@straphanger@urbanists.social
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

straphanger

@straphanger@urbanists.social

Nulla dies sine linea.

Author of Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile. Advocate for bicycles, transit, walking, alternatives to the car...and great cities.

Words in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian, L'actualité, The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal.

The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past now out from Greystone. www.lostsupper.blog

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

straphanger, to random
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

I’ve been in for the last few days. Fair-sized EU city with a metro population of 1.28 million.

You might expect a city that size to have a metro system. It doesn’t. There are DART trains, but that’s a commuter service.

The LUAS tram system is great, but limited…🧵

video/mp4

straphanger, to Canada
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

The press is dying in (pop. 40 million+) and the US (pop 330M +). Here are the daily papers on the newsstands in (pop. 5 million). Irish, English, etc. Dead jealous!

video/mp4

straphanger, to random
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

One of a wandering ’s great pleasures: nabbing the front seat of the upper level of a (non-tourist) double-decker bus—the 77A, direction Pearse DART station, . Putting my Leap farecard to good use!

video/mp4

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

Now riding the DART ( Area Rapid Transit) out to Howth. The city’s electrified commuter rail network, serving 53 stations. A bit like ’s S-Bahn, mash-up of commuter rail and urban service. 10 mn headways, though 35 mn this Sunday.

video/mp4

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

Ok, this is mad. You have to tap your Leap card before you get on the train, but also when you get out of the DART train. But at the Howth terminus, there’s only one card reader. So 100s of passengers jostle to tap out. At least put out more readers! Grumble grumble.

image/jpeg

straphanger, to random
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

This is brilliant: has “fare capping” on its public transport. When you buy a LEAP farecard, you get charged a max. of €8 a day, or €32 / wk, no matter how many rides you take on commuter rail/DART/trams/buses. More here:

https://t.co/07Wo7uWwbO

image/jpeg

straphanger, to Quebec
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

City is amazing.

But when it comes to , it deserves more than one funicular, two ferries, and...
🧵

video/mp4

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

...public staircases...

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

and a network of buses, none of them true Bus Rapid Transit.

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

A tramway should have been a no-brainer! Yet over $500M has already been spent, and not a metre of track laid.

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

I dig deeper in my latest dispatch:

https://www.straphanger.blog/quebec-city-can-do-better/

straphanger, to random
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

Modified mufflers, stock exhausts, drag bikes—and helicopters.

THE CITY IS TOO DAMN LOUD! 📢

Now NY is using $35,000 anti-noise cameras with mics to fine drivers whose cars go past 85 decibels.

Other cities too...
🧵

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/even-stock-exhausts-arent-safe-181300338.html

image/png

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

In they're deploying these "Hydre" anti-noise radar cameras, made by a company called Bruitparif. Note the heavily armored cages around the mics.

https://www.linternaute.com/auto/conduite/3146237-article-ter/

image/jpeg

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

aka Le radar anti-vroum-vroum (!) This ones called the Medusa (like a jellyfish—or the snake-headed Greek monster)

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

This one's been installed in . Fines from 90€ to 750€.

https://actu.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/bron_69029/grand-lyon-le-premier-radar-anti-bruit-fera-tomber-les-amendes-des-2024_60763500.html

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

In re:

NEW RESEARCH: "Desire for a loud car with a modified muffler is predicted by higher scores on psychopathy and sadism."

From a sample of 529 (52% men) undergraduate business students.

https://cipp.ug.edu.pl/A-desire-for-a-loud-car-with-a-modified-muffler-is-predicted-by-being-a-man-and-higher,162006,0,2.html

video/mp4

straphanger, to random
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

NEW RESEARCH: "Desire for a loud car with a modified muffler is predicted by higher scores on psychopathy and sadism."

From a sample of 529 (52% men) undergraduate business students.

https://cipp.ug.edu.pl/A-desire-for-a-loud-car-with-a-modified-muffler-is-predicted-by-being-a-man-and-higher,162006,0,2.html

video/mp4

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

To be added to the "No Shit, Sherlock" school-of-research files, along with:

STUDY: Drivers of luxury cars found to give pedestrians the right of way 3x less than those driving less expensive vehicles; 4x more likely to cut off other drivers, aka "The Audi Effect."

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118373109

video/mp4

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

My own (deeply scientific) study of this phenomenon can be found here:

https://www.straphanger.blog/the-audi-effect/

straphanger, to Germany
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

Too foot-weary to pedal that last hill home?

Put your bike on the Zahnradbahn.

In , the Stuttgart-to-Degerloch open bike-car has been taking bike-commuters up and downhill since 1983.

video/mp4

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

More on this beauty here. Don't call it a Gadgetbahn! Call it multimodal genius...

https://www.wired.com/2009/10/amazing-german-bike-carrying-train/

straphanger, to berlin
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

How much does it cost to use transit for a month where you live?

I ask b/c is bringing back €29 ($31 US) ticket, good for all regional trains, S-Bahn trains, subways, trams, buses.

In , where I live, its going up to $99 ($72 US)

https://www.the-berliner.com/politics/berlin-29-euro-ticket-explained-49-ticket-9-bvg-transport/

image/png

straphanger, to random
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

"We assume that car use is an incompressible liquid that must be routed somewhere. But it’s more like a gas that fills whatever space it is given.”

—Ian Lockwood, transport planner.

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

"The single-occupancy car is the original social-distancing machine. Knoflacher likens it to a virus—pathogen that's infiltrated its host (the city) & hijacked its molecular infrastructure to create a more welcoming environment for its own replication."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/pandemic-shows-what-cities-have-surrendered-cars/610423/

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

I've got my analogies of my own! (It's tempting to use the obvious one—metastasis.)

No matter how you slice it—there are too many damn cars on this planet. 1.47 billion at last count, and the global fleet has been doubling every 20 years.

I dig deeper in this dispatch:

https://www.straphanger.blog/there-are-too-many-damn-cars/

straphanger,
@straphanger@urbanists.social avatar

And making them run on lithium, cobalt, nickel—and often, electricity from coal—instead of petroleum isn't going to change the way they take up space.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • Durango
  • modclub
  • Youngstown
  • rosin
  • khanakhh
  • slotface
  • tacticalgear
  • mdbf
  • thenastyranch
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • JUstTest
  • osvaldo12
  • everett
  • tester
  • ethstaker
  • Leos
  • normalnudes
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ngwrru68w68
  • cubers
  • anitta
  • provamag3
  • cisconetworking
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •