag: Transportation
Things Are Good: Better Urban Design can Stop Drivers from Killing People
More people live and work in cities than ever before in the history of humanity, as a result the transportation pressures on these urban centres as equally increased. In North America, the last century focused on making cities for cars instead of for people and as more population density increases
Continue readingThings Are Good: Large Cities are Done with Cars
North Americans love cars and that love is literally killing us, and I don’t mean through car exhaust I mean by directly killing people. Over 60 people were needlessly killed by drivers in Toronto in 2018. This is obviously the fault of careless driving, but it’s also the result of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Joe Vipond and Noel Keough highlight the gap between the global impetus to avoid climate breakdown and the narrow self-interest of the Alberta oil industry. Michael Bueckert discusses Jason Kenney’s attempt to turn the government apparatus against the exercise of fundamental freedoms through
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jeffrey Sachs writes that the fight against climate breakdown demands a concerted solution to global problem – rather than political wrangling over whether anybody will accept any responsibility for desperately-needed change. And Adam Tooze points out the foreseeable political threats posed by
Continue readingThings Are Good: Save Money and Lives with Smaller Fire Trucks
Firefighters are making cities harder places to live in, this might seem like an odd thing to read. It’s counterintuitive since we’re used to thinking blindly that the firefighters (and EMS as a whole) have our best interests at mind. In North America, fire fighters are blocking initiatives to make
Continue readingThings Are Good: Creative Ways to Communicate Mobility in Cities
Navigating cities can be a challenge for anybody with mobility issues due to a lack of infrastructure and poor communication. Decades of efforts to improve urban design have made a positive difference while more recently apps for mobiles have come into existence. Not all solutions are valued by everyone, but
Continue readingThings Are Good: Talented, Smart People Want to Take Transit
The amount of people who want to drive to work is dropping while the people wanting to take transit is increasing. This is happening despite of 100 years of car-focused urban planing in North America. Companies are finding that if they want to attract smart and talented people then they
Continue readingThings Are Good: Transit-First Pilot Project in Toronto a Success
Toronto is a city where the car reigns supreme and any suggestion of sharing the road is deemed to be a war on the car. It’s surprising then that last year the city converted one of its busy downtown street from being car-focussed to transit focussed. Like everywhere else that
Continue readingThings Are Good: Big Data Proves Bicycles are the Fastest Mode of Transportation
Regular readers of this site already know that in urban settings using a bicycle is the best way to get around. Thanks to an on-demand food delivery company there is now more evidence that bicycles are the fastest mode of transportation. The company knows this because their delivery algorithm takes
Continue readingThings Are Good: It’s Time to Argue for Better Modes of Transit
The video above The Guardian explores the costs of subsidizing cars in cities and looks at alternatives to car-focussed design. In the UK Nottingham raised the price of parking to reflect the actual land costs. They then took that increased revenue to spend it on public transportation, which is a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Investing in Walkable Communities Saves Cities Money
Having multiple forms of transportation improves how people navigate the world. When people are provided with mobility options they will more likely leave behind a car. It turns out that not only is that good for people it’s also good for the finances of cities. If you’re sick of high
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ben Chu reports on the conclusion from the chief economist of the Bank of England that decreased unionization in the UK is responsible for reducing wages for all workers by .75% per year over the past 30 years. – Hassan Yussuff warns
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Australia can Make Roads Safer
Since roughly WWII we’ve been designing roads and streets for only one purpose: the automobile. Before the 20th century roads were designed to move people around efficiently, today roads are incredibly dangerous for people who are outside of metal containers. Australians are starting to do something about this lack of
Continue readingThings Are Good: One Spanish City Banned Cars and Found Success
Cars in cities just cause traffic and block other modes of transportation so one Spanish city decided to do something about and banned car traffic in its downtown. The results are a thriving downtown with local businesses performing better than before the ban. Locals prefer the lack of smog and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Providing Bike Lanes is Better than Providing Parking
In North America riding a bicycle in the cities built for cars can be stressful. Because these cities are designed for cars it’s hard to get anywhere quickly and New York witnessed this first hand. Instead of adding more vehicle lanes and continuing the problem they decided to remove parking
Continue readingThings Are Good: For Happier Cities get More Cyclists
Cities where people cycle regularly are happier than cities in which cycling is rare. The evidence continues to mount that building good cycling infrastructure will improve the life of everybody in a city – regardless if they ride or not. Urban planners already know that designing cities for pedestrians and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Christo Aivalis discusses the future of organized labour and the need for workplace democracy in an era of increased automation: New organizing models and shorter workdays are both viable solutions to address the struggles of encroaching automation, but neither strike to the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Denver Saved Itself by Investing in Trains
The 1970s oil crisis left an impact on the city of Denver in the forms of good public transit. The writing was on the wall that individualized transit infrastructure that favoured the automobile wouldn’t be a good long-term solution for the city so they did something. Thanks to the initiative
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Simon Wren-Lewis discusses how media negligence allowed austerian economics to be treated as credible long after any pretense of academic merit has been debunked. – Kevin Milligan and Tammy Schirle examine the relationship between income and life expectancy in Canada – featuring
Continue reading