Group items tagged

"In an effort to ease pedestrian traffic during peak shopping hours, Meadowhall has installed side-by-side walkways marked 'Slow Lane' and 'Fast Lane' so both window shoppers and customers in a rush can both move at their desired pace."

"Au pays de la « car culture », l'idée de rues piétonnes fait son chemin. Il s'agit de s'emparer de l'asphalte pour permettre la distanciation. Un élément dans la réflexion sur le monde « d'après »."

""Taking the metro is like the raft in Huck Finn. You can be as fucked up or loud or smell-like-dog-piss or opinionated or personal or philosophical as you want to and no one can do anything about it." In other words, who needs a '75 El Camino to have fun when you can be dazed and confused on the bus?"

"Coming in from my slow run on this morning's packed snow, I am grateful again for my old, walkable neighbourhood that tempts me out of doors, even in the cold weather. And that's saying a lot, since I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, one of the three coldest cities on earth of a population of 600,000 or higher. Walkability mitigates the most extreme climates by providing interesting places to warm up, linger, and connect. And plenty of options about how and where to turn around and circle back."

"Behaviour was noticeably different. Most cyclists slowed down as they approached the intersection, and communicated to other cyclists and motorists using eyes, gestures, expressions, and voices. A lot more negotiation was taking place - but not without friction. In one incident, a mother carrying her child on a front seat slowly entered the intersection. When she was halfway across, a car approached from the right. Traffic signs indicate priority for the car driver but instead, the mother made eye contact with the driver, both smiled, and the car driver yielded."

"I've written enough about walking around the city's neighbourhoods (Ed. Really?) What follows is a quick sampling of a hugely diverse range of small vehicles-the tip of the tip of the iceberg-that also contribute to the quality of the city's streets. I'll no doubt update it with each subsequent trip I take. It's like a version of Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, but with an emphasis on the Things That Go rather than the Cars and Trucks. And set in Tokyo. Imagine the drivers as tanuki rather than cats and dogs. When visiting Tokyo, if you are attuned to eating the world with your eyes and particularly the layers of urban life bigger than a cellphone and smaller than a building, one of the first things you'll notice is how comparatively small the vehicles seem to be. Then, the sheer variety of these small vehicles. And then, how these vehicles, by virtue of their humble and appropriate scale and speed, help produce the city's often delightfully humane streets. And then finally, that these small vehicles are scurrying around the world's largest city. By way of comparison, the municipal and commercial vehicles blasting around Manhattan, for example, are more like hulking tanks, built for battle, apparently ready to face off against the army of gargantuan SUVs contesting the same spaces. But in Tokyo, a city three times larger, the small scale of the vehicles makes instinctive sense. I've written before about how Tokyo is actually defined by smallness and slowness, drawing from the great work of Keio University's Darko Radovic and Davisi Boontharm, amongst others."

"In Eixample, a superblock will consist of nine existing blocks of the grid. Car, scooter, lorry and bus traffic will then be restricted to just the roads in the superblock perimeters, and they will only be allowed in the streets in between if they are residents or providing local businesses, and at a greatly reduced speed of 10km/h (typically the speed limit across the city is 50km/h, and 30km/h in specific areas)."

"'We take rusty old junk and we put love into it.' The old Motor City has a unique style in bicycles these days: from fat wheels and fake fuel tanks to stretched cycles with powerful sound systems - and even a family-sized BBQ"

"En général, quand on achète une voiture, il faut choisir entre discrétion et émotions. Un dilemme que la Nissan Leaf entend résoudre en assurant les deux à ses conducteurs. Et pour cause le tout dernier modèle du constructeur automobile bien que 100% électrique se targue d'être à la fois silencieux et écologique, et nerveux et fun. A 100% aussi ? C'est ce que démontre Silent Ride, le stunt publicitaire décliné depuis quelques semaines sur la Toile, par Nissan Europe. DigitasLBi, son agence a en effet monté un véritable rallye pourtant très particulier. Car pour mettre en avant les avantages de la Nissan Leaf, le raid s'est déroulé, en pleine nuit dans un village calme et endormi. Prétextant une étude sur le sommeil, des caméras ont été placées chez ses habitants, avec leur accord, sans mentionner la compétition effrénée qui se déroulerait cette nuit-là sous leurs fenêtres …"

"With sensors and smartphones to make roads more flexible, Tilburg is addressing the question: how can a city become safer for less able residents?"