Over the past six years, Paris has done more than almost any city in the world to take space back from cars. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has opened linear parks in the old highways along the Seine, phased out diesel cars in the city, opened bus lanes, raised parking meter prices, and plowed bike lanes down hundreds of streets
The question of alternatives is the fundamental question.
walk\able
adding page this day:
@CityLab
In a world where most cars are driving themselves, pedestrians could reign supreme trib.al/p9lKMd6
pedestrians usually end up the defense, watching for traffic before timidly lifting a foot off the sidewalk.
But with all the evidence that robots will drive far more safely and with greater adherence to the law than people, pedestrians’ incentives around safety will change. They may simply cross when they want to, confident that the vigilant AVs won’t touch them. Following that conclusion, Millard-Ball suggests that pedestrians may also be more empowered to jaywalk. Kids may play in the streets (like the olden days!). And cyclists may be more confident to “take the lane” and ride on streets without special bike lanes.
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walk\able cities – Andres.. and Jeff
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how large is a city street neighborhood that functions capably? if we look as successful street-neighborhood networks in real life, we find this is a meaningless question, because wherever they work best, street neighborhoods have no beginnings and ends setting them apart as distinct units. – Jane Jacobs
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Leyla Acaroglu (@LeylaAcaroglu) tweeted at 5:23 AM – 25 Nov 2017 :
The power of good design based on systems interactions “Road signs suck. What if we got rid of them all?” https://t.co/sAGX0w0FtI via @voxdotcom #design #urbandesign #systemsdesign (http://twitter.com/LeylaAcaroglu/status/934397099545956353?s=17)
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Robin Chase (@rmchase) tweeted at 5:20 AM – 11 Apr 2018 :
If ever there were a strong rationale for improving walking, biking, shared vehicles this is it. Gasp at annual cost of parking in cities https://t.co/mIzaUaQkSG (http://twitter.com/rmchase/status/984028447835115520?s=17)
1/3 of urban driving costs are for parking (other costs also include time lost to congestion)
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via sandy rt
Kaid Benfield (@Kaid_in_DC) tweeted at 5:57 AM – 11 Apr 2018 :
Excellent insights & facts on the sometimes convoluted politics of sidewalks from @completestreets director Emiko A. https://t.co/ue3joHNSht(http://twitter.com/Kaid_in_DC/status/984037742551150592?s=17)
In Shel Silverstein’s beloved children’s poetry collection, “Where the Sidewalk Ends”is a paradisal space, free from the pressures of the city. “Let us leave this place where the smoke blows back,” he wrote, “and the dark street winds and bends… to the place where the sidewalk ends.”
The suburbs have seen their own increase in population and, with it, numerous traffic woes, which have prompted locals to consider alternative modes of transportation. ..Along the way, sidewalks have come to represent the chaotic intersection of infrastructure budgeting, safety concerns, and property rights in communities across the country.
So why don’t we just pour a little concrete out for these walkers? Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, an expert in urban planning at the University of California Los Angeles, says it goes back to the Shel Silverstein days.
“There is this perception… that if we have sidewalks, we’re going to bring people who do not belong to our neighborhoods,” she says.
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for those unable to grok interp labor ness.. but are walkers and/or bikers .. kind of like this..
Martyn Schmoll (@martynschmoll) tweeted at 2:30 PM – 22 May 2018 :
Pedestrians: wear bright or reflective clothing, remove earbuds, make eye contact with drivers, cross only at crosswalks, never talk, text or use electronic devices in an intersection. Drivers: carry on. #CarCulture https://t.co/Zocg1LXQzD (http://twitter.com/martynschmoll/status/999024639174168576?s=17
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Maggie Jordan: (@MaggieJordanACN) tweeted at 2:34 PM – 30 Jul 2018 :
This pedestrian bridge in Vietnam was opened to the public in June.
