An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance.
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QUARTER-HOUR CURRICULUM: The Suburban Experiment
Executive director of Strong Towns and New Urban Network Blogger Charles Marohn explains the myriad of problems inherent in the American suburban experiment in 15 minutes at a local TED event in Grand Rapids, MN.
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He takes us all the way from transporting goods in an ox driven cart to our modern interstate system and still has time to talk about how real, measurable value is created (and lost) in our cities and towns.He also touches upon the disastrous flaws in our policies regarding the financing and maintenance of our built environment, both public and private.
This short video is packed full of hard planning truths and is not to be missed.
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AN EVEN BRIEFER HISTORY
… of vancouver’s freeway proposals, in this backgrounder by City Planning Director Brent Toderian. He provides some helpful illustrations while outlining the re:connect ideas competition for the Eastern Core and Viaducts.
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MODAL SPLITS
This is handy: a database of cities with comparative information on ‘modal splits’ – the percent of travel by car, bike, public transit and foot.
Wish it had North American cities. And where’s Copenhagen?
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Very cool tool, I was most impressed by this city: http://www.epomm.eu/tems/result_city.phtml?city=167&map=1
Oulu, Finland has 21% cycling modal share.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulu
Average annual temp of just 2c and 433mm annual precipitation, so cold and dry. Fairly comparable to Whitehorse, Yukon which has -0.7c and 267mm precipitation and is 5 degrees further south or Edmonton, Alberta which has a more warmer climate 3.9c and 477mm.
Weather doesn’t seem to matter as much as how the city is laid out when it comes to modal share. Some people think that some cities do not have the climate for cycling, ie Rob Ford in Toronto said something about how they are not Florida.