Evaluating Transportation Affordability: How Planners Can Better Respond to Demands for Lower Cost Travel
"the highest ranking problem was not traffic congestion, crash risk, pollution or inadequate mobility options for non-drivers, the problem that users considered worst was the “Price of travel,” or what I call unaffordability...Low-income vehicle-owning households typically spend more than 20 percent of their budgets on transportation"
Lawsuit Seeks to Overturn "No Significant Environmental Impact" finding for $3.6B Ohio-Kentucky Bridge
"The group, Devou Good Project Inc., is asking a federal judge to declare that the agencies and officials violated the National Environmental Policy Act by overlooking health and environmental impacts when it issued a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) instead of preparing a full environmental impact statement."
Pedestrian Safety Advice Rated from Most Insulting to Least
"Who walks blindly into traffic? I mean I know people do (drugs, mental health issues), but these are not the same people soberly considering pedestrian safety messaging...It’s a good time to look at the ways we’re messaging to pedestrians, in my opinion. So below, I have listed some of the classic refrains, and why they are useless/insulting and rated them by how bad they are."
https://angieschmitt.substack.com/p/pedestrian-safety-advice-rated-from
Nearly every household in America has a car. Here’s how to break free.
"Not surprisingly, the United States has one of the highest vehicle ownership rates in the world: 92 percent of households have at least one at home. Driving, for many, isn’t an option. It’s a necessity, dictated by the way this country was built...The only place this isn’t true in the United States is New York City, where about half of households don’t own cars."
(Gift link)
Cars the winner in the competition for space in downtown Evanston
"The reality is that despite official pronouncements about being a bicycle-friendly city and the importance of having a walkable community, Evanston is like most American cities in regard to modes of transportation: The top priority is cars, trucks and other vehicle traffic...designed to maximize vehicle throughput and car parking convenience"
Bristol parking wars: Greens gear up for fight with drivers over pavement ban on cars
"If Bristol council has its way, the days of parking on the pavement may be over. In opposition, the Green party called for it to be banned – now they lead the council, they have set up a taskforce to make it a reality."
Bristol parking wars: Greens gear up for fight with drivers over pavement ban on cars
The Corner Store Comeback
"Up until the middle of the 20th century, urban neighborhoods typically displayed a mix of uses — even in residential areas. Houses were interlaced with corner groceries, basement bars and storefronts offering a range of goods and services.
That approach ended with the postwar emergence of strict zoning codes and car-centric planning, which steered commercial activity to shopping strips and centers."
Judge Arthur Engoron begins hearing oral arguments over the congestion pricing lawsuits with a remark to the courtroom:
"I got a ride into Manhattan today, and the traffic was terrible. Can't anything do something about that?"
- @ChristRobbins on X
Milwaukee Alderman Lamont Westmoreland complains about the cost of vehicle maintenance
"It’s just the cost of the thing and to put $88,000 into a ... vehicle, there will be maintenance attached to that,” he said.
He questioned where that maintenance money was coming from and whether there is an estimate for the annual cost to maintain the vehicle."
Maybe Milwaukee ought to look into reducing the cost of their vehicle fleet.
#Milwaukee #CarsRuinEverything
Milwaukee's $88,000 art car has broken down a month after it was launched
Reflections on noise-pollution data collection in DC
"A growing body of evidence links urban noise pollution with health problems. The data I collected suggest that DC residents are regularly exposed to stress-inducing levels of noise"
I'd like to see this done in Indianapolis. The city's attempted to make some pedestrian-friendly areas, like Mass Ave and 10th, but...well, maybe you can see the problem.
#WashingtonDC #Indianapolis #NoisePollution #CarsRuinEverything
https://ggwash.org/view/96949/reflections-on-noise-pollution-data-collection-around-the-district
Car Loans Pass Student Loans To Become Largest Debt Other Than A Mortgage
"With an average transaction price of nearly $50,000, it’s no secret that new cars are basically just for rich people now. You can’t even buy a single new car for less than $20,000. If wages had kept up with the rising cost of a new car, that wouldn’t be as much of an issue, but here we are. And yet, people keep buying them even when they can’t afford them."
