Germans have reputation of loving to drive so it might seem a little shocking to see the nation explore free public transit. The push for free travel comes from the need to reduce the country’s emissions – and soon. EU countries that don’t meet emissions targets in the next few
Continue readingTag: Transportation
Things Are Good: It’s Time to Tax Car Drivers by the Kilometre
The RAND Corporation is calling for a new way to tax drivers in the states: by distance traveled. Car drivers may feel like they’re paying too much in taxes already, but the reality is that the costs of maintaining road infrastructure are far greater than revenue from vehicle-specific taxes. In
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Paul Krugman reminds us of the fraud that is right-wing bleating about deficits: There have been many “news analysis” pieces asking why Republicans have changed their views on deficit spending. But let’s be serious: Their views haven’t changed at all. They never really
Continue readingThings Are Good: Cyclists Obey the Law More Than Drivers
Cyclists are law disobeying maniacs! At least that’s a common and all too nasty rumour in North American cities. It turns out that car drivers are the maniacs according to a study fresh out of Florida. The study, the largest of it’s kind, put sensors on cyclists which monitored their
Continue readingThings Are Good: Walkable Towns are Economically More Productive
Any visitor to a North American city knows that a lot of the geography is designed for single occupant car-based transportation. Anybody who’s spent months in any of these places knows that this car-focused design has been an unmitigated disaster. People are dying, the planet is being killed, and so
Continue readingThings Are Good: Blossoming Bikelanes in Berlin
Berlin continues to impress environmentalists around the globe with the city’s efforts to adjust to the reality of the 21st century. Last year Berlin got attention for being a “sponge city” and this year will see the start of a bike lane network that rivals other cities. With car traffic
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the Republicans’ tax scam is designed for the sole purpose of further enriching their already-wealthy donors, while Theodoric Meyer notes that it also stands to make loads of money for lobbyists. – Jagmeet Singh makes the case for Canada
Continue readingThings Are Good: Breathe Easy Thanks to Public Transit
Traffic congested cities suffer not just people stressed out in cars but the exhaust their cars toss into the air. As a result of the use of automobiles asthma and other respiratory issues increase in urban areas, leading to increased health costs and harder lives. This means that if we
Continue readingThings Are Good: Intersection Design Improved by Using Leaves
Got together with some neighbours and transformed a local intersection with chalk & leaves, revealing a surplus surface area of 2,000 square feet which could be re-designed as a parkette, new sidewalks, and much shorter/safer crossings. More: https://t.co/SNYkMMo0Ui pic.twitter.com/psv0MRTZXi — dave meslin (@meslin) November 29, 2017 Dave Meslin got back
Continue readingThings Are Good: Kansas is Growing Roadside Grass
Highways are loved in America due to their ability to allow single occupant vehicles to move uninterrupted, thus they crisscross the entirety of the United States. This makes for a lot of land covered by asphalt, cars spattering litter, brake dust, exhaust onto the roadside, and large swaths of manicured
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Uberrific!
Cover-ups!Scandals! Sexual harassment!Tax evasion! Employment standards violations! Deliberate dishonesty!And all in the service of a business model built on becoming too big to ban while operating as a regulatory-evasion company! Yep, that sounds like the Saskatchewan Party’s kind of business. Which means the only question left is: how much public
Continue readingThings Are Good: Birds Provide Japanese Train Design
Yesterday a Japanese train company apologized for running 20 seconds ahead of schedule. How did Japanese trains get so fast? The answer for how their famous bullet trains move so quickly is thanks in part to biomimicry, the study of using animals as a source for design. The front of
Continue readingThings Are Good: NASA Designs Plane Modifications to Save Fuel
A seemingly simple change to airplane design can make a huge difference in fuel efficiency: add another engine. Yes, as counterintuitive as it sounds, NASA has figured out that by adding an engine to the rear of the plane the airflow of the plane itself can provide more thrust. Airplanes
Continue readingThings Are Good: Go Ride the Bus, Busses are Great!
When is a bus not a bus? When it’s a trackless train. Busses are a great solution to traffic congestion, so much so that bus rapid transit (BRT) systems are growing the world over. The problem with getting more money into BRTs and expanding them is the baggage of the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Let’s Outright Ban Cars in Large Cities
Vehicles have been used to kill a lot of people throughout 2017, sometimes it’s an act of terror and other times it’s drivers being startlingly incompetent. Either way, people who walk are under threat from vehicular traffic in our cities (remember that everyone is a pedestrian). This past weekend in
Continue readingThings Are Good: European Cities Announce Bans on Fossil Fuel Vehicles
It’s no shock that cars are bad for health, what is shocking is that we continue to build cities to support automobiles. This is changing in some European cities and hopefully the idea will spread. Quite a few large cities in Europe are outright banning cars that use consume fossil
Continue readingThings Are Good: Good Health Stems from Walking, Biking, and Transit
Regularly walking and biking are good for one’s health, but did you know taking public transit is too? That’s right just by not taking a car to work like most North Americans you can be healthier. A simple life change can have a large impact on your life, plus by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Linda McQuaig writes that it’s long past time to review our tax system to make sure it isn’t unfairly leaking money to the people who need it least: These high rollers are able to avoid substantial amounts of tax by setting up private
Continue readingThings Are Good: How the Shape of Cities Impact Public Transportation
Cities contain the majority of the worlds population and moving that many people is a challenge, to say the least. Each city has its own design and plan for public transportation and some are clearly better than others. Wendover Productions tackles this question and provides some nice insights into what
Continue readingThings Are Good: These Cities Promote Ice Cycles
Since it’s summer you might not be thinking of winter bicycling. Why not though? If you’re like most people, you’ll be out on a bicycle a few times during the nice weather this summer and you’ll feel how nice it is to ride. Remember that feeling! In the winter you
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