Known as the Golden Bridge, it stands 1,400m above sea level above the Ba Na hills and is a work of art. https://t.co/jveuu5kySB (http://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/status/1024030491027099649?s=17)
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CityLab (@CityLab) tweeted at 6:06 AM – 17 Oct 2018 :
City planner and author @JeffSpeckAICP gives us a step-by-step guide to fixing America’s cities. https://t.co/CfzT6vPlad(http://twitter.com/CityLab/status/1052531168481021952?s=17)
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World Economic Forum (@wef) tweeted at 6:30 AM – 12 Nov 2018 :
Reclaiming the roads. Learn more about cities banning cars: https://t.co/XTa1C4xk6h #environment https://t.co/WQG3rFzljD(http://twitter.com/wef/status/1061974394845757440?s=17)
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CityLab (@CityLab) tweeted at 6:42 AM – 28 Nov 2018 :
The United States has as many as two billion parking spots for about 250 million cars, @mslaurabliss reports: https://t.co/Wg2kkyUuhA(http://twitter.com/CityLab/status/1067775697714855936?s=17)
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jeff speck‘s walk able city and walk able city rules (notes on his page)
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Jeff Speck (@JeffSpeckAICP) tweeted at 6:09 AM – 18 Dec 2018 :
According to one study, subsidies to roads and parking alone add up to between 8% and 10% of our Gross National Product. As noted in Rule 1, it is estimated that we are paying less than one tenth of the true cost of our driving. (2/3) (http://twitter.com/JeffSpeckAICP/status/1075015157791772672?s=17)
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Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) tweeted at 4:01 AM – 15 Jun 2019 :
This letter from leading British scientists warns that shifting to electric cars by 2050 will require a violent increase in resource extraction. We need to replace combustion cars with electric, yes. But more importantly, we need to reduce car use. https://t.co/WFAlznIWZL(http://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1139835202086133760?s=17)
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Now THAT’S pedestrian infrastructure.
(You THINK you know what this video is, but trust me, you don’t. Watch.)
HT @AGUSMARTE https://t.co/5wkxeJM2bw
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1189223564228120581
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CityLab (@CityLab) tweeted at 5:26 AM – 11 Dec 2019 :
Safety advocates have long complained that media outlets tend to blame pedestrians and cyclists who are hit by cars. Research suggests they’re right, writes @Richard_Florida. https://t.co/CX4KrL9wp9 (http://twitter.com/CityLab/status/1204739124973985793?s=17)Since 2013, deaths among pedestrians and cyclists on U.S. roads have risen by nearly 30 percent and 14 percent respectively. Yet the public reaction to this spike in deaths has been fairly muted. . One possible reason: road safety advocates have long complained that media outlets tend to blame pedestrians and cyclists who are hit by cars
News reports were also much more likely to use phrases like “a pedestrian or cyclist was hit by a car” instead of “a driver hit a pedestrian.”.. “A pedestrian was hit by a car” centers the victim getting hit—and as the authors note, “[p]eople tend to place greater blame on the focus of the sentence,” i.e., the victim. This kind of language de-emphasizes the agency of the driver
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Alissa Walker (@awalkerinLA) tweeted at 12:00 PM – 3 Jan 2020 :
Last year, no children under 15 died in roadway crashes anywhere in the country of Norway, which has a population of about 5.3 million.
In the U.S., traffic collisions are the leading cause of death for children under 15.
https://t.co/zbv0SIVUXr (http://twitter.com/awalkerinLA/status/1213173190265933824?s=17)Imagine a city the size of Washington D.C. going an entire year without any pedestrians or cyclists being killed on its streets. That’s exactly what happened in Oslo, where officials reported this week that zero pedestrian or cyclist fatalities occurred on the city’s roads in 2019.
