Bill Schultheiss
@schlthss
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Sustainable Transportation Engineer. It’s all connected: land use, equity, poverty, transport choices, civil rights #SafeSystems Opinions Mine Alone
Washington, DC
Joined August 2012
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Pinned Tweet
We live in a competitive world. Your
#streets
are a billboard advertising your community
#values
.
@StrongTowns
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Witnessed heart warming event today...our goalie was sick, so we had another child play goalie for the 1st time. The opposing team’s goalie came over at intermission to teach him how to move properly without being asked by anyone.
#Sportsmanship
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Visualize a world of safe, comfortable, beautiful bike lanes that celebrate the space and experience. It can exist!
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This common vehicle design with blunt front end intentionally designed to maximize chest & head impact to people in a normal sized car (Subaru Outback) is sociopathic. Not only do these vehicles kill more pedestrians & bicyclists, they kill more people in cars when they hit them
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We should not allow vehicles to be driven on public roads where the driver cannot see people walking within 20 feet of the front end. This should be a simple decision that is not controversial.
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When people say "there's not enough parking" or the parking is "too far away, I won't go there" I suspect they don't realize how far they walk at shopping malls when you compare them directly.
Without visual contact to the destination, people lose perspective.
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It is honestly astonishing that we ever allowed Right Turn in Red in urbanized areas.
This is what happens when you give an inch to these people. It doesn’t stop. First it is making sure we maintain outdated and dysfunctional criminal codes, then they come for your right turn on red bans.
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This obscenity is a policy choice. I suspect the driver of this truck stopped at the point where he was starting to lose visibility of the car in front of him.
This reduced visibility and the increased external violence they unleash on others should require high insurance rates
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I think about highway rock cuts when people tell me “the sidewalk is too difficult or expensive to build” on roads where literally no sidewalk (or path) exists and people are forced to walk in the road…our industry is very good at accomplishing things it wants to do
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I can’t emphasize enough that there is a large group of transportation professionals who are really freaked out right now that
@SecretaryPete
sees into the weeds and isn’t just going to be a shill for the status quo.
"There are some areas where, actually, the number of square feet of asphalt in a city probably oughta go down, and we should be supporting that sort of right-sizing." -
@PeteButtigieg
at
#CityLab2021
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Let’s normalize residential street bike parking the way we have for motor vehicles. Bike parking should be ubiquitous and standard infrastructure to install.
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I believe our 50 year experiment to promote and encourage right turn on red everywhere has trained motorists to believe they have a right to invade spaces that are not theirs on a regular basis.
#EngineeringBadBehavior
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A friend just returned from 3 years living in Japan - he’s shocked how dangerous American roads are, how backwards car dependence is. You become numb to it living here. His senses were overwhelmed & he now can’t unsee how motorist supremacy makes life needlessly hard & dangerous
Returning to DC after a long trip to Europe, it's jarring how dangerous it feels navigating my neighborhood.
The reasons are obvious:
🔹 Cars are ubiquitous and huge
🔹 Traffic is too fast
🔹 Sidewalks are narrow; bike lanes scarce
It's really not that complicated.
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Maybe leave the vanity machine in the garage to ogle at if you are worried your fellow citizens of earth will scratch it?
Just spit balling ideas….
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It's outrageous trucks have been allowed to increase in height to the point their hoods are at the roof level of other vehicles. There's only so much engineers can do to make streets safe. Deaths due to these trucks are on lawmakers who allow the
#CarLobby
to dictate regulations.
Woman killed after driving into path of pickup truck while leaving Clark Co. school, deputies say
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While we have an invisible killer virus in the air, in plain sight we have allowed and actually cheer on the proliferation of a very obvious killer on our streets. I am 6 feet tall.
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Coolest bike path in America - is across Lake Champlain!
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“Traffic on Paris’s roads has been reducing at a rate of 5% every year during her term...with the number of cars steadily falling, Hidalgo has suggested steadily removing parking spaces and replacing each one with mini-gardens”
#GreenCities
#Livability
Paris Mayor
@Anne_Hidalgo
continues to set the standard for
#GreenMayors
#ClimateMayors
#GreenCities
showing what
#ClimateEmergency
seriousness looks like.
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Tuned into CSPAN radio today and heard a conservative think tanker talk about how we need more walkable communities and less car-centric suburbs to foster independence for kids and support families. Reducing car dependency is bi-partisan if we listen.
