By Clemens Wergin, New York Times
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That same year, 2,931 children under 15 died as passengers in car accidents. Driving children around is statistically more dangerous than letting them roam freely.
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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/opinion/the-case-for-free-range-parenting.html
NEW PED AND BIKE DATA COLLECTING TECHNOLOGY
-> A new crop of data collecting technology — including bike-counter totems, GPS-enabled smartphone apps and cameras that use machine learning — is enhancing more time-consuming, less accurate ways of counting people riding bikes and walking. Tech startup CTY designed Numina (https://bit.ly/1tqvimy), a camera bike and pedestrian counter because there is not a lot of data that helps justifies complete streets infrastructure. The data counting hardware is essentially a camera mounted 15 feet up on a light pole capturing video. Software is programmed to recognize and count patterns such as a bicyclist or walker crossing the screen. Numina can also track behavior on a given piece of infrastructure — where a cyclist rides on a street, whether they choose the sidewalk over the bike lane, spots pedestrians avoid and more. Some of the most exciting data is coming from companies such as Strava (https://bit.ly/1WNyrcp) and MapMyRide (https://bit.ly/1XWTGcC), which track routes via GPS units and smartphone apps, provide actual behavior, and can provide demographic data about users. https://bit.ly/24x0Fr1
from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
NHTSA: 2014 TRAFFIC SAFETY FACTS: CHILDREN 75% killed in cars vs other modes
-> The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released its 2014 Traffic Safety Facts: Children with details the number of motor vehicle traffic fatalities and injuries involving children 14 and younger. Of the 1,070 child fatalities in 2014, 20% had been walking, and 5% had been riding a bike. https://1.usa.gov/238oTss
from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
When governments make road data public, anyone can help make roads safer
By Jacob Mason , Greater Greater Washington
This map shows where people have been caught speeding in Montgomery County this summer. If DC and other local jurisdictions released more open data, we could make maps like this for places all over the region.
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https://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/27732/when-governments-make-road-data-public-anyone-can-help-make-roads-safer/
Walk Hard: Baltimore is unsafe for and unsympathetic to pedestrians
By Edward Ericson Jr., City Paper
[Highlight:]
“The police officer was clearly sympathetic” to the driver, she says. “The attitude is, everybody drives, everybody makes mistakes, and it could have been me. It’s easy for the police officer to identify for the driver and not that person that got hit.”
https://www.citypaper.com/news/mobtownbeat/bcp-061516-walk-dangers-20160614-story.html
Dinosaur Comics on Driving
[B’ Spokes: For me this really captures the unsaid aspect of driving. — I heard of this cool new game called driving. It’s dull and repetitive…]
https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2587
As other cities push ahead with safer, more bikeable streets, Baltimore spins its wheels
BY JED WEEKS AND GREG HINCHLIFFE, Baltimore Brew [from March last year just cleaning up my to do list]
OPINION: Adding a rush-hour lane on Aliceanna is just the latest example of how the city is bucking national trends and its residents’ wishes
Sixity years ago, planner Lewis Mumford noted that “adding lanes to reduce traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity.”
Baltimore government still hasn’t received the message.
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https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2015/03/16/as-other-cities-push-ahead-with-safer-more-bikeable-streets-baltimore-spins-its-wheels/
New traffic congestion report raises more questions than it answers
by Stephen Lee Davis, Transportation for America
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The report’s touchstone metric is a blunt measure of peak-hour speeds compared to an empty road in the middle of the night. Did you know that trips take longer during rush hour compared to the middle of the night? You did? The comparison of rush-hour to free-flow traffic begs the question about the goal: is it reasonable or even possible to build enough road capacity to keep traffic moving at free-flow speeds from 6-9 a.m. when the bulk of the populace is going to work? (Those free-flow speeds being used as the baseline comparison also exceed the speed limit in many cases, by the way.)
The economist Joe Cortright wrote a comical April Fools post that showed how silly that logic is when applied anywhere else, in this case, at Starbucks, where consumers lose “$4 billion every year in wasted time” because of long lines during busy mornings. Yet:
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New traffic congestion report raises more questions than it answers
The Most Dangerous U.S. Cities for Drivers – Baltimore #3
By Kristin Wong, life Hacker
Driving comes with its share of risk and danger, and some cities are more dangerous than others. NerdWallet looked at data in the 200 most populous cities in the U.S. to rank the safest and most dangerous for drivers.
To come up with their numbers, NerdWallet analyzed five factors: the rate of fatal crashes, the likelihood of an accident compared to other cities, the number of years between accidents, the risk of break-ins, and the risk of a stolen vehicle.
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https://lifehacker.com/the-most-dangerous-u-s-cities-for-drivers-1779965244
To make streets walkable, empower pedestrians to cross anywhere
by Ben Ross, Greater Greater Washington
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To make streets truly walkable, we need to totally rethink how we run them. Crossing on foot should be legal anywhere and anyplace. Traffic lights should be red-yellow-green, with no walk signals.
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https://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/30477/to-make-streets-walkable-empower-pedestrians-to-cross-anywhere/