Silicon Valley millionaires keep trying to solve problems that don’t exist like juice pressing and “smart” appliances. So when thinkers in the valley promote solutions to actual problems it’s a breath of fresh air. And in this case, it is air. Airships to be precise. It’s well known that air
Continue readingTag: Transportation
Things Are Good: Hop Aboard the Free Transit Movement
Our contemporary financial approach to moving people around a city subsidizes individual automobile use, which leads to more car use and worse mobility for everyone. An easy solution to this problem that’s gaining popularity is to change what mode of transportation get subsidies. The most direct way to stop subsidizing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Stephanie Desmon interviews Ziyad Al-Aly about the reality that anybody infected with COVID-19 faces a substantial risk of heart problems as a result. And Moira Wyton examines what British Columbia could be doing to limit the spread of the Kraken sub-variant, while Paul
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Zhenguo Nie, Yunzhi Chen and Meifeng Deng study the relative merits of COVID precautions, finding upward ventilation and masking to be the most effective combination in reducing the concentration of infectious particles. And Pascal Irrgang et al. find an altered immune response after
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Boxing Day reading. – Robert Reich discusses the dangers of relying on – and indeed building a political and economic system to favour – the social costs of extreme greed. And the Canadian Press reports on the Trudeau Libs’ plan to take foreign aid even further
Continue readingThings Are Good: The Benefits of Free Transit
he benefits of free transit helps more than just riders, it can help a whole city. We already give free road access to car owners and provide them with rights of way, so let’s do the same for all people. Why create an artificial divide between people trying to get
Continue readingThings Are Good: People Who Ditched Their Car Are Happier
There’s are individuals who advocate against making our cities better places to live because they fear losing their dependence on their automobile (car marketers encourage this too). We need to let car-brained individuals know that their lives will be better if they have more transportation options and that they will
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jessica Wildfire sets out the realities of COVID which are apparent to people on top of the flow of scientific news – even if they’re not being reflected in public policy or government messaging. Larissa Kruz reports on the strain being placed on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Alvin Chang charts some of the grim realities of long COVID which is being allowed to disable people with little to no restraint. And Frances Stead Sellers discusses how COVID-19 can undo a decade of work toward individual health and fitness. – The
Continue readingThings Are Good: E-Bikes Replacing Cars at Increasing Rate
It’s clear to anyone who has to buy a car because they live in low-density suburban communities that cars are expensive and kill the environment (and people). This awareness of the dangers of the automobile is growing and people are turning to e-bikes. Anecdotally we see places which have encouraged
Continue readingThings Are Good: Why Economy Class is Best Class
Private jets (AKA PJs) are really bad for the environment, like really bad. We’ve looked at efforts to ban PJs before, this time let’s examine the relative carbon emissions of different classes of flying. If you’re not rich enough to afford a PJ or a first class ticket then you’re
Continue readingThings Are Good: France Pays People to Stop Driving and Start Riding
Car drivers take up way more road space than they need since the size of their vehicles are disproportionate to their usefulness. Smart countries aim to limit the number of single occupant vehicles on the road for this reason and to ensure that all people can easily get from one
Continue readingThings Are Good: Another Urban Myth Busted
Road users always complain that other people are breaking the law, every group of road users accuess another of breaking the most traffic rules. Truckers think cars are the worst, car drivers think cyclists are the worse, and cyclists think all vehicles are bad. When it comes to an objective
Continue readingThings Are Good: This Parking Space Technique Holds 10 Times More Vehicles
There’s a fiction that cars are needed in cities and we should provide parts of our limited land in urban centres so one person can leave their car. This fiction perpetuated by car brains hurts our cities and is really not good, to solve this problem the city of Rotterdam
Continue readingThings Are Good: Lets’ Ban Private Jets
A forward-looking individual decided to start a campaign to ban private jets and it’s gaining steam. The movement to get rid of private jets is growing and now celebrities like Elon Musk and Taylor Swift are getting lambasted in the press about their planet-destroying transportation options. Given how much damage
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Quammen writes about the ongoing race between scientific discovery and an evolving coronavirus. And Heidi Sheehan reports on new research showing a similarity between long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome based on the inability of receptors to properly receive calcium. –
Continue readingThings Are Good: Boston’s Mayor: Free Transit for All for a Better City
The new mayor or of Boston, Michelle Wu, knows what it takes to improve life in the city. She sees free transit for everyone has a way to increase the liveability of the city, its economic performance, and the city’s climate resilience. The pilot routes of free transit in the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your long weekend reading. – David Macdonald writes that if there’s a risk of a recession being caused by interest rate hikes, it’s because people with wealth and power have chosen to engineer one on purpose. And Ken Klippenstein and Jon Schwarz report on an internal
Continue readingThings Are Good: 13 Year Long Study Confirms Bike Lanes Make Streets Safer for Everyone
Bike lanes not only protect cyclists from negligent drivers, they protect drivers and pedestrians too. A longitudinal study reveals that it’s not the cyclists which make the streets safer, rather it’s the infrastructure that separates cyclists from giant metal slabs that matter. Bike lane only made of paint did nothing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Yasmine Ghania reports on the wastewater analyses showing that Saskatchewan is facing a new COVID-19 wave. Ed Yong discusses how the BA.5 wave looks to be the first one dominated by reinfections. Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris highlight the cognitive dissonance which has
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