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A transportation culture that requires 90% of its population to only travel by one mode isn’t a culture that promotes freedom, it’s a culture that promotes servitude.
Average US worker spends:
22% of salary paying for car
100 hours driving to work
42 extra hours in congestion
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#RaisedCrosswalks
are now standard practice at all sidestreet crossings along busy streets in Cambridge MA =
#VisionZero
Leadership!
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“Only 22% of Amsterdam’s journeys take place via car, while drivers still enjoy the large majority of the road space.“
Cars take up a lot of space. Every car could be:
- 1 tree
- 12 bike parking spaces
- 8 more feet of sidewalk with benches and tables to sit for coffee
Amsterdam will remove 1,500 parking spots a year until 2025. 11,200 in total. Bicycle parking, sidewalks, and green will replace them.
Take a moment and imagine your city with 11k less parking spaces. Have a nice weekend!
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I’ll add one more…State DOTs are being forced to spend millions raising the heights of highway guardrails because these irresponsible designs lead these vehicles to launch over them.
I’ve spent much of this year learning about car bloat, the process through which smaller vehicles are being replaced by increasingly massive SUVs and trucks.
What I’ve learned: Huge cars are terrible for society, often in ways that are hidden.
A summary 🧵
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I see years of these false headlines ahead. This is how the public gets fooled into thinking it’s possible for
#MagicTechSolutions
to overcome basic geometric constraints.
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Electric cars
What's something that IS climate denial, but still FEELS like it isn't climate denial?
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What is so great about
#ProtectedIntersections
is they force drivers to slow down while turning. This one in
@MontgomeryCoMD
is still under construction and it is already making intersection safer for everyone.
#TruckAprons
are intuitive to drivers to stay off from.
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This situation is not ok. Research proves these conditions require a traffic signal for pedestrians to safely cross. What we’re relying upon are gaps in traffic, luck, extreme patience, & perfect human behavior for this to work
7 lanes
40-50mph speeds
School children
#VisionZero
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It is wild how these 10 foot wide lanes are acceptable for 70 mph interstate 76 but absolutely not an option on your 25mph Main Street!
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We have low transit rider turnout at public meetings, but imagine how awful it feels to be a minority, or disabled, or low-income transit dependent person attending a meeting where one privileged white person after another says you are a problem & don’t belong in “our community”
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Dave was killed today by a driver of a stolen car while bicycling in a shared lane.
#VisionZero
must be more than a bumper sticker. It’s insulting & pathetic that our society builds multi-billion dollar highway widenings faster than it delivers safe city streets.
@imagineterrain
@gwhennigan
@ebooksyearn
@jwetz
@Blacknell
Good reminder that protecting sidewalks and bike lanes isn't just about keeping well-controlled travelers in their spaces. Vision Zero would say, approximately, "people make mistakes, but nobody has to die from that".
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It is insane that this is prohibited street design while suburban, low density residential streets often are required to be 40 or 50 feet wide curb to curb. We have a climate change and safety crisis.
This is the way 👇👇👇
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I don’t understand all the fuss about 10 foot lanes....most cars fit in 5 foot bike lanes just fine....
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Just watched transit bus driver come into Starbucks to shame motorist into moving his car illegally parked in the bus stop! Motorist ran out of store professing it “was only a minute” embarrassed to be called out.
Well done transit driver!
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It’s ludicrous to think individual choices will stop climate change over systemic policy
“Americans bought more heavy, truck-based SUVs, canceling out [fleet fuel efficiency] gains when averages calculated. Truck-based SUVs made up 45% of market in 2021”
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#RightTurnOnRed
was legislated in the 1970s to save gasoline by degrading pedestrian safety. It has no place in people centered cities or commercial corridors. It’s removal is frequently opposed to appease a traffic model.
#VisionZero
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I’m a HUGE fan of education like this
@DDOTDC
sticker teaching people about power of rapid implementation safety projects. I bet a link to a
#VisionZero
website that tells how these sticks become future curbs could calm down aesthetic opposition campaigns!
@tooledesign
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I am enjoying a model railroad convention today and the presenter showed this photo of a Long Island Railroad bicycle car in their passenger train from 1900 or so! It is so sad that so many transit agencies banned bicycles in their systems in the following 100 years.
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can we please, please stop all highway expansion projects and fix and maintain what we have.
