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Christopher Mims

Did you know the sole priority of the average transportation engineer is shaving a couple minutes off of the average car journey?

In 4 of 5 jurisdictions across the U.S., there is almost nothing on the books saying streets should seek to be safer and more accessible to all.

These policies haven't accomplished their stated goals -- by forcing everyone into cars, they create *more* traffic, which leads to average speeds low enough they could be matched with a more diverse mix of transit.

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6 comments
Christopher Mims

Here's the thing -- we have the technology to move people around in more ways than ever. And a lot of it is personal transport which, like it or not, is what a lot of Americans prefer.

But we can't unlock all this stuff without changing another technology, one which is controlled by tens of thousands of towns, cities and regional transit agencies --

safer, aka "complete" streets.

The goal is simple: make people feel safe traveling on 2 wheels, 3, 4 (in a smaller vehicle) or on foot.

6/6

Just Boby

@mimsical I really really wish you to visit Budapest once and enjoy the public transportation we have there. Not perfect. But it is really amazing.

Just Boby

@mimsical My hair stylist is from Portland and she visited Budapest during the summer- she’s got mobility issues (she can’t walk distances) and she told me she never ever enjoyed a city as much as she did Budapest. And she used public transportation exclusively.

tobie

@mimsical My late father-in-law bought three Reva vehicles when they were first produced in India in 2001. All of them still work. They don't have great range but he figured for tootling around in traffic in Bangalore and Chennai, they would more than suffice. I had hopes when I heard Reva was going to open a plant in NY in 2009 but the initiative failed. What a shame. #electriccars #reva #india #smallvehicles #ev

John Manoogian III

@mimsical this goal feels farther away than Mars for North America

Brian Dear

@mimsical Why, it’s almost as if this is what you get when governments everywhere are completely, totally, utterly captured by the oil and gas industry, the richest most powerful industry in the world, for what, over a century. They want consumption of their product. So the world is designed to maximize consumption of their product. And in the US, suburbs are designed as a network of roads connecting houses to distant retailers, instead of local shops/markets within walking distance.

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