Heya friends, happy Friday!
As I mentioned last week, San Francisco recently lost a family of four to traffic violence. This week, local politicians directed SFMTA to make much-needed improvements to reduce traffic-related fatalities and injuries, including daylight intersections (link here if that’s a new concept for you!), mandating a city-wide “no right on red” policy, and ticketing cars parked in bike lanes and sidewalks. I share this because the Mayor’s initial address had no mention of the city’s plans to introduce more autonomous vehicles or partner with AV companies to expedite their fleet growth. Instead, the city focused on policy and infrastructure decisions that will make all road users safer regardless of their mode of transportation. (Sadly her blog published later in the day did mention them… which feels like a frustrating sugarcoat to private businesses).
There is still so much more work to be done (and concrete to be poured), and too many lives to grieve. This is a welcome reminder that we already know how to make our streets safer and less congested, we need the political willpower to make it happen before it costs another innocent life.
Secondly, yesterday was my beloved friend Maca’s birthday. Happy birthday you sweet, lime-loving human.
Ok time for the news:
There are AVs (and cones) at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum
San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum had an exhibit named “How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car”. It was an interactive exhibit to see if participants could ‘cross the road’ without being seen by an AI camera. In looking at the exhibit, something about it feels so sinister and wrong. After an AV dragged a woman through the streets of San Francisco last year, it feels too light-hearted to make an art exhibit out of the daily mechanisms pedestrians have learned to deploy to not get hit by cars (human or robot-driven). It shouldn’t be a game or a challenge. Pedestrians should be respected by all road users. It is always interesting to see how AVs are starting to pop up culturally, but this one feels like it lacked the thoughtful reflection it needed to.
London expands it’s cycling network
Filed under things that make my heart happy. London has introduced a new (protected!) cycle lane between King’s Cross and Elephant and Castle. Since 2016 (the year I first moved to London), the cycle network has quadrupled in size. Today, nearly a quarter of Londoners now live within 400 metres of a high-quality route. They didn’t stop there, with eight junctions intersections also transformed to reduce road danger for pedestrians and ensure all road users benefit from the routes.
New York City plans to dabble in AVs
Mayor Eric Adams announced a new permit process for companies hoping to test AVs in the big apple. While I wouldn’t endorse the decision at this point (especially in arguably the most complex city in America that doesn’t need more cars), the city is mandating the safety drivers must be on board at all times, which is logical.
“While other states have become hotbeds for AV testing, New York has been a bit of a ghost town. Part of the reason could be the state’s strict rules, which include mandating that safety drivers keep their hands on the wheel at all times. The state law originally required a police escort, but a renewal of the law several years ago removed that language.”
Elon Musk is making all new Tesla purchasers test FSD
The year was 2014. U2 released their new album, Songs of Innocence, and “gifted” every iTunes user the album for free (approx. 500 million people at the time). There was no way to not have the album downloaded, and it seemed impossible to delete. Well, Elon Musk is taking a page out of Bono’s book. He is mandating that every new Tesla purchase must include a test drive of their (misleadingly named) “Full Self-Driving” program that has been proven dangerous on so many accounts (substack funnily shows hyperlinks, but there are four different links there).
According to an email from Elon, “almost no one actually realizes how well (supervised) FSD actually works.” And so to solve this “problem” he is going to delay the sales cycle by forcing drivers to test the program before making their purchase. He is betting that after the test people will want to pay $12k or an additional $199 per month for a system that was recalled numerous times in the last 12 months.
Bloomberg also has a podcast about this if you prefer to listen vs. read.
On road design and city growth
“In this paper we study the role of within-city roads layout in fostering city growth. Within-city roads networks have not been studied extensively in economics although they are essential to facilitate human interactions, which are at the core of agglomeration economies. We build and compute several simple measures of roads network and construct a sample of over 1800 cities and towns from Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a simple econometric model and two instrumental variable strategies based on the history of African cities, we then estimate the causal impact of within-city roads layout on urban growth. We find that over the recent decades, cities with greater road density and road evenness in the centre grew faster.”
On the need to develop urban car parks parking lots
“Surface lots also rob cities of revenue. Property tax is based on the value of things such as homes and buildings, so density means dollars. However, cities fail to grow their tax base when they let parking lots pockmark the landscape. In fact, property taxes on low-use lots actually work against a city’s best interest. The lot is assessed at a low rate, so corporations and landowners sit on their cheap land, waiting years for a top-dollar bidder as downtown real estate gets more expensive. The longer they wait, the bigger the profit.”
When high tech cars create road risks
“…self-driving cars [sic] fit a century-long pattern of promises from the automotive industry that complete safety and comfort are always just one technological advance away. Historical examples include building the Interstate Highway System, car features from safety glass to supplemental restraint systems, and now the prospect of completely autonomous vehicles buzzing about our cities in error-free bliss. Yet each utopian promise serves only to enhance our commitment to car dependency, and keeps us from addressing the broader question of the best mobility choices for the greatest number of people.”
I’ve been dreaming, bopping, walking, biking, staring out windows on the bus this week listening to the new Kacey Musgraves album. Surprising absolutely nobody, The Architect is my favourite song on the album (once an urban nerd, always an urban nerd amiright). Worth a moody listen on your preferred mode of public transportation.
Recently I have been in full-blown hermit mode (if you know me in real life, you’ll know I’m an Introvert™️), so recently I’ve been spending my time taking myself on nice long walks, scoping the produce at my local farmer’s market, and snuggling with dogs that don’t belong to me. It’s meant that bits and bobs feels less “bopping” if you will, but I promise these are a few of my favourite things. I hope your days are also spent with sprinkles of whatever gets your gears going. Bop bop my friends, bop bop.
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
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