BREAKING: A bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh hours before President Biden was scheduled to visit the city to talk about the infrastructure bill. Police reported the span came down around 6 a.m. Authorities said there were no initial reports of injuries.
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When you plan for cars, you get cars, places for cars, and nothing else. What kind of community do you want to live in?
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The pandemic is really clarifying which city mayors have an urban, future looking outlook, and which ones see the world from the backseat of a suburban and can’t imagine a different future than what already exists. I don’t know how else to make sense of what I’m observing.
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Imagine a future where
#BiketoSchoolDay
is so normal - because we made streets safe enough - that we don’t need police escorts. It’s a choice by society to be a one-off day or every day.
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I am going to look back at my career when I retire and be astounded by how much time was wasted arguing over logic of mixing 5,000 pound vehicles moving 30mph or faster with people walking or biking less than 15mph.
What else could I have done with that time?
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One of my favorite all time projects. It is hard to believe it is real after a decade of imagining it!
@tooledesign
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And when our little rookie made some saves, all the parents and opposing players cheered for him. I almost cried. It was amazing.
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Traffic engineering is a values driven system, not a science based system at its core. What kind of city do you want? How much traffic is appropriate, sustainable, and safe? What constitutes a livable community? These are choices that must be made.
Someone driving along Spui in Amsterdam in the 1960s, and me trying to recreate the same journey on foot a generation later
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I shudder to contemplate the cobalt, nickel, and lithium wars of the generations to come. We need to reduce auto-dependency as we shift to electric cars.
Lots more electric cars in the next three years? “I don’t know where the raw materials are coming from.”
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Elevating side street crosswalks at unsignalized intersections is now a default practice in Cambridge, MA (USA by the way!). That type of systemic change is how
#VisionZero
will be achieved.
What is your city doing?
Cambridge is continuing to add raised crosswalks at side streets along Mass Ave to prioritize people walking and slow the speeds of turning drivers. Bonus: no giant puddle/frozen slush in curb cuts at this corner next winter - Great job!
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The auto industry war on children continues unabated. The red line approximates a motorists line of sight to this children’s playground crosswalk which has no stop sign.
Are traffic engineers helpless or could we:
1) add a stop sign
2) restrict parking
3) raise the crosswalk
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We need a dangerous vehicle tax and commensurate insurance rates.
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I’ve had to develop incredibly detailed bike lane plans to prove we didn’t removing any parking while 1960s planners and engineers roughed in highway sketches to demolish hundreds of homes and businesses…what a contrast. They fast tracked destruction, we slow walk improvements
Concept alignment of the Southeast Freeway, which full city blocks were purchased and demolished along Jackson south of 31st Street.
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“So what does make roads safer? ...less driving. For example, Paris cut its automobile mode share in half over the last 30 years and as a result, the fatality rate has dropped 70%...if we want to save lives we need less driving.”
This requires political leadership.
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This is the law we’ve been waiting for, not bulls*it distracted walking laws.
Drivers who kill while on mobile phones will face life sentences ' | via
@telegraph
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This is what happens when you give an inch to these people. It doesn’t stop. First it is making sure we maintain outdated and dysfunctional criminal codes, then they come for your right turn on red bans.
In a draft federal spending bill, House Republicans are proposing a whole slate of new and old restrictions on D.C. The ban on legalizing marijuana sales would remain, the city's assisted suicide law would be repealed, traffic cameras would be banned, right turns on red allowed.
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“Free bus service, which is expected to cost about $8 million, has been pitched as a major help to low-income residents who rely on transit to commute to work.”
For context the Kansas DOT is studying a $3 Billion outer loop. That could fund the free bus service for 375 years...
Kansas City becomes first major American city with universal fare-free public transit
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Interesting facts...the suburban sprawl these highways enable is a major reason transportation is the
#1
source of carbon emissions in the USA.
Humans have put 400+ billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since 1751 —> 50% of it since 1980 and 2018 was a record
Pretty surreal flying into Omaha. Highways fully submerged.
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All I want for Christmas is a serious commitment to passenger rail in America 👇👇👇
On Danish train, heading to Copenhagen. State-owned & state-run DSB. 3hrs 45 min journey. Standard class, 1-way, booked week in advance, 415kr (£46). Quiet, comfortable, wide-body carriage, free wifi, immaculately clean. When they say nationalised railway doesn’t work, look here.
