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Taras Grescoe Profile picture
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Aug 16 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Making cities that are walkable by design—as so many are in Europe—into a paradise for citizens is easy: just keep the cars out.🧵 Image
Making cities designed to be driven—as too many in the Americas are—into a paradise takes more effort and imagination... Image
In both cases, the solution calls for an ancient technology (with many new applications): the Bollard.
cc @WorldBollard Below: traffic-calming, #Pompeii -style Image

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More from @grescoe

Taras Grescoe Profile picture
Aug 18
The population density of the American Midwest is comparable to that of #Spain.
Spain has 2,240 miles of high-speed rail.
American Midwest: 0.
🧵 ImageImageImage
High-speed rail in this region would replace short-haul flights, and go a long way to reducing carbon emissions. Should be a no-brainer for Amtrak Joe Biden—you'd think, anyway...
(Fantasy map below) Image
I bring this up b/c @the_transit_guy has made the comparison between overachieving China and sad-sack US. Fair point, but a more proximate comparable might be Spain...
Read 6 tweets
Taras Grescoe Profile picture
Aug 17
This will sound unbelievable to most people. (Not to me!)
A classic study from #Denmark followed 30,000 people of all ages for 15 years.
Those who rode a bicycle to work were 40% less likely to die—of all causes—over the study period.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10847255/ Image
A more recent study of cyclists in the UK had similar results.
bmj.com/content/357/bm…
North Americans are now so inactive that, if current trends continue, by 2030 they will expend only 15% more total bodily energy in a week than somebody who spends entire 7 days in bed.
Read 6 tweets
Taras Grescoe Profile picture
Jul 31
STUDY: Drivers of luxury cars found to give pedestrians the right of way 3x less than those driving less expensive vehicles; 4x more likely to cut off other drivers.

Call it "BMW Syndrome."
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
Also known as the "Audi Effect," "Mercedes Brain"...
(Thnx to @WorldBollard for the BMW shot in 1st tweet.)
A "points" registry in #Germany for all major violations of traffic rules (like extreme speeding, DUI, etc) is broken down by brand.
Surprise: It validates the association between luxury car ownership and anti-social/asshole behavior.
Thnx to @CFahrenbach
Read 7 tweets
Taras Grescoe Profile picture
Jul 29
"America's long love affair with the automobile."
...is ahistorical, lazy thinking, and just plain wrong.
Cars were *not* welcomed into the cities of North America. People resisted fiercely. Image
Peter Norton has ably documented the extent of the resistance in his scholarly book Fighting Traffic. @PeterNorton12 Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
Taras Grescoe Profile picture
Jul 4
For those reasons, and others, I considered Switzerland an anomaly, hardly a model to be extrapolated to other nations. But I see its fantastic non-car transport options have a lot to teach the world.
I was staying near a village with a population of 780 in the canton of Vaud, in the foothills of the Jura Mountain. To get there from the #Geneva airport, I hopped on to a high-speed train, an escalator ride away from the baggage carousel... Image
Departures every 10 minutes or so, along the lakeshore of Lac Léman, to #Lausanne, #Vevey, #Montreux. Downtown #Geneva is *six minutes* away from the airport by train. Many of the trains have kids' playrooms on the upper levels. And of course you can take on a bicycle... Image
Read 33 tweets
Taras Grescoe Profile picture
Jul 4
“ #Switzerland has the best public transit in the world.” 🇨🇭

That’s what many transport experts told me when I was researching my book #Straphanger.

After 6 weeks of getting to know the country’s network, I’m beginning to think they have a point. Here’s why… 🧵🪡
I'd been to Switzerland a few times before, and was duly impressed with its rail network, and the transit in its larger cities... Image
...esp. #Zurich, with its trams. "There's little reason to travel in an automotive cocoon when, for a fare of only a few francs, an efficient, stately tramway will provide transportation from point A to B at a level of comfort an emperor might have envied."
—Alain de Botton Image
Read 21 tweets

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