Recent Posts
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The sprawl lovers
There’s something aesthetically appealing about big, soaring highway ramps conveying a feeling of speed and mobility. And I can understand why, in Robert Moses’ day, people could have thought building highways was a grand endeavor. But we now know they just don’t work. Or do we? Alex Marshall, author of one of the best books on sprawl,… Keep reading…
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Don’t play SimCity (Classic)
Like many people my age, I grew up playing SimCity, the 80s classic video game of city planning. The player lays out transportation infrastructure, parks, and residential, commercial, or industrial zones into which the Sims build their own buildings. All the zones are square and exactly the same size. (There have since been two sequels, SimCity 2000 and… Keep reading…
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Slower, messier, safer, better
Reading about urban planning it often sounds like the engineers back in the 60s had no clue. They thought it was just great to bulldoze whole neighborhoods to build freeways partly because freeways made people drive faster, thereby reducing the amount of pollution they emit because cars are more efficient at higher speeds. But really it just encourages people to live… Keep reading…
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Let’s solve traffic jams by creating more!
Congress is close to approving a huge transportation bill, which in its original form allocated $300 billion to roads but only $75 billion to transit. According to the article, “House Transportation Committee spokeman Steve Hansen… cited the $70 billion that is ‘wasted each year due solely to traffic congestion and the waste of more than 5.7 billion gallons… Keep reading…
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Freeway ramp rush
Even though I work in sales, I’m really an engineer. And one thing many engineers love is transportation systems. Keep reading…
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Reaper Mall
Actually, it turns out there’s quite a lot to say about How Cities Work and Reaper Man. In Reaper Man, a mysterious set of snow globes appears in Ankh-Morpork, followed by metal shopping carts. A character realizes that if cities are like life forms - large, slow moving life forms - then there would evolve parasites to prey upon them, just as other long-lived life… Keep reading…
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Marshall and Pratchett
I started reading How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken by Alex Marshall on the plane. (I also started reading Reaper Man, but there’s not much to say about that other than that Terry Pratchett is hilarious and you should read his books). Keep reading…
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Yassky for traffic calming, hybrid taxis; not sure about bridge tolls
I met David Yassky, my city councilman last night. (Warning: no content on his site yet.) He seems as much a geek as a politician. According to a Google cached document that may disappear, “As an aide to Chuck Schumer, David helped author and pass the Brady Bill, Violence Against Women Act, the federal hate crimes law and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances… Keep reading…
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For: alternatives to cars, civil rights online
I am a strong supporter of Transportation Alternatives, which promotes public policy to enhance public transit and bicycle use while reducing dependence on cars. New York leads all American cities by a huge margin in its percentage of residents who commute to work in ways other than driving. This is good for communities, the environment, the economy, and foreign relations,… Keep reading…