Heya friends, happy Friday!
Yesterday marked the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month in the US, so I’ve got an extra section this week pointing you towards resources about Latinx planning, prominent Hispanic planners who don’t often get the spotlight they deserve, and more! There are plenty of organizations across the country advocating for urban policies that address the displacement, disenfranchisement, and harm caused by traditional urban planning and political powers. I’d urge you to research such organizations in your city and make a donation (as you’re able to!). I’m donating to Calle24 here in San Francisco.
And before we get into the news… thanks to AFTR reader Will for sharing this tweet with me about a chimpanzee who essentially had a lil strike demanding a bike, a raincoat and hug. Says something about what we actually need out of life, right?
And last but not least, huge thank you to AFTR reader and friend Rosie for sharing the newsletter this week. Welcome new readers, very happy to have you here! Now onto the news:
Hispanic Urbanism
First things first! Hispanic ≠ Latinx. Hispanic cultures reference Spanish speaking people (language-based), while Latinx reference people who originate from Latin America (geography-based). I have resources below that feature Latinx ideas, and Hispanic people and I don’t want either of us to conflate the two! There is some relation, but they are not interchangeable. APA has a great resource on how planners can better understand these terms.
Latinx Urbanism
The City of Los Angeles’ planning department has a whole resource guide on Latinx Urbanism. They define it as: “a broad term used to categorize the multiple practices by which Latin[x] have created and contributed to the forms, functions, and cultural landscapes of American cities.” The term was coined by James Rojas as he contemplated his childhood in Los Angeles where his neighbourhood was a space that brought family and neighbors together. He was in grad school at MIT in the 90s when he came to realize that most American urban planning revolved around cars and not building community—inherently whitewashing the urban American experience. You can read more about his work at this link, his firm’s website, or buy his book “Dream, Play, Build”.
Hispanic Urban Planners!
Juanita Sundberg. I would be remiss to not mention one of the most influential undergrad professors I had while studying geography at UBC. Juanita’s teaching take students out of the classroom and into the community and her teaching focused on the intersections of nature conservation, border security, and militarization.
Odilia Suarez. Suarez was an Argentinian architect, planner, and educator. She rubbed shoulders and studied alongside architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright. At the time when women were hardly seen in the field, Suarez became the pioneer of women’s presence and professionalism in the field. She served as a president of the city council of urban planners for the city of Bueno Aires. The Urbanist podcast has a great two-part special on her.
Veronica Terriquez. Terriquez is a professor with UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. She is the Director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center and teaches urban planning courses at the university. An expert in participatory action research (PAR), she has co-authored over forty research reports on labor, community, and youth organizing. Much of her scholarly work has implications for policies affecting Latinx, immigrant, and other low-income communities of color.
Interesting reads!
How Mexican cities could meet women’s transport needs (LSE Cities)
What can we learn from Latinx urbanism? (Streetsblog)
Read(s) of the Week
The NYTimes published an interactive piece this week detailing the inherent racism of highway building that took place in the US—and continues to this day. The piece looks to Houston, New York City, and Chicago to explore how continued investments in highways perpetuate segregation while failing to reduce congestion, traffic collisions, and greenhouse gases.
“Although government-led segregation is usually discussed as history, in the communities divided by these roads, considerable public health impacts persist. Increased investment in urban highways threatens to inflict further harm. In Houston, the expansion would demolish the Clayton Homes and displace many more residents from the historic Black and Latino neighborhoods of Near Northside and Independence Heights — all despite decades of evidence that widening highways does little to relieve congestion.”
Government and Policy
London makes Covid-era bike lanes permanent
TfL will make three pop-up segregated bike lanes permanent after data showed there had been a 25% rise in cyclist numbers in some cases, and traffic had not been delayed. One of the bike lanes, on Tooley Street, saw vehicle numbers fall by a third, reducing the risk of collision. Another bonus? Bus journey times westbound are also quicker and more reliable, with no significant impact on journey times eastbound.
What should happen to drivers that kill cyclists?
This piece explores how cities fail to reprimand and hold drivers accountable when they are involved in fatal collisions. The criminal-justice system tends to prioritize drivers, raising the question of what justice should look like for victims of traffic violence.
“It’s very hard to find comprehensive data on penalties issued after car crashes, but among the safe-streets advocates and legal experts I talked to, it’s generally taken as a matter of course that people who kill cyclists while driving—even recklessly, even illegally—are rarely held legally accountable for their actions. The big picture, those observers say, is that drivers are offered a kind of impunity that doesn’t exist in just about any other situation where a human kills another human.”
