Monthly Archives: October 2009

TweetPeople are free to choose the way they get around.  But the context shapes their likely choices.  This is Part III of a three-part series suggesting high-leverage actions that would shift the context from one that makes getting into a … Continue reading →

TweetPeople are free to choose the way they get around.  But the context shapes their likely choices.  This is Part II of a three-part series suggesting high-leverage actions that would shift the context from one that makes getting into a … Continue reading →

TweetPeople are free to choose the way they get around.  But the context shapes their likely choices.  This is Part I of a three-part series suggesting high-leverage actions that would shift the context from one that makes getting into a … Continue reading →

TweetI know that, in general, bicyclists behave no worse than anyone else.  I know that, ultimately, the current rage at cyclists who run red lights, weave around lanes, and endanger pedestrians is just a car culture temper tantrum, like an … Continue reading →

TweetIt isn’t often that a complex problem can be significantly solved by a single remedy.  But when it comes to finding ways to make car-dominated streets more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly, narrowing the lane widths is a game-changer.  Critics worry about … Continue reading →

TweetMost groups that believe they both stand for important values and suffer the scorn of mainstream society, create an in-group culture.  Bicyclists are no exception.  One component of bike culture is an activist orientation that has placed cyclists in the … Continue reading →

TweetWhy haven’t Massachusetts cities installed traffic light violation cameras, like New York and many other cities, that capture the license plate number of a vehicle running a red light and automatically send a traffic ticket?   Traffic-light violation cameras significantly reduce … Continue reading →

TweetPolice talk about the “broken window syndrome” when visible neglect creates a feeling that anti-social behavior is acceptable.  But maybe there is also a “broken street syndrome” when the noise, smell, and danger of speeding cars and unfriendly public spaces … Continue reading →

TweetAmerican medicine is only peripherally about health; it is primarily about treating disease.   It is a sickness treatment system.  Even so-called preventive medicine is really about screening and early treatment.  What we need is pre-disease prevention:  ways to create a … Continue reading →

Tweet“’Sometimes we have to use cars, but that doesn’t mean they have to dominate our lives.  Instead it should be dominated by human interactions…the level of car us in New York City is so inconsistent with what we want out … Continue reading →

TweetMayor Menino, like politicians around the country, has been talking about the need to create a more energy-efficient, safe, health-promoting, and community-friendly transportation system that creates less noise, has lower costs, and releases fewer green-house gasses.  He has begun a … Continue reading →

TweetForget your physics class.  Travel is another dimension, where things happen according to a different set of natural laws.  I’ve modestly labeled the following as Miller’s Laws of Motion, but readers of this blog are welcome to add their own … Continue reading →

TweetSome bicycle advocacy groups promote the slogan “Same Roads, Same Laws” to support cyclists’ right to use the roadway along with car traffic.  I think it’s a bad slogan; at best incomplete, at worst self-defeating.  Bikes and cars are radically … Continue reading →