According to a story in the Norwegian paper Aftenposten, safety advocates are directly attributing the virtual elimination of roadway deaths to recent initiatives which have allowed fewer cars into the city’s center.
also lowered the speed limit,
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It’s hard to overstate how awesome it is when we have the freedom to NOT own a car. #CompleteCommunities @ridewcbc @rideshareDE @Dartfirststate @DEStateHousing @rmchase https://t.co/RisUoAPlLkhttps://t.co/pBvzarH84L
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/Bike_DE/status/1214982668816920576
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from Ryan Holiday”s stillness:
take a walk
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friedrich nietzsche – ‘it is only ideas gained form walking that have any worth’
walk able ness
every afternoon in copenhagen.. k never seemed to walk straight – he zigged/zagged, crossing the street w/o notice, trying to always remain in the shade. when he had either worn himself out, worked thru what he was struggling with, or been struck w a good idea, he would run around and make for home, where he would write for the rest of the day.. walking was how he released the stress and frustration that his philosophical explorations inevitably created
to his sister in law, who was often bedridden and depressed as a result, k wrote of the importance of walking.. ‘above all’ he told her in 1847 ‘do not lose your desire to walk: every day i walk myself into a state of well being and walk away from every illness; i have walked myself into my best thoughts, and i know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it’
k believed that sitting still was a kind of breeding ground for illness. but walking, movement, to him was almost sacred.. it cleansed the soul and cleared the mind in away that primed his explorations as a philosopher.. life is a path, he liked to say, we have to walk it..
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while k eloquent in his writing about walking.. he was by no means alone in his dedication to the practice.. tesla, hemingway, darwin, jobs, tversky, kahneman, king jr, whtiman, grant, .. freud, composer mahler spent as much as four hours a day walking to jot down ideas.. beethoven carried sheet music and writing utensil on walks for same reason.. , dorothy day, jesus,
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how does walking – activity – get us closer to stillness..? yes, in motion, but not frenzied/conscious motion.. it’s repetitive, ritualized motion.. deliberate.. an exercise of peace
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key to a good walk is to be aware/present.. breathe..
consider who might have walked this very spot in the centuries before you
? why that.. that’s not being present..
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feel the unfamiliarity, get lost, be unreachable. go slowly..
it’s an affordable luxury available to us all
what.. ? i don’t think so (ie: anne frank)
researchers at stanford have found that walker perform better on tests that measure ‘creative divergent thinking’.. treatment for depression
ugh to the tests..
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in our own search for beauty and what i s good in life, we would do well to head outside and wander around..
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on turning cities over to cyclers/walkers during virus ness: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/11/world-cities-turn-their-streets-over-to-walkers-and-cyclists
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why we walk – on flâneuse by lauren elkin- via maria: https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/05/21/flaneuse-lauren-elkin/
Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.
Why do I walk? I walk because I like it. I like the rhythm of it, my shadow always a little ahead of me on the pavement. I like being able to stop when I like, to lean against a building and make a note in my journal, or read an email, or send a text message, and for the world to stop while I do it. Walking, paradoxically, allows for the possibility of stillness.
Sometimes I walk because I have things on my mind, and walking helps me sort them out. Solvitur ambulando, as they say.
I became suspicious of an entirely vehicle-based culture; a culture that does not walk is bad for women. It makes a kind of authoritarian sense; a woman who doesn’t wonder — what it all adds up to, what her needs are, if they’re being met — won’t wander off from the family. The layout of the suburbs reinforces her boundaries: the neat grid, the nearby shopping centre, the endless loops of parkways, where the American adventure of the open road is tamed by the American dream
I had to walk around to understand where I was in space, how places related to each other. Some days I’d cover five miles or more, returning home with sore feet and a story or two for my room-mates. I saw things I’d never seen in New York. Beggars (Roma, I was told) who knelt rigidly in the street, heads bowed, holding signs asking for money, some with children, some with dogs; homeless people living in tents, under stairways, under arches. Every quaint Parisian nook had its corresponding misery. I turned off my New York apathy and gave what I could. Learning to see meant not being able to look away; to walk in the streets of Paris was to walk the thin line of fate that divided us from each other.
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on lawns and walk\ing\ness and walk\able ness
Golf is so weird. Huge swathes of landscape culled and privatised because men are too scared to just ask their friend if they want to go for a walk
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/tomhouslay/status/1299745504545378304
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the liberation from cars is working – 2021 article on paris – https://slate.com/business/2021/09/paris-cars-bicycles-walking-david-belliard-anne-hidalgo.html
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be you. 