In a 2023 study in the UK, people were more in favor of public policy to make people safer as long topic was something other than cars.

…adults rated, at random, a set of statements about driving (“People shouldn’t drive in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the car fumes”) or a parallel set of statements with keywords changed to shift context (“People shouldn’t smoke in highly populated areas where other people have to breathe in the cigarette fumes”). Such context changes could radically alter responses (75% agreed with “People shouldn’t smoke…” but only 17% agreed with “People shouldn’t drive…”).

https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJENVH.2023.135446>

Even where car owners are the minority – e.g. New York City and the global South – their influence often derails sustainable policies.

In the global South, most people are not car-dependent. Investing in sustainable, equitable transport systems, along with policies like congestion pricing protects against rising car ownership.

New York’s congestion pricing backlash shows how car-centric thinking can harm the majority.

“There is a dearth of data on bikes and cycling in the Netherlands.” Oh really?

We can only imagine the blind spots bikes like this could uncover in the global South.

We’ve been seeing a lot of anecdotal posting on Xitter of people who were skeptics or in opposition to this suddenly realizing that they just gained an hour or more per day because the traffic has been significantly reduced. So even some regular people (i.e. not the wealthy) who have to drive in NYC because of their job are realizing that there’s a cost benefit even if they do pay for the congestion pricing.

We were not familiar with this story. Playing catch-up, and we’ll be posting this to Mastodon as well as corporate-owned channels.

Public transport is too important not to expect that its code is open to inspection, if not licensed open source. Transport justice means supporting public mobility built with the same transparency and accessibility that we advocate for in open-source solutions.

It’s an interesting design – and patented. If WBR really wants to have a big impact in the global South, they should release design with open, inclusive licensing so that entrepreneurs in the global South can manufacture it locally, without relying on imported hubs.

Buses = 🚌 🚌 🚌 Busses = 💋 💋 💋

Many cities in the global South are like this – but not all have great bike lanes for even limited stretches.

For all its faults, the NRA knows that guns are unsafe. It promotes “gun safety” not “shirt safety” – it doesn’t blame people who get shot accidentally because they were wearing the wrong kind of shirt. Whereas cities around the world talk about “bike safety” when the unsafe element is not the bike at all.