By Charles Montgomery, The Guardian
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Peñalosa insisted that, like most cities, Bogotá had been left deeply wounded by the 20th century’s dual urban legacy: first, the city had been gradually reoriented around cars. Second, public spaces and resources had largely been privatised. This reorganisation was both unfair – only one in five families even owned a car – and cruel: urban residents had been denied the opportunity to enjoy the city’s simplest daily pleasures: walking on convivial streets, sitting around in public. And playing: children had largely disappeared from Bogotá’s streets, not because of the fear of gunfire or abduction, but because the streets had been rendered dangerous by sheer speed. Peñalosa’s first and most defining act as mayor was to declare war: not on crime or drugs or poverty, but on cars.
He threw out the ambitious highway expansion plan and instead poured his budget into hundreds of miles of cycle paths; a vast new chain of parks and pedestrian plazas; and the city’s first rapid transit system (the TransMilenio), using buses instead of trains. He banned drivers from commuting by car more than three times a week. This programme redesigned the experience of city living for millions of people, and it was an utter rejection of the philosophies that have guided city planners around the world for more than half a century.
In the third year of his term, Peñalosa challenged Bogotáns to participate in an experiment. As of dawn on 24 February 2000, cars were banned from streets for the day. It was the first day in four years that nobody was killed in traffic. Hospital admissions fell by almost a third. The toxic haze over the city thinned. People told pollsters that they were more optimistic about city life than they had been in years.
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Is urban design really powerful enough to make or break happiness? The question deserves consideration, because the happy city message is taking root around the world….
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-worlds-happiest-cities-commute-property-prices
Police seeking this woman in connection with a hit-and-run
Hit And Run Suspect: County police are seeking this woman in connection with a hit-and-run incident Friday morning in Pasadena. – Photo by Courtesy Image
Only cyclists run red lights… right. [video]
Joseph Rose: Trying to make sense of Oregon’s hit-and-run epidemic
By Joseph Rose, Oregonian
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"It really is a very selfish crime," Portland Police traffic Sgt. Todd Davis told me as he sifted through this week’s two-inch stack of reported hit-and-runs.
Selfish. Immoral. Rampant.
In Portland alone, police take reports on more than 5,200 hit-and-run crashes, from fender benders to serious injuries and fatalities, each year. That’s 100 a week; that’s mind-boggling.
Without the resources to investigate them all, the police have to perform triage. Still, in a typical year, only about half of Oregon cases where a driver leaves the scene without rendering aid to an injured or dying person end in an arrest, court records show.
So, maybe it’s time state lawmakers diverted some of their tough-on-traffic-crime efforts away from distracted driving to slow what is becoming a social epidemic.
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https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2013/11/joseph_rose_trying_to_make_sen.html
A loud bell-ding of approval for Australia’s first cyclists party
Australia’s first political party dedicated to cyclists is up and riding. I welcome this move: it’s high time we had a party defending us
By Gary Nunn, The Guardian
The “terrorists in lycra” have organised and now, they want your vote.
Australia’s first political party dedicated to cyclists and their interests has launched a membership drive. May I be the first to whip off my biking gloves to applaud. Its launch website asks: “Why has cycling been demonised, politicised and criticised so often in the media and by government officials?”
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/15/australia-cyclists-party