Chicago's Bike Lanes Don't Hurt Businesses, City Report Finds

Taking imagery of bike lanes at risk and using it to help fix bike parking

We took street-level imagery on Bloor St, Yonge St, University Ave, Queen’s Park Cres, and Avenue Rd to create a digital record of bike lanes at risk from Ontario Bill 212 and to help analyze…

Taking imagery of bike lanes at risk and using it to help fix bike parking

We took street-level imagery on Bloor St, Yonge St, University Ave, Queen’s Park Cres, and Avenue Rd to create a digital record of bike lanes at risk from Ontario Bill 212 and to help analyze and improve bike parking

Gov. Phil Murphy signs e-bike bill criticized by bike advocates • New Jersey Monitor

Bill supporters say they want to increase public safety. Critics say the bill targets low-income e-bike users.

The curb-cut effect

The curb-cut effect illustrates how when we design to benefit disadvantaged or vulnerable groups we end up helping society as a whole. Angela Glover Blackwell explains how campaigning by students with disabilities in Berkeley in the early 1970s led to adding curb cuts to the Berkeley sidewalks to make access easier for those in wheelchairs. Yet it wasn't just people in wheelchairs that it helped. Curb cuts also made life easier for people pushing children in strollers, people using trolleys for deliveries, people pulling a suitcase, those wheeling bikes or on skateboards, and it also helps save lives by guiding people to cross at safe locations. Another example is adding closed captioning to TV that helps anyone watch in a noisy bar, a waiting room, or watching an airline safety video. Or a classic example of universal design in the OXO Good Grips range originally made to be comfortable for holding a peeler even if you have arthritis. It's also a useful analogy for "how laws and programs designed to benefit vulnerable groups, such as the disabled or people of color, often end up benefiting all," (PolicyLink) whether that be increasing broadband access, improving public transport or taking cuts out of curbs. Here's a short, fun video of Gary Karp explaining the curb-cut effect. Thanks to my patron Quintin Balsdon for sharing it with me.

Taking imagery of bike lanes in Toronto: 60,000 photos later…

Imagery Update After a summer and fall of taking 360 imagery of bike lanes, I finished capturing street-level imagery of all the protected bike lanes in the City’s dataset. The last segment on November 8 was the final part of the new Harbord St bike lanes E of Grace St. So far, I’ve captured over…

Why They Don’t Want You Driving a Chinese Car

Politicians say they have “national security concerns.” In fact, Chinese cars are better and cheaper, and American corporations know they can’t survive market competition.

Streets are made for talking: so that's what we did - Bridges For Communities

We’ve been trying something new at Bridges. Popping up on high streets and town centres in Bristol to talk to people about community life and the issues that are impacting […]

Dissecting Doug Ford’s Bike Lane Removal Annoucement

A blog about cycling and political advocacy based in Toronto, Canada. (#BikeTO)

Dissent

If something has a lot of very bad externalities, and just the ones we know about are visibly, obviously causing major damage to important physical, social and informational ecosystems around us, then “lots of people want it” just isn’t a compelling argument.

From Redlining to Greenlining: The Political Ecology of Race, Class, and Access to Green Space in Oakland, California from 1937-2020

Author(s): Corbin, Chryl Natasha Elaine | Advisor(s): Morelli-Frosch, Rachel | Abstract: Since the 1960s, Oakland, California, has been represented as a predominantly African American, low-income, and high crime urbanity. In the 2000s, the municipality started to become recognized as a top green city, and by the 2010s the city began to emerge as a gentrification hot spot. This dissertation elucidates how the relationships between race, class, housing, and access to green spaces have changed from redlining—prior to the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1965, and 1968—to 2020, after Oakland adopted an environmental agenda and began to establish itself as a green city starting in the 1990s. I question how Oakland’s urban environmental “sustainable development” agenda has impacted residents’ access to green spaces, and to what extent and how are these policies and practices creating, exacerbating, and/or mitigating urban environmental (in)justice issues. I examine both sides of environmental (in)justice, uneven distribution of environmental harms and the uneven development of environmental goods in which low-income residents and communities of color are disproportionally exposed to environmental hazards while also being prevented from benefiting from environmental amenities. I interrogate Oakland as a 21st century sustainable green city while also examining the historical urban policies and practices embedded in legal residential segregation and the current green gentrification processes which influence and contribute to the environmental (in)justices being (re)produced today.

Britain’s cars and SUVs are growing bigger – but there is a way to stop this deadly ‘carspreading’ | Christian Wolmar

Larger vehicles crowd our roads and are far more dangerous to pedestrians. Let’s curb them before they do even more damage, says says transport commentator Christian Wolmar

Paris said au revoir to cars. Air pollution maps reveal a dramatic change.

Air pollution fell substantially as the city restricted car traffic and made way for parks and bike lanes.

The Curb-Cut Effect (SSIR)

Laws and programs designed to benefit vulnerable groups, such as the disabled or people of color, often end up benefiting all of society. <meta property=