Washington, DC’s Big Car Tax Is A Novel, Necessary Approach To Traffic Fatalities.

Pedestrian and cyclist safety has a new potential ally in the form of an annual registration tax for huge, heavy cars.

Read more

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.

Read more

Christmas 2021: Handbuilt’s Naughty Or Nice List

Every year, we at Handbuilt Heavy Industries, Incorporated, feel the need to wrap up with a Christmas-y list of everyone who

Read more

GM Vision Zero: Joe Biden and Mary Barra, Fiddling While The World Burns

As British Columbia excavates houses, roads, and, tragically, bodies, from the aftermath of catastrophic flooding, the President was in Detroit yesterday to tout the virtues of a 9,000-lb. electric car that, liberals apparently believe, will solve climate change.

Read more

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.

Read more

MDOT: “Making VMT Reduction A Mobility Goal Is Punitive, Combative, And Might Hurt People’s Feelings”

Representatives of Michigan’s Department of Transportation have, at two recent public meetings, firmly pushed back on the proposal that the agency must tie a reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to funding considerations for new projects– using a dubious rationale.

Read more

Greener Streets, Safer Streets: Less Flooding Through Better Transportation Infrastructure

In the aftermath of a catastrophic flooding event a few weeks ago, Detroiters cleaned out their basements of water-damaged and

Read more

Detroit, The World’s Racetrack: My First Time At The Belle Isle Grand Prix

At the Grand Prix, presented by [Car Company] on Belle Isle, we enjoyed pulled pork nachos, sunshine, and a haze of particulate emissions.

Read more

“MDOT will be the ultimate decider on all roadway decisions.”

Not quite the Grand Prix yet and we’re already having issues. Can we protect Belle Isle from being clogged by car traffic?

Read more

Michigan 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,

Read more