Beginning in the early 1960s, Japan strove to protect children’s safe and independent mobility, especially on the journey to and from school. Its techniques, which have been sociotechnically inventive, include the walking school bus. ...
Peter Norton
@norton.bsky.social
Historian; author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, and of Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving.
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. In December 1974 the town board of East Spencer, North Carolina, voted to stop funding the regional bus service serving Salisbury, Spencer and East Spencer. ...
The experts on pedestrian bridges are the pedestrians. Katopola, Mashili, and Hasselberg: Pedestrian bridges in Dar es Salaam attract other uses that can deter pedestrians from using them. This deterrent exacerbates the better documented disadvantages, such as stair climbing and greater distances.
When there’s no bus service to the city council hearing about bus service. Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice.
When #crashnotaccident was #motorthanasianotaccident: “This is motorthanasia. The putting of a person to death by the use of a motor vehicle.” — New York Police Commissioner Stephen P. Kennedy, June 7, 1956.
Norma Jean Osborne (1956): Public parking revenues should subsidize bus service. Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice.
Wherever tech is hyped, bad history thrives. Should AI conform to social norms? Jensen Huang says that’s getting it backwards. Social norms should conform to AI. For Huang’s proof, see comments. Neglect of history leaves us vulnerable to bad history. www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU8v...
AP EXCLUSIVE: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says society needs 'new social norms' in age of AI
YouTube video by Associated Press
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Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. “I ride 10 to 15 buses some days. … I’m an activist for folks who don’t have a car. … Transportation should be for all the people.” — Marie Hoggs (1922-2018), 2005.
With Dan Toomey of Good Work: “Robotic cars can’t solve safety for the same reason that Airbnb can’t solve homelessness: The costs just don’t add up.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLaN...
Are driverless cars really the future?
YouTube video by Good Work
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The origins of the walking school bus have been traced to Japan in 1962. But Libby, Montana, had a temporary walking school bus in 1957. The girls driving this bus in the roadway on September 4, 1957, bear a sign reading: “This is our new schoolbus. Do not pass while loading or unloading.”
Active modes are quiet modes. Car dependency is loud. David Rojas-Rueda: “Transportation noise causes a quantifiable and unevenly distributed health burden in the United States that remains invisible to federal health surveillance.”
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. In San Antonio, Doris Fisk claimed real estate developers routinely promised bus service that never materialized. ...
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. Facing isolation in a new suburb of Pueblo, Colorado, Thelma Holtz and Ruth Connor collected 284 signatures on a petition for bus service. “We all want a bus badly” Connor said. “Thelma and Ruth” is a movie I’d like to see.
“‘Jaywalker’ was a tool in this reconstruction effort. It implied a new answer to the question ‘What is a street for?’ – an answer that carried a sting.”
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. Facing the loss of her bus service, Mildred Cooper looked for others in Long Beach whose mobility was also at risk. She collected 7,231 signatures. When that did not suffice, she collected 2,400 signatures more.
An unanswered prayer. On November 2, 1800, John Adams wrote to Abigail Adams from the new White House. “May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof,” he wrote. In 1945 President Roosevelt had these words engraved in the mantelpiece in the State Dining Room.
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. Facing the loss of her bus service, Mildred Cooper looked for others in Long Beach whose mobility was also at risk. She collected 7,231 signatures.
The more they loot us, the harder they wave the flag. Playing us for suckers works.
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice.
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice.
Henk Swarttouw, with Phil Latz and Sara Stace on the Squeaky Wheel (@squeaky-wheel.bsky.social): “I have learned that there’s a complementarity between high-level political negotiation and advocacy and street-level activism. Both need one another.” squeakywheelpodcast.com/season-3-epi...
The Squeaky Wheel Podcast S3E6 - Henk Swarttouw
In this episode we’re talking to Henk Swarttouw, an independent advisor on sustainable mobility and international cooperation.
squeakywheelpodcast.com
Baumgartner, Klinner, and Lanzendorf: “Shifting the focus from a right to park a car to a Right to the City can help move from the car-dominated status quo in transport planning and practice to more people-oriented approaches that consider the plurality of needs of various social groups.”
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. “The Save the Bus campaign has raised $5,000 in pledges and donations. ... Organizers are hoping monies raised from the bike-a-thon and car wash will be enough to keep the bus service afloat until October.”
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice.
As we strive to make our streets safer for children, we must also give children safe and fun opportunities to develop the skills they need to use them. That’s where traffic gardens come in. Listen in to Fionnuala Quinn (@finnbike.bsky.social) with @John Simmerman of @activetowns.bsky.social:
As senators compete to fawn over an incompetent insurrectionist, “Reason” magazine (@reason.com) chooses to ridicule rare, valiant and politically risky efforts to curtail the designed-in speeding that makes the US traffic safety record the worst among high-income countries. So much for “Reason.”
Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice.
As the White House crime family cash in, and as the Speaker of the House and half of Congress grovel before them to enable their abuses, it’s worth remembering that even in Congress, ethics enforcement has been possible. ...
