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.
The High Cost of Free Parking in Boulder
Over the last year or so, I’ve been involved with the planning and design of the public space which will accompany some of the first re-developments in the Transit Village/Boulder Junction, mostly Pearl Parkway between 30th St. and the railroad tracks. I’ve primarily given feedback as a cyclist and pedestrian — someone who uses our streets under my own power. Even in Boulder, those of us who don’t own, and only very rarely use private motor vehicles are still unusual. Nevertheless, the long term goal of the TVAP is to have 60% of all trips in the region done by foot, bike or transit — anything but the much loved and loathed single occupancy vehicle (SOV). I was particularly taken by something Tim Plass said in the PLAN Boulder election forum this fall when asked to envision Boulder 30 years in the future: Every once in a while you’ll see an electric car on the road, but mostly it’ll be bikes and pedestrians and transit. I agree with these goals; we should pursue them vigorously. But the city being described by Plass and the TVAP is very different from the status quo today, and it’s difficult to take the steps necessary to realize it. Sometimes I think of myself as a time-traveling constituent from this future city, describing what it is that we will want then, when the majority of people aren’t driving a private car everywhere they go. One thing that I’m confident we won’t want is so much “free” parking.
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.
Corporate Spy Agencies and NGO Spies
A vast signals intelligence industry exists, and will sell its wares (including satellite data interception and undersea fiber-optic cable tapping) to any and all comers. Ironically, they were infiltrated by agents from Privacy International, a London-based NGO. Apparently the industry isn’t yet using its own technology to defend against critics. One has to wonder how long that situation will last.