Is Vision Zero a Failure?

The term Vision Zero has become a cliche. As long as streets are designed to expedite the movement of cars it’s doomed to fail. Can we change it? We need to be engineering streets and roads to move as many people as possible, not as many cars as possible.

Laura Laker 17 Sep 2018

Vision Zero: has the drive to eliminate road deaths lost its way?

“As Kate Fillin-Yeh, strategy director at the National Association of City Transportation Officials, puts it: “Designing 60mph streets didn’t work in a city context, but people didn’t know what better was. The thing we should be thinking about is how many people can we move, not how many cars.”

“If you have a programme focusing on the things that save lives, designing streets to protect people biking and walking, you will have a successful vision zero.” Focusing on education alone, she says, “won’t achieve anything”.

Read about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/sep/17/vision-zero-has-the-drive-to-eliminate-road-deaths-lost-its-way?CMP=share_btn_fb

September 16, 2018September 10, 2018

Self-Driving Cars Not Ready For Prime Time

Self-driving cars are failing at detecting humans doing human things. So blame the humans.

THE SELF-DRIVING CAR THAT WILL NEVER ARRIVE

Casey Johnston Aug 20, 2018

“If that weren’t enough, self-driving car engineers themselves seem to finally be growing frustrated enough with the whole endeavor that they are engaging in some wild reality-distortion-field tactics. They have begun to blame the cars’ lack of success on non-negotiable aspects of reality. The problem is not that self-driving AI is bad at driving, their logic now goes; it’s that people are bad at walking. The Bloomberg report from Thursday detailing this tension included these devastating paragraphs:

With these timelines slipping, driverless proponents like Ng say there’s one surefire shortcut to getting self-driving cars on the streets sooner: persuade pedestrians to behave less erratically. If they use crosswalks, where there are contextual clues—pavement markings and stop lights—the software is more likely to identify them.”

September 15, 2018September 10, 2018

Goodbye Cars…

The continued saga of the end of cars.

The Modern Automobile Must Die

If we want to solve climate change, there’s no other option.

By EMILY ATKIN August 20, 2018

“So far, Germany has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 27.7 percent—an astonishing achievement for a developed country with a highly developed manufacturing sector. But with a little over a year left to go, despite dedicating $580 billion toward a low-carbon energy system, the country “is likely to fall short of its goals for reducing harmful carbon-dioxide emissions,” Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. And the reason for that may come down not to any elaborate solar industry plans, but something much simpler: cars.”

How America Killed Transit. Service Drives Demand.

Transit in the US has continually cut service to improve the bottom line, effectively causing customers to prefer driving, further reducing revenue. Streets, roads, and highways are more and more clogged with vehicles, and the automotive industry has shown recent interest in alternative transportation. The government can make good on promises of investment in transit, and voters should demand it.

How America Killed Transit

Streetcar, bus, and metro systems have been ignoring one lesson for 100 years: Service drives demand.

JONATHAN ENGLISH AUG 31, 2018

“One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.”

This has not happened in much of the rest of the world.

“What happened? Over the past hundred years the clearest cause is this: Transit providers in the U.S. have continually cut basic local service in a vain effort to improve their finances. But they only succeeded in driving riders and revenue away. When the transit service that cities provide is not attractive, the demand from passengers that might “justify” its improvement will never materialize.”

September 13, 2018September 1, 2018

Driving Us To The Grave

These statistics should be a wake-up call for the US. While the automotive industry continues to promote driving as a lifestyle, and gas prices are low, the love affair continues while people die.

America’s Car Culture is Literally Shortening Your Life: Study

By Angie Schmitt Aug 24, 2018

The U.S. has been falling behind its peer nations on traffic safety and now life expectancy as well. There’s a connection. Graph: WHO

“Driving is driving us to the grave.

Life expectancy at birth declined steeply in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, a new British Journal of Medicine study reports — a finding that was attributed partly to the opioid crisis, but also to America’s ongoing traffic violence problem.”

“So while the opioid addiction grabs headlines, cars have quietly remained a leading killer. In 2015, for example, the U.S. traffic fatality rate jumped 9 percent. And in 2016, it jumped again 5.6 percent, wiping out nearly a decade of improvements. It was the biggest two-year jump in 50 years.

