Tara Goddard
@drtaragoddard.com
Transportation engineering professor. Road safety, planning, behavior, & culture; wildfire planning and response; inclusive disaster evacuation; ethics of tech in transportation. Pedagogy and rsearch methods nerd. SLO and Tahoe. "Tare-uh", She/her.
Great methods & discussion by Nick and Wes. @talbright.bsky.social and I have been working on a renewed concept of kinetic *pollution* that includes both the speed and mass terms of kinetic energy to help localities quantify risks and the benefits of reduction of exposure. (coming soon 🙏)
Dr Grace S Peng@gspeng.bsky.social · 3h ago“we found that kinetic energy exposure is more strongly associated with transportation safety outcomes than variables focused on roadway behavior such as vehicle speeds, education requirements, enforcement efforts, alcohol involvement or seat belt use.” This is so intuitive and logical! ♥️
Got a new paper out today... "Urban areas with lower commute mode share by car and, to a lesser extent, lower VMT are most strongly associated with lower per capita transportation fatality rates." (and it's open access if you are the type of person who wants to read a research paper)
What drives urban transportation safety? Exploring the role of modal composition and travel exposure
Purpose. Past urban transportation safety efforts have largely focused on controlling road user behavior through tactics such as speed management and separating users in space and time. This research ...
doi.org
oh wait. The website says "2026 is the 20th anniversary", but then all other dates reference 2025 (and 2005). Is there a coordinated Parking Day this year? It is usually the third Friday, right?
Tara Goddard@drtaragoddard.com · 2h agoWho all is participating in #Park(ing)Day this year for the 20th anniversary? It is on September 19, so that is coming up quickly. I'm hoping, at a minimum, to have my students or the ITE student chapter participate. :)
Who all is participating in #Park(ing)Day this year for the 20th anniversary? It is on September 19, so that is coming up quickly. I'm hoping, at a minimum, to have my students or the ITE student chapter participate. :)
Ah, yes. FWHA illustrating a bikeway design guide with an image of cyclists who look like they should be on a track. 1978. I'm sure this was the last year that image of cyclists dominated engineering guidance ...
Rachel Cole@rmartincole.bsky.social · 4h ago
This kind of smart, bouncable, mixed-use urbanism is illegal to build in many American cities.
Qagggy!@qagggy.bsky.social · 15h agowe need to build more houses and i’m ok if a few are bouncy
"Liberal bubble" has only ever meant anywhere where right wing perspectives aren't artificially elevated and forced into everyone's feeds.
The Spokane fire conspiracy theories are almost identical to the Altadena fire conspiracy theories. These people have no understand of how fire works, how science works, or why some things burn. I'm writing a book chapter about it, but the people who need to read it don't read books.
LorennaCleary.bsky.social@lorennacleary.bsky.social · yesterdayThe internet is filled with really dumb people who right now think the fires in Spokane WA were fake because the houses burned but trees didn’t. What they’re forgetting is that dead, thin, dry wood burns. Wet, dense, living wood is harder to burn. Old living pine and house vs fire: house loses.
This seems like good news. I hope this is good news for some of you, specifically. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/c...
Appeals Court Says E.P.A. Cannot Block Billions in Climate Grants (Gift Article)
The funds have been frozen since early in President Trump’s second term.
nytimes.com
Nationalize oil firms, then run them into oblivion as we transfer to 100% renewables. www.theguardian.com/business/ng-...
Revealed: major oil firms make $93bn profits amid war and climate crisis
Iran conflict windfall over three months reignites calls for companies ‘cashing in on human misery’ to pay for environmental damage
theguardian.com
I remember finding a yellow felt Star of David in my grandmother's things after she passed. It still had a safety pin in it. Pretty sure the Third Reich would have used ankle monitors, had they existed then.
