tag: cars
Vault 2016: Streets of our town - staying on your feet
posted 03.25 in news.
Pedestrians are suffering on the road more than they should be because of a gap in jurisdictions. Vehicle safety is the priority of road safety authorities. Traffic flow is the priority of traffic engineers. Pedestrians are difficult moving targets. Their manufacturers never update their safety features, and they are prone to unexpected changes in direction.
Vault 2016: Watch your step
posted 03.25 in news.
I’m getting a bit tired of being lectured every New Year’s Day, when the figures are in for the previous year, that road users just need to be a bit more careful. Pedestrians get it too, as the number killed and injured edges up year by year. “Don’t use your phone”. “Don’t drink and walk.” “Don’t rush”. “Cross at the lights.” Even “wear bright clothing.” But what if, in the chorus of victim blame, there is something else that goes unmentioned.
The missing link
posted 08.13 in news.
The term “missing link” was originally applied to old fossils. It’s fitting that it is now being used to describe Melbourne’s East West Link. This little project has been floating about since the 1950s, but in it’s...
Sprawling from Grace: The Consequences of Suburbanisation
posted 01.13 in resources.
This U.S. documentary from 2008, freely available on Youtube, sells the virtues of the New Urban town centre to the general video-watching population. Unfortunately it uses scare tactics to do so. The first two-thirds warns of impending doom in the...
Fat house, fat car
posted 05.10 in news.
The Age tells us that Melbourne’s largest display home is open for insection in Point Cook. People aren’t too interested in it and there won’t be any more at that size. It’s 52 whopping squares, or 481 square metres, or 52...
New town, old ideas?
posted 04.10 in news.
Toolern A new $15B city is to be built on the road to Ballarat. It’s called Toolern, and will plug lots of the rural gap between Caroline Springs and Melton. The new town’s footprint, if overlaid onto a map of Melbourne, would stretch...
Bad Subjects: The Congestion Coalition?
posted 09.08 in resources.
A debunking of a Washington Post article in 2007 that suggested that suburbs and their cars are good. Pro-automobile advocates love to talk about the ‘right to drive’ or the ‘freedom’ to travel, but they never talk about the freedom to...
Sydney's problem with cars.
posted 01.08 in news.
A panel of holidaying experts ponder what the blinkers to do with Sydney. Jan Gehl’s pricey 10 months-in-the-making report seems to have left locals a little down. They don’t seem to hate The Toaster as much as they used to, but...
The cars that ate the city
posted 11.01 in news.
“So many people. Where are they coming from… where are they going” Bela Lugosi introducing the awful movie “Glen or Glenda?” (1950s) while the camera zooms in on a new-fangled freeway. The city is an organism. Cars...