Traffic fatalities have long been a leading cause of death of Americans, and in 2015, they were the 13th leading cause of death in the U.S. overall. But because cars kill a disproportionately high number of younger people, they rank seventh in total years of life lost.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/08/24/americas-car-culture-is-literally-shortening-your-life-study/

September 12, 2018August 31, 2018

What’s Up With NJ Transit?

NJ Transit Makes Deposit on Its Future While Digging Itself out of Hole

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/nj-transit-makes-deposit-on-its-future-while-digging-itself-out-of-hole?utm_source=Next+City+Newsletter&utm_campaign=15c62fbdd5-Issue_286_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fcee5bf7a0-15c62fbdd5-44033881

September 11, 2018September 10, 2018

CBS This Morning: Distraction On The Dashboard!

It’s not just about texting while driving…and it’s getting worse all the time. Car manufacturers are touting the comforts and tech of a living room experience inside your new car. And yet there’s continued victim blaming of pedestrians texting while walking?

Are high-tech dashboards the new culprit in distracted driving?

A just-released study looks at how new in-car technology is taking our eyes off the road. Consumer Reports focuses on vehicle “infotainment systems,” including touch screens and controllers on the dashboard.

September 9, 2018August 31, 2018

Lowering Speed Limit Works

Encouraging study shows that lowering speed limit helps reduce speeding. Asbury Park will be reducing speed the limit city-wide.

Study: Lowering the Speed Limit … Works To Reduce Speeding

By Angie Schmitt Aug 29, 2018

“Here’s some encouraging news for cities trying to reduce speeding: New research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that lowering posted speed limits appears to be effective at reducing driver speeds.

The IIHS study compared speeds before and after Boston lowered its speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph in January, 2017 — and the results were clear: “Vehicles exceeding 25 mph, 30 mph, and 35 mph all declined at sites in Boston, with the largest reduction in proportions of vehicles exceeding 35 mph,” wrote the study authors Wen Hu and Jessica Cicchino.”

September 8, 2018August 31, 2018

Mid-block Crosswalk

*Editor’s note: jaywalking is fake. In addition, in NJ it is not illegal to cross mid-block as long as the pedestrian is not obstructing oncoming traffic. So mid-block pedestrian crosswalks should be unnecessary, but drivers and pedestrians do not know the law.

South Street is getting ‘midblock’ crosswalks to make it safer for pedestrians

However, there are no plans to install the traffic-calming measures elsewhere — yet.

Max Marin Aug 29, 2018

“In a city where the mentality is often “cars over everything,” the freshly painted crosswalk stripes on South Street halfway between Ninth and 10th are an unusual but welcome sight.

The markings form a midblock crosswalk — a clunky phrase, but simple enough concept in urban design. They facilitate road-crossing in areas where corner crosswalks just don’t cut it. In this particular case, the thinking went, people have been jaywalking * across this stretch near Delhi Street to get to Whole Foods for the nearly two decades of the grocery store’s existence, so why not alert oncoming drivers and guarantee safer passage for pedestrians?”

Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition

Posts

Is Vision Zero a Failure?

Vision Zero: has the drive to eliminate road deaths lost its way?

Self-Driving Cars Not Ready For Prime Time

Goodbye Cars…

The Modern Automobile Must Die

If we want to solve climate change, there’s no other option.

Read more…

How America Killed Transit. Service Drives Demand.

How America Killed Transit

Streetcar, bus, and metro systems have been ignoring one lesson for 100 years: Service drives demand.

Driving Us To The Grave

America’s Car Culture is Literally Shortening Your Life: Study

What’s Up With NJ Transit?

NJ Transit Makes Deposit on Its Future While Digging Itself out of Hole

CBS This Morning: Distraction On The Dashboard!

Are high-tech dashboards the new culprit in distracted driving?

Lowering Speed Limit Works

Mid-block Crosswalk

Vision Zero: has the drive to eliminate road deaths lost its way?

The Modern Automobile Must Die

If we want to solve climate change, there’s no other option.

Read more…

How America Killed Transit

Streetcar, bus, and metro systems have been ignoring one lesson for 100 years: Service drives demand.

America’s Car Culture is Literally Shortening Your Life: Study

NJ Transit Makes Deposit on Its Future While Digging Itself out of Hole

‘Peak Car’ and the End of an Industry