Category: linkstream

A running log of all the links/bookmarks I share.

Taking Parking Lots Seriously, as Public Spaces

An article from the New York Times about the architecture of parking lots, and how they might be much better used as public spaces with some design tweaks. Some cities like Houston and LA, dedicate a full third of their land area to parking lots, creating hard paved urban deserts and storm runoff disasters. They say that simply suggesting that we “buy fewer cars” is glib (I disagree) but clearly point out the folly of requiring vast quantities of parking by law, and then giving it away for free, thus hiding the true costs.

More Roads = More Traffic

A new study from the University of Toronto clearly shows that additional free road capacity — either from adding actual road, or shifting people from driving to transit — has no effect on congestion.  Traffic expands to fill the available capacity, no matter how much you add, and the net public benefit from the investment in additional road capacity is negative.

Alex Steffen’s SXSW Eco Keynote

Alex Steffen gave one of the keynotes, at the first SXSW Eco Conference this fall, talking about good cities as the single best leverage point we have in reducing GHG emissions.  It’s broadly the same collection of ideas as his forthcoming crowdfunded book Carbon Zero: A Short Tour of Your City’s Future.  Looking forward to its eventual release.

The Joy of Slow Cities

It’s entirely possible that in The Future, we’ll come to realize that slower cities are better than fast.  A city in which the fastest thing on the street is a bicycle is a place for living, for being, for enjoying in its own right.  Walking, chatting, stopping on a whim at any shop or park or patio.  We were lulled into a view of the future that was all high speed and high energy by the explosive industrialization of the early 20th century.  But our visions of the future can and do change.  We get to define what progress means.

Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air

Sustainable Energy, without the Hot Air by David MacKay, is a book (available in its entirety online) looking at the sources of energy available, and the ways in which we use it today.  There are lots of options, but any real discussion has to, at the very least, use numbers that add up.

Parking Price Elasticity in San Francisco

Prices affect parking less than San Francisco expected, in its ongoing SFPark experiment, fully implementing dynamic parking prices with target occupancy rates.  Apparently people are willing to pay quite a bit more to be right next to their destination, instead of even one block away.  Either that, or they don’t realize how much parking prices vary block by block.  Perhaps each of the parking kiosks should have a prominent street-facing display, readable by drivers, advertizing the price they charge per hour?

How the Dutch got their bike on

In the post-war era (the 1950s and 1960s) the Netherlands started down the car-dependent re-development path. Much of the country needed to be re-built, and the nation became wealthy quickly, and then oil and gas were discovered off shore. Then they realized that designing for the automobile came at far too high a price in both blood and treasure and mass protests nationwide reversed the country’s transportation investment policies, returning to the human powered cities we’ve build for millennia. Change is possible.

Twelve Car-Free City Zones

Twelve Car-Free City Zones in photos, from National Geographic.  Many north americans can’t really imagine what cities are like without cars.  It took me a long time to realize that what I didn’t like about cities wasn’t the urban space, it was the fact that here, it tends to be infested with rude 1500 kg beasts.

Senate Wants The Military To Lock You Up Without Trial

Uh… so a bill in the US Senate with bipartisan support would allow the military to lock up citizens indefinitely without trial.  That would be unconstitutional, right?  Like, the Supreme Court would overturn it, right?  Obama will veto it, right?  Am I dreaming here?  And both parties are in favor of this?  Are you kidding?  How fucking timid can you be?  Any statement even remotely resembling this should be a clear poison pill, with the bill going down in flames, even if it is the Defense Authorization.