cars – Page 7 – Things Are Good

Public Transit Makes Cities Safer

subway transit

Obviously public transit is great for getting people around cities and is a very scalable traffic solution. One spinoff of a good public transit system is that the streets get safer. In Canada he number of collisions increases every year with the vast majority of these collisions the result of driver error. With public transit something else is happening and it’s thanks to the driver training and supportive infrastructure.

Instead of driving yourself, take transit. It might save your life.

Commuter trains, buses, streetcars, and subway trains are all safer forms of transit with much lower rates of injury and death than automobiles; they are heavier and stronger vehicles, they are larger and more visible, they often travel in their own right-of-ways, and (perhaps most importantly) they are operated byÂ highly trained drivers.

All of these factors produce a much stronger safety record: these vehicles are less likely to be in a collision, and in the rare occasion that they are, their passengers are less likely to get hurt.

A September 2016 report from the American Public Transportation AssociationÂ [PDF]Â argues that we need to start thinking about the role public transit can play in public safety.

Bicycling is the Safest Form of Transportation

In Toronto, the car rules the road so much so that the city is fine with non-driver (that’s everyone) deaths, and the city won’t do much to stop drivers from killing. Sadly, Toronto isn’t a unique case. In far too many places bicycling infrastructure is an afterthought that plays second fiddle to cars. Despite this lack of support for safety, riding a bike is still the least dangerous way to get around.

Bicycling is so safe that you can actually lengthen your lifetime by riding! Mr Money Moustache ran the numbers and found out that statistically no matter where you live you’ll live longer by riding a bike! So get out there and get on a bike and remember the more people out there commuting via bicycle the safer the streets!

Riding a bike is not more dangerous than driving a car. In fact, it is much, much safer:

Under even the most pessimistic of assumptions:

Net effect of driving a car at 65mph for one hour: Dying 20 minutes sooner.Â (18 seconds of life lost per mile)

Net effect of riding a bike at 12mph for one hour: LivingÂ 2 hours and 36 minutes longerÂ (about 13 minutes of lifeÂ gainedÂ per mile)

Cities Designed for Walking Attract Smart People

The human population of the world is urbanizing, but some places are performing better than others. The key to making a good modern and productive city is to make it walkable. Design for people, not cars.

Over at BBC autos they took a look at what attracts smart people to the smartest cities and it looks like walkability is a driving factor.

For example, the top three cities in the study with the highest percentages of office, retail, and residential spots in walkable areas â€” New York, Washington, and Boston â€” had a lot of citizens age 25 and up who hold a least a bachelorâ€™s degree. Washington had the most of those citizens in the entire study (51%), and Boston had third most (42%).
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Big cities that topped the studyâ€™s list in GDP and education level have long been absent of the hallmarks of car-centric suburbia, like freeways and strip malls.

Drivers Need to Learn to Share

Bicycles are an amazingly fast way to get around cities and countries, as a cyclist I often roll past cars idling in bumper to bumper traffic. The cars (and their single occupants) aren’t getting anywhere anytime soon yet drivers as a group demand more and more infrastructure when really they should learn to share.

In the Globe and Mail, it’s argued that drivers shouldn’t be so selfish and support things like public transit, bike lanes, and other initiatives that actually help people get around. The car as an individual transportation solution needs to go away.

The truth is thereâ€™s no immediate solution to traffic congestion. We can wait for trillion-dollar infrastructure projects to get completed. We can wait for a new subway line or bike lane. We can wait for autonomous cars to make better use of the available road space. But until then, weâ€™re going to have to learn to better share the space weâ€™ve got.

Roads are for moving cars as quickly as possible. Pedestrians are a danger and cyclists are barely tolerated. But what if, as drivers, we changed the way we thought about roads? If theyâ€™re public space â€“ a quarter of Torontoâ€™s total area â€“ then shouldnâ€™t they be for moving as many people as fast as possible? Sometimes that will mean prioritizing automobiles. Sometimes that will mean giving up a lane to cyclists. Sometimes that will mean giving up a lane to buses.

Bike Lanes Improve Cities Aesthetically and Economically

There is a strong and powerful myth in North America that car drivers spend more and will always require parking. That is a myth. It turns out that nearly every study done on bike lanes as proven that cyclists are the transportation class cities should cater to because drivers don’t need all those useless parking spaces and drivers aren’t richer than others. (They have to waste all their money on gas and repairs anyway.)

A neighborhood survey of 420 people on First and Second avenues in Manhattan’s East Village, home to protected bike lanes, found that aggregate spending by non-drivers accounted for 95 percent of all retail spending in the area. That’s not too surprising in New York, given the great transit infrastructure, but the figures remain impressive. Cyclists spent about $163 per week on average, compared to $143 among drivers.