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Shame on every public agency that put public money into this scam while they failed to provide basic sidewalks, crosswalks, transit, and safe streets
As Hyperloop One shuts down, we need to admit that the Hyperloop was never meant to be built.
Its goal was never to transform transportation for the masses, but to stop or delay high-speed rail from reaching North America. And sadly, it succeeded.
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funny what happens when you build a network, not a just a few disconnected links...
People complained bike paths in
#Paris
were “always empty.” Now some are getting >1,000 bikes/hour. Build them, and they will ride...
H/t
@Lelievre_Adrien
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If this can be built on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, it can be built on major roads in your community.
One of my favorite
@tooledesign
projects of all time. We too would have liked to see it be a couple feet wider, but this was a last minute re-design. It was quite an effort.
Biking in separated cycletracks alongside light rail with dedicated transit ROW. Feels good.😊
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People are walking in the streets because our society gave too much space to cars leaving sidewalks too narrow...it is time to take that space back.
@tooledesign
@SmartGrowthUSA
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But where will I park my car?
A new study warns that global warming is pushing Earth’s oceans toward a mass extinction event at a level not seen in about 250 million years.
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Not all heroes wear capes. Shout out to the guy
#bicycling
in an auto dominated hell-scape where his unique needs are completely ignored in the land of double and triple right and left turn lanes, no bike lanes, no sidewalks.
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Thought experiment:
Imagine if we spent 100 billion (2 years of FHWA budget) to rebuild 100,000 miles of urban streets throughout America instead of 15
#MegaProjects
Save a few minutes of driving for <1 million people, or improve quality of life & safety for a 100 million
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Instead of a running track play space for kids, we have a nascar style race track for parent pickup/drop off lanes…America in 2023 in midst of a climate crisis, health crisis, and economic sustainability crisis- all factors not considered during school siting analysis
Lafayette, Louisiana is so car dependent that their brand new elementary school is built like an industrial center where trucks line up to deliver and pick up goods.
All of this for a demographic (kids) that can’t even drive.
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Public meetings shouldn’t allow people to rant uninformed statements - it’s a toxic method not designed to understand a community’s needs, but to be a forum to allow a small group of anti-anything activists to dominate a conversation creating false narrative they’re a majority
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I wonder how many people are rethinking how they feel about parking and car traffic on these kinds of streets.
“The Europeans have been doing this for years. Why can’t we? This is a godsend!” -Frank Pellino, owner of Pellinos Ristorante in Boston’s
#NorthEnd
on night one of outdoor dining.
#sharedstreets
#Streateries
🎥
@KristinaRex
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I think every main street project should do a customer survey like this.
The divergence between fact and opionion is vast in every study I’ve seen on this question.
Half of the business owners on a Toronto street estimated that more than 25% of their customers arrived by car. In fact, it was 4%. And the number for those who walked or cycled? 72%.
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Bike Lanes are now a FHWA PROVEN SAFETY COUNTERMEASURE! This has been a 50 year journey due to decades of opposition from a narrow, privileged segment of the bicycling community and resistance within the
#CarCulture
to modify streets. Congrats all!
#ite2021
@nacto
@tooledesign
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My flock....I worry about their safety in our city, on bike lanes I helped design. They were best practice for 50 years because of reactionary
@effectivecyclin
types and continue to be built due to zero political will to upset
#CarCulture
...
#RedCupProject
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Just going to celebrate the 4 inch, near side bike signal and convenient foot rest for a minute! If you are not in this business, it is truly hard to explain what a big deal and how rare these two simple things are in the USA!
@seattledot
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Highways were
- built to support white flight from cities
- used to bulldoze & segregated black communities
Taxes today from all people subsidize highways while transit, walking, biking, & safe streets funding is starved to prioritize more highways. Time to flip priorities
Transit justice is a racial and economic justice issue.
That’s why I’m fighting to ensure our transit agencies get the funding they deserve.
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A preview of a traffic calmed future…how our streets operate is a values choice. This was a 4 lane speedway. Now it will be 1 travel lane each way, a turn lane, bike lanes, and a safer, quieter place!
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Great to see the days of the “mixing zone” as the default are going by the wayside. The Dutch yielding corner design was always better than the Danish mixing zone design.
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Why do you take transit? ❤️
“I hate traffic. I don’t want to sit in the car for 45 minutes getting down here.”
