MyWHaT

I need to rest up for Saturday’s litany of activities.

Weekly Chatter

• Who killed the American walker? (The Urban Country)

• TC gets a bike swap and a block party (The Ticker)

• Investing in a little emotional infrastructure (Infrastructurist)

• Community resiliency as a the security issue of our times (Ecoliteracy)

• Complete Roads? No, it is Complete Streets, stupid! (Strong Towns)

• Suburbia may be a disaster (Dom’s) or the next best thing for some (Oakland, MI) but either way it is getting a retrofit in places like Grand Rapids, yes, even you 28th Street (Rapid Growth Media) –> and suburban utopia Levittown, NY is even an example of possible suburbia transformations (Big Think).

Twitterville

• RT (WalkableDFW) bike helmets don’t increase safety. safe roads/bike infrastructure does.
• RT (YuriArtibise) Generations do differ, but less because people differ than because opportunities do. -Clay Shirky, CognitiveSurplus
• RT(bikehugger) A friend is protesting the sell-out corporatization of riding your bike, by driving during Bike to Work week. No schwag from tents for him.
• RT (PPS_Placemaking) Place matters anywhere in the world. Place is predictive of behavior & the future of the people that live there. @SimsRon of HUD
• RT (ccoletta) I’ve worked @ Ford 30 yrs & we’ve worried abt how to sell more cars. Now I worry abt this: What if all we do is sell more cars?-Bill Ford

To Wrap

Gas Prices: With political talk running on oil and getting no where (Grist) you’d think reducing our personal gasoline bill should make sense (Raise the Hammer). Yet, unfortunately, most Americans just aren’t wired for behavioral change (Time) and instead look to some higher calling to do something about it (Triple Pundit). Why? Well, for starters we simply keep getting reminded of it because guys like Jimmy MacMillan are getting paid to say it. Are  ”Gasoline is too damn high?” Whatever wing-nut.

Graphic Friday

A Traverse City Billboard?

The above is part of New York City’s “That’s why it’s 30″  campaign to remind New Yorkers of the speed limit. A side note, when speeds are reduced to 20, as in the “20 is plenty” campaign, chances of pedestrian fatalities drop even further and, as a bonus, there is a slew of other benefits, even for motorists.

And to think, recently I sat in a meeting where a police officer made the suggestion that a higher speed limit along Division St. might actually make it more safe. For whom? I might have asked–or, wait, perhaps I did?  Stupid thing is, Division St. is posted 40 mph along the southern stretch of Division St. with a half mile between signalized, or even marked, crosswalks. There may not be a legal speeding problem, as the officer contended, but for the context of a neighborhood with adjacent parkland, I’d argue speeding is a skeleton waiting to happen.

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Related articles

• Skeleton Speed Signs To Be Installed (nytrafficticket.com)
• A Spooky Reminder to Obey the Speed Limit (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Digital Skeleton Scares New Yorkers into Heeding Speed Limit [Driving] (gizmodo.com)