Tag Archives | car

An alternative design for Park and Portland

The Minneapolis Bike Coalition has put forward their preferred design for a redesigned Park & Portland (for background on these streets, see here and here).  Full disclosure: I helped with the street rendering. From the Bike Coalition blog: Key features: Remove a traffic lane that isn’t needed. The core of this proposal is transforming one of [...]

Read full story Comments { 9 }

Why urbanists (and others) should love the coming of the robot car (Part 1)

Much has already been written on the robot car, but streets.mn’s own Bill Lindeke posits that they “will not save us“, citing three problems.  While I agree that we probably can’t be saved (from what exactly I can’t say, there are many options), but in my opinion Bill and other urbanists should welcome the robot [...]

Read full story Comments { 10 }

Cars vs. Phones: Why Robocars Will Not Save Us

What with all the attention being paid right now to the struggling global economy, various wars, the 2012 electoral food fight, and Ben Flajnik’s underhandedness, the dawn of the robot car era may have slipped under your radar. Well, pay attention! Robocars (as I call them) have made a whole slew of breakthroughs in the [...]

Read full story Comments { 17 }

Anti-Anti-Light Rail: A Response to David Osmek

An op-ed is an op-ed, and I should know better than to respond to an anti-transit rural libertarian.* But the anti-light rail argument in the Star Tribune this week annoyed me all the same. It’s an argument that I’ve seen many many times, and no matter how many times you put it to bed, it’s a [...]

Read full story Comments { 14 }

1/10/12 Minneapolis Transportation & Public Works Committee

The Transportation & Public Works Committee of the Minneapolis City Council is a mouthful of a committee, both in its name and in the depth of the issues it covers.  This series aims to both condense the items for quicker understanding and provide context where necessary… and I won’t be able to stop myself from [...]

Read full story Comments { 6 }

Three surprising things about Automobility

The recent debate over the ban on cell phones in cars points to the intractable pull that automobiles have on our everyday lives. On this site, and in urbanism cirlces more generally, the car is (justifiably) the target of a lot of criticism. As we think about how to redesign cities, and what we can [...]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

Cars v. Phones: There’s no such thing as a good driver

Our relationships with our cars are intensely personal. All the time spent driving our cars affects our personalities, our opinions, and our identities. Eventually, our car becomes a key part of who we are. This deep attachment is one reason why behavior surrounding cell phone use in cars is so paradoxical. Even though they know its [...]

Read full story Comments { 2 }

Using bikes for serious emissions reduction

According to the European Cycling Federation, if the whole of the EU cycled like the Danes, they could achieve significant emissions cuts. If the EU cycling rate was the same as it is in Denmark, where the average person cycles almost 600 miles (965km) each year, then the bloc would attain anything from 12% to 26% of its [...]

Read full story Comments { 0 }