Fellow snowbelt folks: what is your number one tip for clearing a sidewalk of snow? Having a weirdly hard time finding a guide that's specifically geared towards plowing so pedestrians of all ability levels can move comfortably and thinking about compiling one of my own.
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Maybe someday, more politicians will give full-throated support to multimodal transportation policies because the climate emergency demands it. But until they do: *call it a safety policy.* Because it'll have the same emissions benefit either way.
Improving Road Safety Is A Win For The Climate, Too — Streetsblog USA
Closing the notorious "fatality target" loophole wouldn't just save lives — it'd help save the human species from climate catastrophe, too.
ok so who's going to invite me, Kea Wilson, to moderate a panel featuring Portland mayor Keith Wilson and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, thereby unleashing Maximum Multimodal Wilson.
Mayor Wilson: 'We have to be the biggest bike mode city in the nation'
He made the comments at an event attended by business and tourism officials.
If you need a break from The Horrors, I dug into a wonky but super important bill that would make it possible to use transportation funds to build housing and other important destinations near transit, and why TOD deserves a lot more airtime in the conversation about building livable places.
A Few Legal Tweaks Could Unlock A Mother Lode of Housing Near Transit — Streetsblog USA
It's time to help communities use federal financing to build housing near transit, a new bill argues.
On the most basic level, transportation reform advocates need to speak out about ICE violence because it is a barrier to movement for countless migrants, brown people, protestors, and anyone else who ICE targets. But there are deeper reasons why this is our issue, too. Explored a few on the pod.
What's A Transportation Reformer's Role In the Fight Against ICE Violence? — Streetsblog USA
Migrants and protestors are being killed in the streets by ICE agents. What should transportation reform advocates do?
On Saturday we ride for Alex Pretti
1:00pm at Washburn Fair Oaks Park
From Angry Catfish:
“We're asking folks to host rides and come together. Bike shops and non-profits, cycling orgs and alt cycling collectives, city and rural. We are many but we stand together as one.”
They will create a world so dangerous that you feel you have no choice except to drive a car, or own a gun, or flee a country that they violently destabilized. And they will use that car, that gun, that decision to seek asylum as an excuse to shoot and kill you.
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The TLDR: nearly 70 percent of people these researchers surveyed either already had, were strongly interested in, or were open to the idea of living car-free. In US communities, which routinely punish people for living car free with death and indignity.
Now: imagine if we didn't punish them.
Does anyone know of any solid research around driving anxiety and how it impedes mobility/access? Ideally would love to look specifically about how this impacts people across different age groups, particularly seniors who can "still drive" on paper but functionally can't most of the time.
Fascinated by this report, which found that the average US city is delivering transit at a *fifth* of the level that our peers in other countries are — but closing the gap could be done, in our lifetimes, with a lot less money than it cost to build the highway system.
Extremely late to the party on Kim Stanley Robinson's excellent novel, Ministry for the Future, which did such a beautiful job of narrativizing both the dangers of and solutions to climate change, including the sector that we have the weakest collective imagination about (transportation.)
I want to be clear here that fascistic regimes don't really need a pretext to kill people who oppose them. But we make it a whole lot easier when we force everyone into a 4,000 pound vehicle that governments can credibly claim could be weaponized at any moment, or not, as suits their purposes.
When the Government Says You're 'Weaponizing' Your Car — Streetsblog USA
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers have been brutalizing and killing people who they perceive as threats. Is mass automobility multiplying their pretext to do it?
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This is the kind of sentence in articles about transit cuts that make me furious.
People don't just "have less opportunity for transportation access." They are confined to their homes, miss work, skip school, forgo medical care. This drives people deeper into poverty, and often, *it kills them.*
So smart to rebrand the "Reconnecting Communities" program as "repairing" American infrastructure, by reimagining things like downtown highways as people-first places that can address housing shortages, create jobs, and more. This shouldn't be partisan; it's just good policy.
New Bill Would Help 'REPAIR' America's Worst Infrastructure — By Reimagining It For People — Streetsblog USA
The concept of "reconnecting communities" torn apart by federal infrastructure has come under fire by GOP leaders in Washington. This Senator says it's time to renew the program anyway — and more than...
Not saying anyone should hack a variable messaging sign to send a message to drivers...but if you theoretically did, we came up with some punny suggestions that are perfect for the holidays.
Denver Activists Hijack Road Signs To Decry The Dangers of Automobility — Streetsblog USA
Plus: a few suggestions for holiday-themed hackers.
Heading back from my grandmother's funeral, and want to say how much I appreciate Amtrak in times like this. An affordable last-minute ticket, a comfortable seat, some comfort food from the cafe car and unhurried trip with no TSA shakedown was exactly the rest I needed in a difficult time.
Stoked to have a new interview with Katie Wilson (no relation), Seattle's new mayor, Transit Riders Union co-founder, and living proof that bold vision for (and wonky obsession with) transportation reform can win elections.
'I'm Always on the Bus': How Transit Advocacy Helped Katie Wilson Become Seattle's Next Mayor — Streetsblog USA
"I really think that our public transit system is such a big part of people's daily experience of government," says the incoming mayor of the Emerald City.
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It sucks that we have to write this same article over and over again every year, but I always appreciate it when larger media outlets do it, even if they never quite hit the most important point: that we won't solve this without confronting car dependency itself.
The deadliest roads in America
The number of pedestrians killed by vehicles has increased in the U.S., with road infrastructure and inadequate safety measures among key contributing factors.
I was really proud to write an endorsement for
@carterlavin.bsky.social's book, which is essential reading for anyone who wants to turn their theoretical love of stuff like biking, walking, buses, and mobility justice into political campaigns that actually change our world. Get a preview here. 👇
This Author Wrote the Book on How to Be a Better Transportation Advocate — Streetsblog USA
Step one: read this book.
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The Trump administration wants to do two unbelievably dumb things that would collectively devastate mass transit in America — and be *epically bad for drivers, too,* especially in red states. Broke down the (many) problems with nuking the mass transit account and taking away flex funding.
Breaking: Trump Admin Seeks To Decimate Federal Transit Funding — Streetsblog USA
"When you're talking about taking away money from transit, your proposal is flawed from the get-go," said one expert.
Eavesdropping in a coffeeshop, and the guy at the table next to me is talking about how the most-watched videos in prison media rooms are walking tours of major cities, because even just the visual and sonic experience is therapeutic when you don't have freedom of movement. 💔
The highest-ranking transportation congressman is saying that biking & walking paths aren't "traditional infrastructure" and don't deserve funding in the next federal transportation bill. Broke down why that's historically inaccurate, morally wrong, and *possible to defeat* — if we organize.
House T&I Chair Vows ‘No Money for Bikes or Walking’ in Fed Transportation Bill — Streetsblog USA
The outlook for active transportation won't be good if advocates don't stand up.
Wrote about Waymo's co-CEO acknowledging that even she thinks traffic violence is inevitable, what's wrong with aiming for "fewer" road deaths rather than demanding zero, and the way automobility limits our imagination and our empathy.
The False 'Trolley Problem' At the Heart of the Autonomous Vehicle Debate — Streetsblog USA
Waymo said it has a "plan" for when one of the company's cars kills someone. But we should be planning for a world when no car kills anyone — autonomous or not.
Horrifying, heartbreaking, and something everyone who counts themselves as a member of the Safe Routes to School movement should absolutely be speaking out about.
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