William Nylander takes the subway because he hates being in traffic 😅
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@MarthaCreedon
I think the general public really has no idea how much increased danger they face because of these UNETHICAL vehicle designs whether they walk, bike, or drive. It is really astonishing how much we have let this get out of control
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Noise is an unappreciated factor in urban quality of life. We need much less noise.
Easy short term fixes:
- lower speeds
- outlaw noise inducing mufflers & leaf blowers
- quieter emergency sirens
- more trees
Long term:
- electric vehicles
- less traffic
- more transit
At an interesting talk from Dr. Jian Kang at
#HCD2019
on the impacts of urban noise. Something I reflect on often when I'm in different cities. Too many roads (in residential areas) in Canada where I can barely hear anything other than car traffic. Inhumane conditions.
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I have to say, the motorist rolling stop into you as you are walking in th middle of a crosswalk, where the driver never stops and comes within 2 feet of your body may be one one of the most aggressive things I experience short of actually being hit.
#CarCulture
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The
#MUTCD
signal warrant system - made up by a bunch of dudes in a room in the 1930s- is not an appropriate decision making tool in a
#SafeSystem
people first world.
The most commonly applied traffic engineering methodology says you should not put a pedestrian signal here unless there are already at least 20 pedestrians crossing. But people are never going to cross here unless there’s a signal. It’s like a traffic engineering zen koan
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The murderous results of 20 years of blunt force trauma by supersized SUVs and trucks brought to you by the American Auto Industry…
This single graph is all you need to know about US transportation policy since I was born (1981).
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anyone think the *open concept* is going to be a casualty resulting from the Covid-19 work from home adventure?
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I’m 45 today & halfway thru life. As Churchill said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
I feel privileged to be in this fight for a sustainable & just society with you all! We’re just getting started!
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Amazing how easy it is when the roundabout is designed to promote driver yielding on the exit (prioritizing safety) instead of being designed to promote driver acceleration (prioritizing traffic flow).
We must change roundabout design *best practices* in USA to emphasize safety
Making a left turn on a major arterial. No problem on a Dutch roundabout.
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Every automotive review I have read of an EV fixates on how fast they can accelerate from 0-60mph. That is a design programming choice. That can be regulated.
More evidence that electric vehicles' rapid acceleration makes them more dangerous.
European insurer: "Drivers of EVs cause 50% more collisions than cars with combustion engines." (via Google Translate)
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People who regularly ride bicycles understand the importance of designs that allow side-by-side bicycling to occur.
#SocialCycling
“It is ironic that our road system is designed for the socialization of people in cars who sit side-by-side, yet our design manuals and codes try to force bicyclists to operate in single file,” argues
@Schlthss
."
Read more from
@carltonreid
in
@Forbes
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My biggest takeaway from my visit to Netherlands was this point. We have a bazillion signs in the USA because we have an overly complex, car focused infrastructure. Simplified & self explaining street designs + incredible transit wrapped within smart landuse is the way.
Dutch design manuals specifically warn against bordenwouden (“sign forests”); the overuse of traffic signage resulting in visual clutter.
Rather they emphasize a far more effective way to achieve the desired behavior: engineering of self-explaining and -enforcing infrastructure.
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The answer to super sized vehicles…if congress and NHTSA won’t regulate them, if automakers won’t design them ethically, then engineers can change the road….this is the way!
Meet London's "Wavy Kerbs". A beautiful way to create safer crossings and promote walking & cycling.
🎥
@GiulioFerrini
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Dutch prioritize slow speeds in/out of
#roundabouts
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#VisionZero
. We prioritize fast traffic out of circle w/straight line=unsafe crossing
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It isn’t hard to understand why left turning traffic results in the highest % of pedestrian & bicyclist crashes...drivers focused on gaps in traffic aren’t looking for people walking or biking. Gap appears and driver accelerates into crosswalk.
#PedestrianRoulette
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These kids are 8, 9, and 10 years old. There is hope for the future!!
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It is truly sickening that we are going to allow car companies to install speakers for the sole purpose of promoting performative toxic masculinity.
Your tax dollars at work.
"The electric Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack [...] goes 0-60 mph in 3.3 seconds and..." includes a "... "Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust system" — a speaker box that replicates the deafening burble of Dodge's Hellcat V8 engine..."
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What is emphasized on the sale of this $70- 80,000 vehicle- “It’s muscular look adds to its PERSONALITY”
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