City Life

[...]Going fare-free has accomplished little in Tallinn. Transit’s share of local commutes has fallen steadily over the past decade, particularly among those with low incomes. Residents today own more automobiles and are more likely to drive than ever before.

“It’s been a relatively useless policy,” Mari Jussi, a sustainable mobility advisor to the Estonian Transport Administration, told me in a café on a windswept cobblestone street. “People here are still shifting to cars.”

When I asked Jussi what advice she would offer American policymakers who want to improve transit service, she had a ready answer: “Any extra money should be put toward transit service, and not zero fares,” she replied. “Transit’s price is not a barrier for most people. It’s service quality and speed of the trip.”

This is pretty fascinating in that the speaker studied traditional architecture such as gothic vaulted arched ceilings and applied the traditional masonry and construction techniques to concrete. With the use of arched construction you're able to use proportionally much less concrete to create similarly sized structures and since the strength of the structure is enhanced by structural form rather than just the strength of the concrete, the structures can last a longer time.

You're looking at that right by the way. THREE freeway ramps!! I walked this last week and it was genuinely terrifying. The first freeway ramp when coming from the bus stop has NO pedestrian lights or signals.

Also those of you with good eyes will notice that there is NO SIDEWALK south of the bus stop. None. If you want to walk south on that particular street (which is 5 lanes btw) then you have to cross the freeway to get to the other side of the road.

Reece from RMTransit goes over earthquake resilience in Vancouver and the PNW

Some interesting points:

That may mean that Amsterdam residents will have to “wait a little longer” during rush hour, motorists may spend longer at red lights, and locals may have to accept that same-day delivery is a thing of the past.

Cyclists will also have to adapt. Next year, the city will introduce streets where faster cyclists, often on e-bikes and fatbikes, can choose between the motorway or the bike path. Those who choose the bike path must adhere to a speed limit of 20 kilometers per hour.

For a city moving in the opposite direction: Change to the mobility law - Berlin CDU wants to abolish priority for cyclists

[...]there's a hero waiting in the wings: the e-cargo bike. Not only can these bad boys deliver packages in urban environments just as quickly (and sometimes faster) than delivery vans, they take up far less space and are much less likely to cause pedestrian deaths. Companies like Amazon, DHL, and UPS are using them in several European cities, but American cities haven't followed suit.

In this video, we explore why that is, and lay out some of the big steps American cities would need to take to join the e-bike delivery revolution.

The results were not what I expected, definitely worth a watch. (From the youtube channel Oh The Urbanity)

It's no exaggeration that as someone raised on the island of Cyprus, I was astonished by how green the cities looked from above when I first travelled to Europe.