Car Loans Pass Student Loans To Become Largest Debt Other Than A Mortgage
How Cities Are Clamping Down on Traffic to Help Fight Emissions
"Dublin joined a flock of global cities that have banned or limited vehicle traffic on a regular basis. Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Birmingham, England, Brussels, Helsinki, and Copenhagen are among a growing list of places that are addressing congestion and encouraging motorists to walk, bike and use transit."
#CarsRuinEverything #ClimateChange
How Cities Are Clamping Down on Traffic to Help Fight Emissions
Why U.S. Nightlife Sucks
"Many of my young friends have been moving to the Bay Area and settling in downtown Oakland. Their refrain is always the same: downtown is dead after 6 PM."
The answer? Cars, mostly. You can't go out partying if you have to drive five miles home afterwards. And there are hardly any nice nightlife areas to visit that don't have four-lane highways going right through them.
#UrbanPlanning #CarsRuinEverything
Philadelphia Pays Parents to Drive Their Kids to School
🤨
"Parents who provide proof of car ownership receive $300 a month, or $3,000 a year, to drive their children to school. Students who are driven one way but take the bus back are eligible for half the amount. Students under a certain age who commute to school by foot, bike or public transportation aren’t eligible for any subsidies"
#Philadelphia #CarsRuinEverything
Texas Will Pour Billions More Into Pointless Freeway Expansions That Just Don't Work
"Houston already has the widest freeway in the country, the 26-lane Katy Freeway. Of the billions set aside for highways, just $45.2 million is being given to public transportation for the whole state...Bicycle and public transit plans are merely mentioned in the budget, even with things like bicycling and walking activity increasing in Texas"
#Texas #Highways #CarsRuinEverything
Texas Will Pour Billions More Into Pointless Freeway Expansions That Just Don't Work
New Orleans: The most walkable city in the country?
(Spoiler: The writer doesn't think so)
"It’s true that New Orleans is more walkable than your average American city. It is old, founded in 1718, around a century before the advent of the Model T, and we benefit from a transportation network and footprint that were largely established before the arrival of the car."
#NewOrleans #UrbanPlanning #CarsRuinEverything
https://americawalks.org/new-orleans-the-most-walkable-city-in-the-country/
It's not identified, but I'm sure this is #Cincinnati.
Look at all those buildings that were lost to car infrastructure!
https://thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/who-is-my-neighbor
Ford is pivoting to small electric cars. Will a country of SUV lovers actually buy them?
"America’s carmakers...face a potentially devastating wave of Chinese competitors selling EVs that are smaller, cheaper, more technologically advanced, and actually profitable. If Ford can’t compete with the Toyota Camry, how can it keep up with BYD’s acclaimed $11,500 Seagull?"
Cities are trying to cut down on cars. Some states are standing in their way.
“States control the lion’s share of transportation funding. They can use that to help address the climate and give people more ways to get around. Or they can make things worse – they can keep pouring more money into wider highways.” - Steven Higashide
Is Your Commute Harming Your Health?
"Research shows that relentless car journeys don’t just occupy our time, they significantly shape our mood and overall outlook on life. As more cars are added to roads worldwide, traffic congestion becomes more severe, as do the dangers and stress associated with daily car travel."
Know what would fix stop-and-go traffic even better? Not driving.
"Boston Is Using AI for Good to Fix Stop-and-Go Traffic...with the help of Google Research's Green Light project, AI-optimized intersections have already seen traffic reduced by 50%."
#Boston #CarsRuinEverything #AI
Can L.A. Really Pull Off a “Car-Free” Olympics?
