Transportation Equity in Our City
It’s also the the student Global Climate Strike.
Vehicles are a major cause of emissions and contribute to climate change in use of fossil fuels.
Have you had the pleasure of commuting around your city, or from town to town on a bike and realized that you get to each stop sign or signal at about the same time, or faster than people on the road driving cars? Drivers (I am also a driver) tend to sit at an intersection waiting for the signal to change, or for the opportunity to go from a stop sign, then speed to the next stop. On a bike I continue at the same pace, rolling up to the front of the line of drivers, then go at my pace to the next stop. So the at the end of the commute I have pedaled steadily, and it seems that I get to my destination at almost the same speed, or faster, as when I drive my car…and I’m using zero fuel except for my own, and having negative effect on climate change. The best commute!
Bikes aren’t just transportation, they are climate actionLloyd Alter September 12, 2018
We hear complaints about delivery trucks on Asbury Park’s Main Street all the time. Some people have complained about them double parking, and some complain about new road diet and bike lanes because big delivery semi-trucks are having trouble parking. So. Are we designing a Main Street for delivery trucks or designing it for people?
Then there is also this problem about delivery trucks…
I admit it. I prefer shopping online for everything, from personal products like my eco-friendly bar shampoo and conditioner, to not so eco-friendly household items like paper towels and toilet paper. And there’s clothing of course, and my ever-growing collection of gym shoes. I’ve learned that the vans and trucks that deliver my overnight orders are rented mid-sized trucks, driven by untrained drivers, and they are causing pedestrian deaths.
Read on:
Every day, one in eight Americans is delivered something they bought on the internet, a number that’s expected to double within five years. …the growing number of U.S. deliveries and the price of that added congestion is rarely addressed in conversations about increasing emissions, traffic, or deaths—all issues that can be curbed by smaller delivery vehicles.
A chilling Amazon investigation shows the importance of “rightsizing” vehicles on our streets
“From waste disposal and utility trucks to delivery vans, large vehicles provide many of the basic services our communities depend on,” says Tom Maguire, sustainability director of San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, in the NACTO report. “While large vehicles are a small fraction of vehicles on our streets, they are disproportionately involved in fatal crashes.”
Allowing large vehicles in cities creates a vicious circle, notes the NACTO report, as accommodating trucks becomes a reason to build wider streets that are more dangerous for all users. Larger vehicles are also more difficult to maneuver, meaning many trucks must double-park on city streets to make deliveries, blocking bike lanes and sidewalks, which has contributed to recent cyclist and pedestrian deaths.”
Read about it:
https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/11/20858457/amazon-delivery-vehicles-deaths-emissions
Women drive cars and use mass transit. Caregivers are mostly women. Women walk and ride bikes, with and without kids. Yet in all scenarios the industry favors and designs without women in mind. Crash test dummies are male. The automotive industry is designing and selling trucks and huge SUVs rather than cars, which appeal to mostly to men. Vehicles are designed for adults only, without childseats (although the tech exists to integrate childseats into design), so they must be purchased and installed, then lugged around between vehicles, and when traveling on planes. Buses don’t accommodate strollers. Cities lack protected bike infrastructure. We live in a car culture, but cities like Asbury Park are addressing this issue. With incremental changes many US cities, and our city are becoming more female, and family friendly – designing a city for women, and everyone, ages “8 to 80”.
Young men cause a hugely disproportionate share of traffic fatalities; the combination of testosterone, youth and big motors can be deadly. Young men are involved in fatal crashes at 2.2 times the rate of young women — even though both are at elevated risk compared to older drivers. Young men do pay much higher insurance premiums to reflect this. On the other hand, in our culture, we’ve done little to rein in some of the more dangerous aspects of macho road culture. Instead, it is mostly celebrated in the media in games, songs and, of course, movie franchises like Fast and Furious.
Lifted pickup trucks with bull bars are a good example. These dangerous modifications in many states go completely unregulated. Meanwhile, Europe has banned bull bars, citing compelling evidence they kill people, especially children. The notion that other people’s safety can be subordinated to the mostly male obsession with big cars reflects, in part, the privileged position men hold socially and politically.
