Just discovered one of my coworkers who drives to work actually gets here an hour early just to find a #parking spot. Says he just sits and waits for work to start. Claims to need a #car because the train takes too long. #carbrain#Brooklyn
@xtaran wonders about campaigns designed to boost cycling:
Q4. Given campaigns like #Frostpendeln, #30DaysOfBiking (this is happening right now!) or #Bike2Work: Which type of campaign motivates you most? Are you more looking for "as often as possible" (e.g. at least once per day, outbrave any weather) or more at the distance ("see how "much you cycle get within some period")? Maybe regular group rides similar to a #CriticalMass? Or something completely different?
The bus is to me what the bike is to you. For me it wasn't the time (which is about the same) but the stress of driving in morning traffic, looking for parking, etc. I used to walk into work with my heart already racing. Now I get a soothing morning walk on the way to the bus stop. #publictransit#carbrain
@arstechnica what a fucking dystopia! As if there weren't enough cars on the roads, now we're adding more and more demand for them just to serve some lazy asses their curry, pizza, sushi or whatever.
One of the most annoying things about being an English-language content creator are the Americans who insist that everything must be about them.
I can make a video that never mentions the US once, and I will get hundreds of responses about the US.
I will get people claiming that I'm wrong because of some issue unique to the US.
I will get Americans telling me that I have a moral responsibility to help them fix their cities, despite the fact that I'm not American and I don't live there.
Exactly: internalisation!
Even the US engineers who are totally on bike safety's side still have vision clouded by car brain.
We have a councilperson here who once said, "I can't support bollards; Studies show that bollards hurt drivers who run into them."
THAT, my friends, is #CarBrain talking.
I blame no-one, it's 100 years of car culture.
And cultures change.
The way [some] kids playing with cars don't go "vroom" anymore, they go "Eeeeeee" 😎
Summarises car-related harm including crashes, pollution, land use, and injustices.
1 in 34 deaths are caused by cars and automobility with 1,670,000 deaths per year.
Cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people since their invention.
Car harm will continue unless policies change; example interventions are discussed.
Abstract
Despite the widespread harm caused by cars and automobility, governments, corporations, and individuals continue to facilitate it by expanding roads, manufacturing larger vehicles, and subsidising parking, electric cars, and resource extraction. This literature review synthesises the negative consequences of automobility, or car harm, which we have grouped into four categories: violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental damage. We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility. Cars have exacerbated social inequities and damaged ecosystems in every global region, including in remote car-free places. While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it. Slowing automobility's violence and pollution will be impracticable without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with policies that reduce it. To that end, the paper briefly summarises interventions that are ready for implementation.
Yesterday a road-raging toy pickup driver called me a dick for crossing the street. I told him to GET A JOB. Then, about a dozen chemistry grad students laughed at him from the sidewalk. I hope he's still mad.
@rbellinger Sure, bikes are fun, healthy, an extremely efficient/fast way to get around, cheap, and on and on.. but perhaps the best thing about them is the way that they short-circuit #CarBrain every time.
The saga of Waverley Park — Melbourne's car-dependent suburban AFL stadium with a planned seated capacity of over 150,000 (not a typo!)
A really good run down by @philip on the plans by the AFL (and its predecessor, the VFL) to build the world's largest stadium in outer-suburban Melbourne.
Unfortunately, a planned railway line past the stadium to Rowville was never built. That meant a massive 25,000-spot car park as the only real means to get there.
While most of it has been demolished and redeveloped for housing, the oval itself still used by Hawthorn Football Club as a training and administration centre.
I still think the most under-reported, most holy shit tech story of the last 5+ years is how good e-bikes have gotten and how much more affordable a decent e-bike has become.
E-cars and trucks are a nice change but mostly meh. E-bikes, tho? They are magic.
They deserve subsidies and way more press attention.
I ascribe it to English-language people suffering from #CarBrain, and since English-language journalists are of that culture it's hard for them to go around the blind spot. Same for EVs that are buses, by the way.
But yeah, worldwide, the EV revolution came on TWO wheels. Here's a thread
Red state attempts to tell city what to do / not do. This is the kind of delay tactics that is the current brand of #ClimateDenial. Helped by #CarBrain that says bus riders are undeserving.
" The bill targeted Indianapolis and could have scuttled over one hundred million dollars in federal funds. Specifically, the bill put a one year moratorium on dedicated lanes deemed essential for the Blue Line while a one year study could be conducted on their effectiveness."
But the delay tactic has been foiled, and now #Indianapolis is getting a third line in its bus rapid transit system. BRT means that buses get a dedicated lane (so they don't get stuck in car traffic). #CarBrain, which believes it owns the entire street, hates that.
"The Blue Line rapid transit system has been recommended to receive roughly $140 million in support from the federal government."
Periodic reminder that space flight is cool, alt-right billionaires are not. You can get to space without fashy billionaires.
The same Tesla fans who are completely shocked that BYD sells more cars, will also be surprised to know that China has its own space station, and is ahead of the US in the race to a manned mission to Mars.
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.