According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately one-third of the nation’s residents don’t have driver’s licenses. In her 2024 book “When Driving is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency,” disability advocate Anna Zivarts argues that not only is America’s car-centric infrastructure harmful to the climate, it also fails to meet the everyday needs of many Americans.

Pre 1990s, there was supply side limit in my country and long waiting time(like years) for cars. This meant that car ownership flourished in the hands of elite only. Post opening up of economy, owning a car has become a status symbol and even villages, where once the ubiquitous sustainable cycle was the way of life, cars now rule.

Cars choke the street like pollution choke my country's cities. Trains carry hundreds of passengers, buses dozens, autos multiple, but a single vehicle mooching on the street just for sake of a single person. Since parking is a joke, people park their cars anywhere on the side of roads creating more traffic (Yes, it's a developing country). Folks here love to blame shared autos or government(and some criticism is valid) but none wonder about cars. What is the need for a single person driving an SUV that takes nearly half the space of a small bus?

I see old images of Bangalore from 1960 or Delhi from 1930s and it was wide open spaces/streets. Now it is choked to the limit. Cars have made my country an urban dystopia. There are many things I would have loved my country to copy from the US. It's obsession with cars is NOT one of them.

For me, cars are an utilitarian waste of space(until they are always running packed to capacity which they rarely do)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27494091

Tonight's Toronto Critical Mass, "organized by the community, for the community", will see hundreds of cyclists take the streets in protest against this attempt to rip out our bike lanes. Meet-up is at Bloor St. and Spadina Ave. at 6:00 pm.

Cycle Toronto https://www.cycleto.ca/

Visit the Facebook group for more:

https://www.cycleto.ca/r?u=o6hy3ltLwo-dflPNfvaWKiW6yyaPhPtz2eTJUsob5PoiI7K4sdqtuCdpPZCea1fPjXCWz3iIUKR5qedlB5XtNQ&e=afd8d3f0606f8534b04fd6f600d0758f&n=2

A collective of pedestrians living in the Brussels is fighting illegal parking by putting humorous stickers on the rear windows of cars parked on the pavement – hindering people wanting to walk or cycle safely.

The sticker read: "Don't be a Putin. Don't annex the pavement."

A group of residents and businesses is raising money to oppose Menlo Park’s proposed affordable housing developments on downtown parking lots. The group, Save Downtown Menlo, launched a GoFundMe that has raised over $130,000 in less than a month.

“[Donations are] coming from visitors, people in Atherton, Woodside and Portola Valley that use downtown Menlo as their main business and shopping hub,” said Kevin Cunningham, a downtown property owner and an organizer for the legal fund.

Save Downtown Menlo hopes to raise $300,000 to ensure it has “ample resources available for a long legal process.” Funds raised by Save Downtown Menlo will be used in an effort to block the city council’s housing proposal.

Transporting 200 people:

🚌 in busses (0:31 minutes)

🚋 in trams (0:32 minutes)

🚶 walking (0:38 minutes)

🚲 biking (1:59 minutes)

🚗 driving (4:08 minutes 😱)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27638728

This was the third such referendum in Paris in as many years, following a 2023 vote that approved a ban on e-scooters, and a decision last year to triple parking charges for large SUVs.

The referendum will eliminate 10,000 more parking spots in Paris, adding to the 10,000 removed since 2020. The city's two million residents will be consulted on which streets will become pedestrian areas.

Paris town hall data shows car traffic in the city has more than halved since the Socialists took power in the capital at the turn of the century.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/26116694

Even with the caveats about limited data and untangling causation and correlation, the statistics are striking: the first year of a scheme in Wales where the speed limit on urban roads was lowered to 20mph resulted in about 100 fewer people killed or seriously injured.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s recall, which covers more than 46,000 Cybertrucks, warned that an exterior panel that runs along the left and right side of the windshield can detach while driving, creating a dangerous road hazard for other drivers, increasing the risk of a crash

Protesters in Toronto are calling on an engineering firm to cancel its contract with the Ontario government to help remove some city bike lanes, alleging the removal will endanger cyclists and worsen the climate crisis.

Fridays for Future Toronto says in a social-media post that protesters demonstrated at Stantec Consulting offices Tuesday morning, and police say two people were arrested for trespassing.

I was thinking about induced demand, and I wondered why the argument as it's made against cars/the expansion of highways isn't also applied to things like busses. Does it not occur to the same extent?

A good article from The Guardian discussing the trouble we face in Australia with ever increasing vehicle sizes.

I work downtown. I personally take the bus to work and walk.

While getting feedback from our paid intern's experience, one complained about having to pay for parking.

Because I naturally always support the interns, I pushed for that perk. Why shouldn't they get all the help they need? They're young, they have a busy life and they're trying their best.

But my coworker (who drives) said, "Theres street parking and they are complaining they have to walk 14 minutes over."

Now my internal "Fuck Cars" position is battling with my "Give the Interns everything".

I'm not the deciding factor. Just wanted to share this.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19431148