Read more…
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/29/all-the-ways-u-s-transport-system-is-biased-against-women/
EXCITING NEWS!
As an emerging leader in micro-mobility and alternative transportation, Asbury Park is one of 4 cities to be part of the launch of electric cars and charging stations. Each city will have e-Mobility Hubs installed in strategically located destinations.
New Jersey (Urban Transport News): Greenspot, an award-winning startup that specializes in the implementation of electric vehicle (EV) charging projects and e-Mobility Hubs, announces the launch of its state-of-the-art e-Mobility Hubs in four cities: Columbus, Ohio; Newton, Massachusetts; Brookline, Massachusetts; and Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Greenspot currently has stations throughout New Jersey, New York, and internationally in Israel
Read more…
https://urbantransportnews.com/four-e-mobility-hubs-with-ev-charging-stations-launched-in-columbus/
Copenhagen wasn’t always cycling heaven. It started with citizens making it clear in the 60s and 70s that they were not tolerating injuries and deaths by drivers, or the negative health and environmental impacts. It took decades. The city made it gradually harder and more costly to park, and more inconvenient to drive. Sound familiar? Drivers will push back, feeling like their entitlement to streets and roads are threatened. The auto industry is fighting back too.
We’re just at the beginning, but Asbury Park can do this! And it’s not just with bikes. Scooters and other forms of micro-mobility are taking over streets and displacing cars…
I
Could bicycles help save the planet and improve our cities?
This Lego-maniac kid has become an authority in planning, and in particular in cycling. If you’re a podcast lover check it out.
Marco te Brömmelstroet is Associate Professor in Urban Planning at University of Amsterdam and founding academic director of the Urban Cycling Institute. His research focuses on transportation, urban cycling, and social mobility, with a particular focus on policy change and improving city planning.
MtB: I’ve always been fascinated with how cities evolve, as a young kid already and especially fascinated throughout my educational career in how cities evolve, regions evolve in relation to their mobility system. So, I studied urban planning and then I was very interested in how mobility played its part there.
I blame Lego for that. When I was I think seven or eight, I was already building my own cities out of Lego and playing with them in terms of my own narratives, my own fantasises but I always built Lego cities that were realistic as far as you can call it realistic. So, they were always real cities.
KR: As well as being a Dutch Lego Master, Marco te Brömmelstroet is a keen cyclist and known in certain circles as the Cycling Professor. It’s a title he wears with pride. His interest in urban planning and love of cycling led him to some interesting discoveries about how cycling can influence our behaviors while navigating transport infrastructure.
In this episode of How Researchers, we’re getting into the saddle, and travelling by bicycle, a vehicle of social, political and environmental change.
[How Researchers Changed the World introductory music]
Listen here…
Asbury Pod Episode July 22nd featuring Diana Pittet expert in distilled spirits and avid bike rider. Discussion this month about Asbury Park transportation issues including parking, scooters, valet parking and bikes…hear a shout out to Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition at around 23:40.
Listen here:
Bicyclist injuries and deaths occur when a driver opens the door into the path of person on a bike, either causing the person on the bike to hit the door, or forcing her into the traffic lane. Learn to do it here.
This simple change in the way you get out of your car can save lives — of cyclists, drivers and passengers. Here’s how to do it, and why it’s so effective.
By Oct. 5, 2018
Banning cars. This is BIG news. Cars banned on 14th St. NYC. In the wake of 18 bicyclist deaths and thousand of pedestrian deaths, the city is finally following lead of cities all over the world where cars are being marginalized in favor of people in pedestrian plazas and on walkable streets. Ever since the era of Robert Moses in the 1930’s we’ve been habituated to the belief that cars should own streets, roads, and highways. But the tide is turning. Asbury Park gets it. #streetsforpeople #toomanycars #VISIONZERO
By Aug. 8, 2019
Major Traffic Experiment in N.Y.C.: Cars All but Banned on Major Street
The city takes its crackdown on cars to 14th Street, a crosstown route for 21,000 vehicles a day, which will be virtually off limits.
Read more…
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/nyregion/14th-street-busway.html