What, Me Block A Bike Lane? Trouble at Ford’s Ziggurat of Mobility
The Blue Oval scores another kind of big, fat, blue oval, rotated 90°, for its commitment to walkability and bikeability in the new Michigan Central Station project.
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Ford
Infrastructure: Think Outside The Smartphone-Driven Profit Motive
One of Michigan’s most visible mobility spokespeople recently said in a webinar that smartphone ownership and profitable markets were the two hindrances to developing sustainable mobility solutions in the state. It’s a politically horrific, functionally dubious, but baffling thing to say.
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Into Exurban Oblivion: Auburn Hills Mulls Ditching Transit Service
In one of the farthest-north suburbs of Detroit, a municipality’s elected representatives are discussing the possibility of eliminating fixed-route transit, which has the support of an overwhelming percentage of the electorate, to save around $800,000 per year. In this guest co-editorial, Calley Wang and Nat Zorach argue that this is a really, really terrible idea.
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Everyone And Their Mom Is Making An Electric Car. Few Will Prevail.
Sony makes great headphones and great gaming consoles. Will they be able to make a great EV? Will everyone wading into the increasingly muddy waters of the “blue” ocean of electric vehicles be able to compete? Probably not.
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But Weight, There’s More: The Achilles Heel of Electric Vehicles
Electric cars are generally far more efficient than gas-powered ones, as a matter of thermodynamics. But a new article looks at one huge problem with electric cars, and one that is often entirely disregarded in policy, regulation, and consumer economics, and that’s the factor of how much they weigh.
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MDOT: Rebrand And Replace. Some Ideas From The MAP Conference.
Nat is attending the Michigan Association of Planning’s annual conference. It’s going great– especially with regard to figuring out new ways to refashion state agencies that aren’t doing their jobs.
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Cars, Advertising, and The Cult of Individualism
Cars don’t kill people, people kill people! At least, they do when they’re only thinking of themselves– as opposed to the complex ecosystem of different people who use streets and sidewalks. Marketing
Read moreMichigan Population Numbers: How Long Before We Just Admit That This Strategy Isn’t Working?
The census numbers are in, and we’re unsurprised to learn that population growth is stagnant in parts of the great,
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Tech Launched A Big Push To Fix Cities. What Happened?
Sidewalk Labs (Google), AirBnB, and Y Combinator all launched ambitious initiatives to build the technologically advanced, equitable, sustainable cities of tomorrow. What happened?
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Mispricing the Chevrolet Bolt, And Other Strange Corporate Decisions
The Chevrolet Bolt originally sold poorly. It’s now selling well, but at an average of a 30% discount off its full MSRP. Maybe that suggests it wasn’t priced right to begin with.
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