When particulate matter leads to lung cancer
In a harrowing read on the impact of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), researchers find that PM in urban areas is triggering lung cancer. “The new study uncovered how fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers, known as PM2.5, triggers lung cancer in people who have never smoked.. The risk of lung cancer from air pollution is lower than from smoking, but we have no control over what we all breathe.”
There should be driving tests for AVs
This article discusses how Europe’s more stringent testing regulations for AVs has meant that Tesla has been unable to release their Full Self-Driving mode across the continent. “Tesla cannot deploy FSD anywhere in the European Union unless it first obtains a green light from regulators. To obtain that approval, Tesla must convincingly demonstrate that cars with FSD are at least as safe as those without it. At least so far, it hasn’t.. Unlike their European peers, American car regulators do not require — or even offer — any kind of safety pre-approval for a new car model or technology.”
Industry
Capitalizing on street parking
This article discusses how Silicon Valley is trying to “impose order on—and extract revenue from—the crowded urban curbside”. Bloomberg shares that the parking industry is worth an estimated $20B, and there are a plethora of start-ups vying for a cut of the pie. The start-ups are “wooing city officials with something they haven’t had before: real-time data on how their curb space is being used”.
ArgoAI prepping for commercial service
ArgoAI, Ford’s AV subsidiary announced a new suite of products designed to commercialize their vehicle fleet. “The products — a list that includes fleet management software, data analytics, high-definition mapping and cloud-based communication tools — stretches far beyond the self-driving system that allows a vehicle to navigate city streets without a human driver behind the wheel.”
System launches!
Cruise is launching their AV taxi service in Phoenix and Austin by the end of the year (Verge)
Waymo plans to start testing in Bellevue, WA in hopes to capture new riding data from wetter and wider roads (Geekwire)
The more you know!
Infrastructure is limiting opportunities for delivery robots (GovTech)
Tesla’s class-action lawsuit in California for deceiving customers (Bloomberg)
Which is hilarious because lots of Tesla driver’s think “Full Self-Driving” mode is worth the extra cost (Carscoops)
Cruise is making their own chips to get around the current shortage (Jalopnik)
Research and Academia
On the neurological impacts of driving
I was speaking with a friend a couple weeks back about the impact that driving has on people’s prefrontal cortex and how driving shapes people’s neural pathways over time. I did some searching for this week’s edition to equip us with the studies we need to understand how driving can be an insidious beast.
“The results of the experiment show that the initial level of stress and tiredness of the driver can have a strong impact on stress, driving behavior and fatigue produced by the driving test. Other elements such as sadness and the conditions of the interior of the vehicle also cause impaired driving and affect compliance with traffic regulations.”
This research article didn’t capture all the points I was hoping to share about how driving encourages disassociation from the humanity of other road users. If you know of similar research about this topic, I’d be very grateful for any share!
The effect of location on physical activity
“… this paper elucidates the relationships between physical activity levels, built environment, and access to infrastructure (connectivity)… The models' results suggest that the built environment has a lower effect on respondents' physical activity in isolated rural and suburban areas than in urban areas and large rural towns, which are denser and promote higher physical activity levels. We conclude that the built environment and access to infrastructure have a non-monotonic relationship with physical activity when considering the levels of rurality.”
Opinion
Skepticism for an auto-dependent future
[An interview with Paris Marx!]
“We’re kind of stuck in this bind, where we’re dependent on these automobiles, where the cost of using them is increasing, where the number of deaths on the road continues to rise every year. If we do a mass transition to electric vehicles, as it’s being pushed by these companies, and also by the governments, I think that we’re going to find that that doesn’t solve the climate problem of the transportation system to the degree that we’re being sold right now.”
Why bikes are the technological breakthrough we’ve been waiting for
“While cargo bikes as such are unlikely to change dramatically, their potential remains largely untapped. One reason for this comes from limitations of the incumbent van technology that orchestrates urban deliveries. Our best AI algorithms are currently not able to model nimbleness of cargo bikes as logistics vehicles, and the dynamic operations they permit in complex and uncertain urban environments. Software that can dynamically optimize scenarios where vans “re-feed” cargo-bikes throughout the day is only in its infancy.”
Extra Bits + Bobs
Jobs you should apply for!
Senior Project Officer, Infrastructure Mapping (Greater London Authority): Friends at the GLA are hiring for this new role and I imagine somebody on this newsletter list is a big infrastructure nerd and perfectly suited for the role!
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah