@768kb especially when a council's budget is tight, investing in cycling is the financially sound choice, since its infrastructure is far cheaper while providing way more capacity per unit of investment and surface area required.
Furthermore, cyclist spend more on local businesses than car users which don't stop that spontaneously. Cars also mean, people might take longer trips for shopping and thereby carry people's money out of town where no local tax revenue is generated. @kim_harding
@eliasp@kim_harding I agree, but it’s all complicated by budgets not just being tight but negative - story in the Guardian today about councils borrowing over 50 years at high rates just to cover social services etc. in the wake of the Kwasi budget.
Add to that reactionary right-wing press and the need to court votes; I think the main issue is a lack of understanding by the general populace of the sheer cost of maintaining roads for them all to sit in traffic jams in.
A cyclist is hit and killed in full daylight by the driver of a black pickup, in Salem Oregon.
It is revealed that the driver who killed the cyclist was an on-duty DEA agent embedded in the Salem police department, so the case is handed over to Keizer PD to investigate.
Camera footage reveals the driver (DEA agent) was speeding on a residential street, ran a stop sign when he hit the cyclist, who had the right of way and was coming down a steep hill. Driver stopped but did not aide the dying cyclist.
Driver is indicted for negligence, arrested, released on bail.
Latest development: lawyer for the defendant (DEA agent) petitioned to have the case held in federal court, because he could use law enforcement immunity as a defense in federal but not Oregon state court.
Prosecutors say that the agent was NOT actively pursuing a suspect or about to intervene in a drug deal.
So they're saying that simply being a DEA officer is enough to be allowed to do this. Seriously it's DEA policy that agents are allowed to break traffic laws, and they argue that means they can't have consequences for hitting and killing a person.
Fuck the #DEA. #FuckCars#FuckThePolice#Oregon#SafeStreets#cycling
Edited because my link at the top was broken!
right wing people loves them some law enforcement. Because allowing the
government to recklessly kill citizens is a bedrock of freedom.
either than or they are fascist fucks
Interesting that when I post stuff like this, there is always someone who pops up to try and say that there are no viable alternatives to cars. They always want to ignore all the damage done by cars because it is too inconvenient for them to face up to the facts!
@kim_harding Like, even if there were no viable alternative (which of course is bullshit), I've never understood how people can take “we can't fix the problem” to mean “it isn't a problem”.
But of course, we can fix the problem, so all that's moot.
What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?
A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.
Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I'm not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.
How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?
@ajsadauskas@fuck_cars I’m in Toronto’s Danforth area, so basically everything except a professional sports arena is within 5-20 mins walk.
The framing of that poll has such a sinister American conspiracy theorist edge: “if your local government decided…” — like having these things nearby can only be forced upon you and you must fight back.
Even if we can't have a 15 minute neighborhood, we could have a bus stop at the post office (which is close enough to 15 minutes of a fast walk or a jog), that then brings you 10 minutes away (by bus) to the town which does have all of these things within 15 minutes walk.
The 15 minute neighborhood concept should be expanded to put everything within 45 minutes, by a combination of public transit and walking, for rural towns where there's not a good way to build them closer.
This is the Fremantle Highway. Ordinarily this cargo ship does its bit to screw up our planet by burning lots of fossil fuel to transport cars which have already caused huge emissions in their construction and will cause more in their use.
Today it's learnt a special new trick: Of the 3000 cars onboard, 25 are electric and one of those has apparently set light to the whole cargo. As a result, we now have a huge plume of smoke just off our coast. Lots of extra CO2 emissions for absolutely no gain whatsoever. Lots of whatever you get from setting fire to a mix of materials including plastics and batteries for absolutely no gain whatsoever.
At least one crew member has died and others are seriously injured, with burns, broken bones and lung damage.
Cars destroy lives and our environment even before they are used, and they only go on to do more damage when they are used. There is no place for cars in a sustainable world.
@pixelcode And if you'd bothered to actually read the toot to which the first EV Stanner (@jaimevisser) replied before he blocked me then you'd realise that I did NOT state that the cause was definitely known, either in the original toot or any of my replies to it. We all await the result of an investigation. But until then it is accurate to report that the owners suggested that an electric car may have been the source: https://todon.eu/@hembrow/110780519182799543
Frankly, I'd expect the owner of the ship to have a lot more understanding about fires on their ships than a random group of pro-EV journalists at electrek keen to downplay any risk from their favoured mode of transport.
Cars are disaster for the environment, our health, and for our societies, whatever their power source.
@pixelcode@hembrow Indeed, petrol vehicles are not a safe technology either.
Not just from fires either, they introduce a significant health hazard throughout the entirety of their useful lifespan, and the industries required to keep them functioning have a dramatic impact on public health and the environment.
“The group got the idea for the conings by chance. The person claims a few of them walking together one night saw a cone on the hood of an AV, which appeared disabled. They weren’t sure at the time which came first; perhaps someone had placed the cone on the AV’s hood to signify it was disabled rather than the other way...
When I tell people that >20% of the population everywhere cannot drive, they always quibble about including children in that calculation. I think it says a lot about our car brained society that it's normal to think minors shouldn't have independent mobility.
@owen Yes! And also in my community (somewhat rural) having robust public transit can also mean that older people who maybe should be driving less have a legitimate option for driving less while still maintaining their independence. Safer.