""Moving ‘car-free games’ from marketing slogan to reality would have required the government sending clear, unambiguous signals that the city and county would de-prioritize automobile transportation relative to other modes"
I suspect LA will try to provide bike paths and transit while still leaving all the car lanes and storage in place, which probably won't work.
#LosAngeles #CarsRuinEverything
USDOT report to Congress: Decarbonizing US Transportation
"The transportation sector accounts for about one third of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, more than any other individual sector of the economy. Decarbonizing transportation is critical to addressing the climate crisis and meeting the national goal of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050 and the interim target of 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030"
California Department of Transportation to repave El Camino Real, add bicycle lanes
Sounds good, but...
"Cycling club adviser Natalie Docktor said finding alternative routes to improve bicycle safety might work better for both cyclists and businesses.
“Businesses need parking to stay in business. It would be best to find a parallel street and create a bike lane”
What is she advising them to do? Drive cars?
#PaloAlto #cycling #CarsRuinEverything
(High school paper)
https://thecampanile.org/30384/uncategorized/california-department-of-transportation-to-repave-el-camino-real-add-bicycle-lanes/
Brilliant! #CarsRuinEverything
Car ownership increasingly unaffordable for many Hoosiers
"Indiana rose two places from seventh in 2022 to fifth in 2023. Auto loan balances in 90 days of delinquency or more increased from 4.72% in 2022 to 5.29% in 2023, 26% above the national average.
The study also found that the percentage of auto loan balances with at least 90 days of delinquency is increasing nationwide."
More cities are banning right turns on red in response to rising pedestrian deaths
Not a great article. NPR interviews one person who says the sun is out, and one person who says it's raining, but they don't look out the window.
#UrbanPlanning #CarsRuinEverything
More cities are banning right turns on red in response to rising pedestrian deaths
Northeast Ohio cities are blocking new car washes
It's about time our elected officials fought back against Big Soap!
Northeast Ohio cities are blocking new car washes. Here's what's driving the backlash.
Philadelphia: Activists partied to stop cars from parking in bike lanes
This story is depressing for its implicit assumption that churchgoers have no way to attend church if they don't drive cars. Sure, "Some are elderly with mobility challenges while others are young families" but that implies that some are not. Can they carpool? Take the bus? Ride bikes?
#cycling #Philadelphia #CarsRuinEverything
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Outside this Philly church Sunday, activists partied to stop cars from parking in bike lanes
A $1,400 SUV payment? A $1,600 truck payment? Sounds ‘absurd,’ but it’s becoming more common.
"By this February, 17.4% of new cars were financed with a monthly payment of over $1,000, compared with 5% in February 2020, according to data from the car site Edmunds. Over the same period, the average transaction price for new vehicles jumped from $38,130 to $47,060, and the average interest rate on new-car loans went from 5.7% to 7.1%."
American drivers are now even more distracted by their phones. Pedestrian deaths are soaring.
"During the pandemic, American drivers got even more distracted by their phones while driving. The amount of distracted driving hasn’t receded, even as life has mostly stabilized...both phone motion and screen interaction while driving went up roughly 20 percent between 2020-2022."
You aren’t imagining things — drivers are more distracted by their phones than ever
@redfox Love them. Forces cars to slow down to a less than killing speed instead of a stop sign or light that can be blown through at 50 MPH. #CarsRuinEverything
Empty parking lots are a drag on America’s downtowns
"Our nation’s downtowns are full of these neglected spaces — surface lots of crumbling asphalt and weeds, emblematic of absentee property owners and a disregard for the public good. Other lots, not entirely abandoned, are often underused and unkept.
Surface lots occupy, on average, nearly a quarter of available land in city centers...They are holdover eyesores from the commuter past"
What Drives Republican Opposition to Transit?
Give credit to Aaron Freeman - This article on Urban-Rural divides in transit is full of "No Comments" and "Didn't Responds" but it seems Senator Freeman was willing to talk to them.
"GOP state lawmakers have often opposed new spending and infrastructure for public transit. The reasons have as much to do with the urban-rural divide as partisan ideology."
