mobility Archives - The Handbuilt City

Business & Economics Mobility Culture & Language

Cars, Advertising, and The Cult of Individualism

October 6, 2021October 5, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments advertising, adverts, automobile, bmw, car culture, cars, citroen, commercials, cult of individuality, Ford, general motors, individualism, land rover, marketing, mercedes-benz, mobility, motorcar, nissan, renault, television, tv, volkswagen, volvo

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

Urban Planning Mobility Cycling

Google Maps Needs To Do A Better Job Showing Pedestrian Infrastructure.

September 1, 2021September 1, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments bicycle, bike, bike infrastructure, brookland, cycling infrastructure, cyclist fatalities, dc metro, dc metropolitan branch trail, edgewood, jeff speck, mobility, nonmotorized transportation infrastructure, pedestrian bridges, pedestrian fatalities, pedestrian infrastructure, rhode island, safe streets, walkability, walking, Washington DC, wmata

Cars take center stage on Google Maps, even when you’re not looking for a driving route. It raises some interesting questions about how maps depict nonmotorized transportation infrastructure.

Policy Mobility Sustainability Transit infrastructure Government

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

August 27, 2021August 27, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments AASHTO, aashto green book, brad sharlow, carbon footprint, climate change, congestion, department of transportation, green book, highway design standards, infrastructure, judd herzer, level-of-service, LoS, mdot, MEDC, michigan, michigan department of transportation, Michigan DOT, michigan economic development corporation, mobility, niles annelin, public transit, state law, state policy, toll roads, traffic, transit, transportation, transportation engineering, transportation planning, trevor pawl, vehicle hours traveled, vehicle miles traveled, VHT, vmt, vmt reduction

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.

the sears tower looms beyond the brutalist campus of the university of illinois chicago, where the summer institute on sustainability and energy (SISE) takes place.

Mobility Public transit Transit infrastructure

Best Nerds Podcast No. 2: Innovation and Equity in Transportation

July 14, 2021July 14, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments argonne national lab, best nerds, best nerds on earth, best nerds podcast, bike lanes, bike lanes and gentrification, bike lanes are white lanes, city planning, DDOT, detroit department of transportation, economic justice, equity, ian edward munroe, ian munroe, JCESR, kelsey zlevor, kunal sahasrabuddhe, lisa nuszkowski, Mikki Taylor-Hendrix, mobility, MoGo, mogo detroit, Nat Zorach, public transit, racial justice, summer institute on sustainability and energy, thomas alaan, transit, transit justice, transit organizing, transportation, transportation justice, university of illinois chicago, university of new orleans, Urban planning, wsp

Our second podcast is finally out. I take responsibility for the delay. There were some technical issues I ran into,

Urban Planning Mobility Infrastructure Tech

Webinar: Tech To Reduce Guesswork for Safer Streets

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon, amazon web service, Amazon Web Services, AWS, big tech, break up big tech, breaking up big tech, CASE, cloud computing, congestion, connected, connected autonomous, connected autonomous shared electric, cycling safety, Detroit, distributed structures, elizabeth warren, intelligent transportation systems, intersections, ITS, jeff bezos, jeff bezos rocket ship, joe biden, mobility, pedestrian safety, public safety, redundancy, roadside unit, rsu, safe streets, sensors, smart transportation, switching costs, tony geara, traffic, traffic management, traffic safety

Traffic technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent decades. While the ultimate solutions to ending traffic violence must come with better street designs and a reduced reliance on single-occupant automobiles, there are some interesting developments in technology that are allowing better modeling to understand driver behavior, intersection safety, and more. We learned about it from a webinar co-hosted by Canadian tech company Miovision.

Mobility Public Health Public Safety Cities & Urban Planning Cycling

Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America

January 25, 2021January 25, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments accessibility, automobile fatalities, automotive infrastructure, autonomous vehicle, autonomous vehicles, car fatalities, car infrastructure, cars, class, cycling, cycling safety, cyclist, cyclists, death, driving, elaine herzberg, elaine herzberg death, elaine herzberg uber, environmental racism, mobility, pedestrian, pedestrian deaths, pedestrian safety, pedestrianization, pedestrians, pedestrians killed, public health, public safety, race, safe mobility, safe streets, self-driving car, single-occupant vehicles, street design, streetscaping, walkability

Angie Schmitt’s Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America (2020) is a must-read

Driven: The Race To Create the Autonomous Car, by Alex Davies

January 20, 2021January 21, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments alex davies, anthony levandowski, argo, argo AI, auto industry, automotive industry, automotive sector, autonomous cars, autonomous vehicles, AV's, AVs, big tech, connected vehicles, Cruise, cruise automation, DARPA, driven, driven the race to create an autonomous car, driven the race to create an autonomous car alex davies, Ford, Ford Corktown, ford motor company, general motors, GM, infrastructure, mobility, mountain view, nevada, new mobility, palo alto, tech, tech bros, the race to create an autonomous car, transportation, william mitchell

Weekend Read. This book, Driven: The Race To Create the Autonomous Car, is worth reading for anyone who is interested

Politics Policy

2020 Election: Why I Voted How I Did

November 2, 2020November 2, 2020 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments automotive industry, biden, billionaire class, billionaires, corporate debt, corporate subsidies, corporate welfare, covid, COVID19, covid19 pandemic, democracy, Donald Trump, economy, federal deficit, federal reserve, Gretchen Whitmer, infrastructure, joe biden, millionaires, mobility, obama, obama administration, pandemic, pluralism, policy, politics, taxes, transit, transportation, trump administration, xenophobia

Unsurprisingly, rhetoric usually becomes increasingly political as we approach the 2020 presidential election. To paraphrase a staffer on Aaron Sorkin’s

Policy Public transit Transit infrastructure

Gretchen Whitmer: When We Say “Mobility,” We Really Mean “Cars”

October 26, 2020October 26, 2020 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments cars, chrysler, decarbonization, fca, Ford, general motors, GM, governor whitmer, Gretchen Whitmer, infrastructure, infrastructure funding, market transformation, michigan, mobility, policy, transit, transit infrastructure, transportation, whitmer

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Council on Future Mobility is not about mobility, it’s about cars. That’s got to change if we’re serious about decarbonizing transportation– or building an equitable future of any kind.

Detroit Historic preservation Mobility Transit infrastructure

Tour of Ford’s Michigan Central Station Project

September 22, 2020September 21, 2020 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments adaptive reuse, biking, corktown, dearborn, Density, Detroit, detroit international bridge company, economic development, Ford, ford motor, historic preservation, land use planning, matty moroun, Michigan Central Station, micromobility, mobility, Mobility Corridor, moroun, multi-modal transportation, new mobility, public transit, regional transit authority, RTA, scooters, southeast michigan, speculation, train station, train stations, trains, transit, transit infrastructure, trump, urban living

Michigan Central Station, the iconic, hulking, centenarian structure that has sat vacant for decades, is perhaps the flagship redevelopment project

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