With so much of left-adjacent urbanist youtube borrowing terms from conservatives like "third places", I think this video does a good job of questioning the notion of "third places" in favor of a more radical critique about the way we use our cities.

https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/112535649882421445

Alternative link: https://archive.ph/BxMKZ

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16028585

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10092805

In Colorado, that new vision was catalyzed by climate change. In 2019, Gov. Jared Polis signed a law that required the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent within 30 years. As the state tried to figure out how it would get there, it zeroed in on drivers. Transportation is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of the total; 60 percent of that comes from cars and trucks. To reduce emissions, Coloradans would have to drive less.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9992203

Source: https://norden.social/@hart/112513927064083221

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16133154

Link to original Tweet: https://x.com/DavidZipper/status/1795048724021862898

Milan has 51 cars for 100 inhabitants, which is the double of other big cities in Europe, like Madrid (291,3) o Paris (225,2). One of the consequences is that traffic is terrible, and Milan is, for example, one of the worst cities on TomTom traffic index

Another big consequence is that motorists will park cars everywhere, because the number of legal on-street parking spots much lower than needed (the number of on-street parking spots is already much higher than other similar European cities) . If you have ever been in Milan, you would know that you can find cars parked on the sidewalks, on the bike lanes, between the trees at the side of the road, on zebra crossings, at the corners of intersections, at the bus stops, double parked (take a look at the pictures in this article to get an idea). This is a big issue, because people with reduced mobility, parents with strollers, people with sight issues are strongly impaired by this situation. Moreover an average of 5 times every day, public transit (trams and buses) gets stuck because of some really badly parked car, causing delays for tens or hundreds of people.

The administration is not willing to help and tolerates the status without doing much except the worst situations. They fear that this will impact their popularity, and may lose next elections. It is a well known fact that getting a ticket for illegal parking is so rare, that it costs less than a legal payed parking spot!

People was so fed up with the situation that and association called "Sai che puoi?" was able to organize an event to count and map illegally parked cars during the night of May 16th. It took a long time and effort, with some tests on a few blocks performed in the past. They also did a great social campaign with posts and videos like this one , and developed a web app on purpose.

The results were astonishing: 2000 people took part, and were able to walk all the 1700 km of the 3780 streets in the city and count illegally parked cars, divided by parking location (on the street, on the sidewalks, between the trees)

Results:

• 64000 illegally parked cars (during the day the situation gets even worse, with people coming from outside the city!)
  • 37000 on the street
  • 15000 on the sidewalks
  • 11000 on the grass or between the trees

This means that the city administration could get 5.3 million euros of tickets in one night, which means the equivalent of 134000 public transit month tickets.

The final aim is to force the administration to act and do something. The idea is that neglecting the issue with such numbers should be more difficult.

I think this is a great story, and I never heard of something like this from anywhere else. I want to say thank you to the organizers and I would love to get this event known outside Italy

"Just to meet business-as-usual trends, 115% more copper must be mined in the next 30 years than has been mined historically until now," the study said.

Thread to vent about the dangerous and inefficient infrastructure you have to deal with.

The person on the left is carrying bags, the one in orange is a delivery driver and a couple of people are wearing backpacks. Aside from car brained, Damaris is also blind.

https://xkcd.com/2932

Alt text:

This PSA brought to you by several would-be assassins who tried to wave me in front of speeding cars in the last month and who will have to try harder next time.

Imagine not being forced to need a car at all.

Imagine being able to just sit down, watch memes, read something, watch a movie, maybe take a nap, or even take advantage of the journey and get ahead some tasks on ur way to our jobs.

Imagine being able to eat dinner on ur way home if our daily commute is kinda long, wouldn't that be a dream?

Brothers, sisters, lets get some trains in our lives.

It’s weird how when the Department of Transportation is using the bike lane, they give themselves an entire car lane for protection.

• https://mastodon.world/@davidho/112428592341621424

Saw this comment on a local news post about the mayor's state of the city address and the mayor mentioned some of the new public transportation initiatives including adding another line to the train, I was under the impression that Amtrak was a success until the rails became denationalized and corporate greed limited the railways and pushed passenger trains to the sides

Dear Friends, Thanks for reporting about transportation, a favorite of mine. So, as with previous editions at the mayor’s spot, what is the cost of a bus ride? train ride? Bullet Train ride? and how much of the cost will the passenger pay, and how much of it will the taxpayers pay? Dejavu all over again, Yogi. When is socialism a better transportation solution than the private sector? Why don’t our leaders follow their own experts’ advice about transport funding? They concluded “user fees” is best; but we reject that advice, and add a 1/4 cent here, and a 1/2 cent there, here, there, and everywhere, and what do we get in the end? Lousy public sector transit, where only the public sector union employees win, while the rest of us pay higher, higher, and higher gas taxes, and other taxes. Why don’t we cut spending instead of raising taxes, fees, fines, assessments, mandates, etc.? Why did we denationalize the railroads after they were nationalized during the Wilson Administration? Why did Lincoln say “no” to Gen. Granville Dodge, at the White House in 1864, when Dodge, who was later UPRR top civil engineer, told the President that the transcontinental railroad should be owned by the government. Dodge recites his interview with Lincoln in his seminal “How We Built the Transcontinental Railroad.” During the debate in 1970 on creation of the National Railroad Passenger Act (a/k/a Amtrak), advocates promised that it would be “self-sufficient in three years.” How’d that work out? By 9/11/01, taxpayers’ subsidies to Amtrak, in hundred dollar bill stacked together, reached higher than the World Trade Centers had stood. We had Amtrak, but our airport security didn’t serve us well. In 2009 Mark Derry published a letter in which I predicted that the price of a gallon of gas would rise to $10.00 to fund the bankrupt-from-conception Bullet Train. Looks like I was too optimistic. Today, I’d venture to say it will be closer to $20/gallon. History teaches us that public sector “services” come with a fatal price tag. Today’s leaders have us on the Road to Serfdom, same route taken by the USSR.

So despite climate change, Australia's federal government has just committed an extra $3.25 billion into building a toll road and a 20-lane freeway widening.

For those who wonder why Aussies think toll roads are a scam (https://aus.social/@LesserAbe@lemmy.world/112405373613706682), here's a great example of why.

"Pouring an extra $3.25 billion worth of federal funds into Melbourne’s North East Link is a good use of taxpayer money, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted, despite the project’s cost doubling just a few months ago.

...

"The North East Link – which includes 6½ kilometres of tunnels – will stretch from Bulleen to Greensborough. It will widen the Eastern Freeway by up to 20 lanes.

"Allan revealed in December that the 10-kilometre toll road had more than doubled in cost since it was first announced.

"The toll road was initially budgeted at $10 billion and reassessed in 2019 at $15 billion. But the government revealed last year that the updated cost estimate was $26 billion."

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/federal-funding-to-boost-victorian-road-link-by-3-25-billion-20240509-p5ii7b.html

@fuck_cars #Urbanism #Auspol #Vicpol #roads #UrbanPlanning #transport #cities #Melbourne #Naarm #Victoria #Australia

The toll road scam: A government-made monopoly you pay for.

Here's a funny-because-it's-true take on Transurban and the poor tax it imposes, from Punter's Politics:

https://youtu.be/FlKBakPAtiw?si=G39_0GcJzSB0SSA8

#cars #roads #fuckcars @fuck_cars #tolls #tollroads #memes #funny #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #auspol #vicpol #nswpol