#transit #CarsRuinEverything #HoosierMast
More car owners are underwater on loans because of lower trade-in values
"In a new report, the car-shopping website found that 1 out of 5 new-vehicle sales that involved a trade-in were upside-down in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with 17.7 percent in the last quarter for 2022 and 14.9 percent in the same period for 2021."
(Gift article)
Advice | More car owners are underwater on loans because of lower trade-in values
Santa Monica spends $26K to provide free car storage, reaps no benefits
"It is apparent that the 3 hours of free parking did not encourage people to visit the downtown parking structures during the 2023 holiday season. Much like the 2020 analysis referenced above, it can be concluded that “Parker behavior may be driven by accessibility to the amenities by the parking facility and less on the benefit of free parking.”
#SantaMonica #parking #CarsRuinEverything
Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies
"In recent years, insurance companies have offered incentives to people who install dongles in their cars or download smartphone apps that monitor their driving, including how much they drive, how fast they take corners, how hard they hit the brakes and whether they speed...instead: Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles"
"Bike lanes are incredibly efficient. They generate no traffic unless there are astronomical numbers of cyclists in them. This can easily be perceived as “emptiness,” but does not mean the bike lane is not used..cycling on the street increased by more than 100 percent following the installation of the lane — more recent bicycle counts show a continued increase since."
I wonder if there are any studies on bike lane perceived emptiness.
Understanding Car Culture 'Denialism' Can Help Safety Advocates Respond - Streetsblog New York City
Make Safe Streets a Culture War and We All Lose
"Making a fight against SUVs part of the culture wars is a dumb, ultimately losing, strategy. Dumb, dumb, super dumb.
There is so much shared experience to build from. Lean into that—don't do anything to distract from it."
The author suggests redesigning roads to be safer as a better solution. To be sure, but a lot more expensive and difficult one as well.
#UrbanPlanning #CarsRuinEverything
Will America ever stop building more highways?
"As the planet warms, some activists are fighting back — citing the future emissions of adding lanes and the devastation faced by communities razed to make way for them. Their push against giant multilane highways represents an emerging frontier for the environmental movement, which has historically been more focused on fossil fuel projects than seven-lane roads."
#environment #CarsRuinEverything
Driving to Isolation: Why Churches in American Struggle to Answer the Loneliness Epidemic
"The biggest enemy of connection, inside and outside the church, is not the Internet, or politics, or lack of opportunities to gather, give, and grow. That title belongs to one uniquely Western cultural force, one that we’re so accustomed to swimming in that we’ve forgotten we’re even in it: car-dependent sprawl."
@glightly I've decided on #CarsRuinEverything
Why do we have right-on-red, and is it time to get rid of it?
Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, Washington, DC, Raleigh, North Carolina, and other major cities have recently proposed or passed laws banning it in parts of their busy downtowns or citywide. They believe it will protect people walking and biking amid the highest number of pedestrian fatalities in more than 40 years.
How the 1970s oil crisis created the right turn on red | CNN Business
Red-Light Running Then — and Now?
(This is from back in 2000)
"(Minnesota) seventh grader Lydia Sorenson, who counted red-light runners for a science project...She said that before the study, she had expected to see maybe 10 red-light runners total. But 14 drivers ran the light on the first day alone. There were 70 total in the nine hours she counted, which she extrapolated to 217 a month — 2,604 a year."
https://streets.mn/2024/01/18/red-light-running-then-and-now/
Golf cart sales surge as US families find unlikely alternative to second cars
"Golf carts are becoming the second car of choice for families across the US, with the market anticipated to surge to more than $2 billion (£1.57 billion) within the next few years.
In retirement villages, residential communities, university campuses and small towns, it is becoming commonplace to see people driving themselves around in golf carts."
#golfcarts #CarsRuinEverything
Golf cart sales surge as US families find unlikely alternative to second cars