Asawin Suebsaeng@swin24.bsky.social · 3d agoAm told at the blue ash Ohio ICE office today that a bunch of springfield Haitians were told to just “check in” at are now having ankle monitors put on them, which, uh….. they’re not supposed to be fucking doing that
There have been numerous reports of looting in evacuation zones. SPD and other law enforcement agencies have investigated each report and tell us that each and every one of them is *FALSE.* Please do not spread these false rumors.
inre: @maddow.bsky.social's discussion of the cyber attacks on the water systems of seven different states
Emily L. Hauser (she/her) ❌👑@emilylhauser.bsky.social · 5mo agoThinking a lot about the fact that the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency: 1. has been w/o a permanent director since Trump took office 2. is functioning at 38% capacity bc of cuts & layoffs 3. is currently unfunded bc of the DHS shutdown Hey. Aren't cyber attacks Iran's thing? Huh.
Can someone direct me to the liberal bubble section of bluesky? Because on mine, I'm subjected to a constant stream of people pointing out the failing of liberals and reposting everything happening in the actual echo chamber of the right I'd really like to be in a REAL liberal bubble to be honest
The state of this country is, well, you know, but taking up all the energy at the highest level of the United States is internecine warfare over the botched (and corrupt) renovation of a reflecting pool national monument. We are not a serious country. 💔
Bluesky is a "liberal bubble" because fascist chuds can't get traction without algorithmic assistance and because people here trained themselves to block "debate me" trybois the instant they roll up
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
Trigger warning for violence. Read this headline, and then the article. Then read the headline again. And people ask what we mean when we say reporters or editors blame victims? abc13.com/story/cyclis...
Cyclists gestured, yelled at driver before he reversed into them, killing boxer Hannah Rapp, court documents allege
Court documents allege that the severity of the damage to the vehicle that killed boxer Hannah Rapp contradicted the driver's claim that he reversed at a low speed.
abc13.com
Covid lockdowns demonstrated, in a deeply imperfect way, the possibility of large-scale social solidarity for a higher cause. That is a prime reason why so many powerful people want us to run screaming away from them into the comforting arms of selfish individualist competition.
What if instead of starting substacks in twenty-fucking-twenty-six people learned to give one iota of a fuck about whether they want to associate themselves with nazis.
NSFW, obvi, but how I'm feeling today trying to do literally anything online without having to decline or avoid some "AI" feature ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-...
I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again — Ludicity
ludic.mataroa.blog
Reminder #1,473 that we did NOT have real shutdowns here in the US. Was closing schools damaging to kids? Yes. Would actually shutting things down so we could have re-started schools much sooner have been better for students? Also yes. Including saving a lot of their parents and grandparents.
Every time I see a new build in central Montreal only go up to 3 storeys, I think about what it would take for 6+ to be the standard like in central Lyon (a smaller city!). Changing the zoning? Single-stair? Elevator reform? Moving past the belief that new buildings must never stand out?
Spokane Convention Center is now open as an evacuation site for any of the Spokane fires. STA is taking evacuees from SFCC to the convention center, for those without vehicles.
Watching this unprecedented summer of drought, fire and heat unfold across Europe has just been awful. They're hitting temps the older, less catastrophic climate models told them wouldn't happen until 2050. We're in a new era.
The Associated Press@apnews.com · 4d agoFirefighters have contained a vast wildfire in southwestern France, allowing nearly 200,000 people to return home after what may have been the country’s largest peacetime evacuation.
Holy crap. Level 3 (GO NOW!) zone now includes urban Spokane, south of Francis to Wellesley. Level 2 (GET SET!) zone now extends east of Division. Not to be alarmist, but at this rate, it’s not inconceivable that the Old Trails Fire merges with the Fairview Fire.
It's pretty infuriating that Trump is denying disaster aid to Oregon for political reasons and I have barely heard anything about it, while Biden was falsely accused of doing the exact same thing to North Carolina and millions of people believed that
Imo one of the appealing things to people who use “AI” is the distance it provides between person and responsibility