Exhibit A is from Geico, which as usual doesn’t use cars in its ads for car insurance. Instead, in this spot the company’s ubiquitous cartoon spokeslizard is depicted walking the center line of the Brooklyn Bridge bike-ped path, extolling the value of Geico auto, RV and motorcycle insurance. Then comes the caveat — “You want to find a place to park all these things? Fuhgeddaboudit! This is New York.” — before the lizard is almost squashed by a cyclist who yells at him for being in the way.

Whether you’re from the city or not, you’re in on the joke: New York is a place where space is tight and people are on the move. But also: You don’t need a car to live here, and in fact, you’re probably better off without the hassle.

President Obama with daughter Malia on Tuesday. Not pictured: Secret Service SUVs. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty via Transportation Nation

This week marked the 109th anniversary of the first presidential motorcade, starring Theodore Roosevelt. If you’ve ever wondered why TR’s successors so rarely ditch their limos in favor of human-powered transport, read on. Staged photo op or no, it seems being elected president is a great way to spoil a family outing.

Copy from Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown via the White House Press Office. Emphasis added.

The First Family took a leisurely ride Tuesday morning through Manuel F. Correllus State Forest.

After about a half-hour wait, shortly after 11 a.m., the pool got a glimpse of the president, decked out in a helmet, sunglasses, a black polo shirt and dark jeans.

But first up: First Lady Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha took the lead, passing first by the pool, which was assembled in knee-deep grass off a concrete bike path. Neither said anything to the reporters, photographers and TV cameras recording them.

Several minutes later, the president and daughter Malia rode by.

“Hello, everybody,” Obama said to the pool and about two dozen or so less-famous bikers who greeted him.

“Any word on Qadhafi’s whereabouts?” yelled the Associated Press’s Mark Smith.

The president didn’t take the question, choosing instead to keep his focus on the small group of cheering spectators as he moved further down the path.

The full procession through the park offered a stark contrast that underscored the strange existence of a president.

Shortly before Michelle and Sasha Obama arrived, two trucks carrying Secret Service agents rode along the same narrow concrete path usually reserved for bikers and walkers. A rolling caravan of agents and staff followed on bikes ahead of the president and Malia, who were then followed by several more SUVs full of agents.

“Can you imagine living like that?” one female biker asked her fellow onlookers.

Less than three weeks after being sworn in, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined his transportation commissioner, Gabe Klein, for the groundbreaking of the city’s first physically separated bike lane. What’s good for cyclists, says Emanuel in this news clip, is good for the city.

More than that, Emanuel has thrown down the gauntlet to other big-city leaders. By declaring his intent to make Chicago the most bike-friendly city in the nation, and walking the walk from the outset, he has effectively placed the onus on his peers to keep up. For an idea of how high Emanuel has set the bar, he’s talking 25 miles of protected bike lanes per year — more than New York City has installed to date.

While New York, Boston, Philadelphia, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles have all made strides recently, none that we can think of have been accompanied by this level of high-visibility commitment from their respective mayors. Emanuel campaigned on transportation reforms and is enacting livable streets policy right away, without apology. As if making a city’s streets safer and more accessible is the most obvious thing in the world.

Go Rahm go.

When it comes to traffic signage, is less more?

That’s the issue taken up by Ed Wagner of Tulsa
Alternative Transportation Examiner, who was baffled by a wave of
confusing new signs in the parking lot of his place of employment.
Wagner believes the proliferation of stop signs in Tulsa has resulted in
drivers who pay them little attention, or drive faster between stops,
making conditions more hazardous for pedestrians.

The idea of doing away with signage is not new, but Wagner stops
short of advocating a Mondermanist
approach. Here’s what he has in mind:

For most drivers, stop signs have become defacto yields. We
should recognize this and simply replace them with true yield signs. I
realize it wouldn’t help those kids stranded on a street corner, but
that problem could be addressed by stationing a crossing guard there.

But is it right to change the signage in order to align our
streets with people’s behavior? Or should we expect that behavior should
conform to the existing signage? I’m thinking that by changing most
stop signs to yields, we can give the remaining stop signs greater
impact on driver’s behavior, in effect, gaining compliance by reducing
their numbers. Frankly though, that’s a supposition which should be
confirmed via testing.

Wagner also offers this tidbit on the double standard of the
rolling stop: "There’s a perceptual difference for motorists who reduce
speed from 25 mph down to 5 mph, and feel that consists of stopping. Yet
a cyclist who slows from 15 mph to that same 5 mph is seen as a
lawbreaker."

More from the Network today: Mobilizing
the Region on the effort to use complete streets to curb childhood
obesity in Kingston, New York; Streetsblog
San Francisco on the prospect of lifting the four-year injunction
on bike infrastructure; and Greater
Greater Washington on a partial victory for streetcar supporters.

When I find myself complaining about city subway or bus service —
while waiting too long for the bus or watching helplessly from one train
as the one I need to transfer to leaves the station — I try to keep in
mind that, maybe above all else, the relative ease of car-free mobility
is the reason I live in New York. Jarrett Walker of Human
Transit might say that, by having the choice to make my home in
such a place, I have reached the self-actualization level on the Transit
Hierarchy of Needs.

Drawing on a post from The
Dead Horse Times, Walker explains that by applying Abraham Maslow’s
Hierarchy
of Needs to public transportation, advocates might come to a better
understanding of "what’s really important" when it comes to growing
transit ridership while meeting the needs of those for whom transit is
mostly a means to the most basic ends.

We transport planners are sometimes cast as narrow-minded because
we obsess about travel time. But we obsess about it because human
beings do. When an urbanist such as Patrick
Condon suggests that I should want transit to be slower so that it will
foster better communities, I sense a problem that Maslow’s pyramid
might elucidate.

Where in Maslow’s pyramid would we locate our need for speed? You
might argue that it depends on the purpose of travel, but the vast
majority of our travel is about the three lowest levels of the pyramid.
These levels — Physiological, Safety and Love/belonging — are what
motivate us to work, and work is one of the great drivers of transit
demand.

More directly, the anxious basic lower-level needs are why we
often feel "we just need to get there." You’re waiting for a bus or
train because you want to be home where it’s safe (Safety). Or you want
to get home to your partner or child (Safety and Love/belonging). Or
you’re hungry — a Physiological need.

When we engage in conversations about what makes a great city, or
for that matter a good life, we have to remember that outside the
sealed windows of our salon or charrette or network of likeminded blogs,
most of our fellow citizens are working on more fundamental needs, and
are motivated by those needs as they travel in the city. They’re buying
food, or earning their rent money, or getting home to their families.

In a somewhat related post, Second
Avenue Sagas fears that New York’s "new" digital subway signage is
already 10 years behind. Also on the Network today: Twin
City Sidewalks on how Sesame Street is a bad model for public
space; DC
Bike Examiner on instances when transit isn’t "green"; and Soap Box LA on the new era of
cooperation between cyclists and LAPD.

Cyclists rally in memory of Christophe Le Canne. Photo: rydel/Picasa via Miami Bike Scene

The horrific death of a 44-year-old resident of South Miami has enraged
cyclists across South Florida, igniting a debate over street safety in
a region historically dominated by devil-may-care drivers.

On January 17, Christophe Le Canne was out for a Sunday
morning ride on the Rickenbacker Causeway, which connects the city of
Miami with Virginia Key and Key Biscayne, when he was hit from behind
and knocked from his bike by Carlos Bertonatti, a 28-year-old aspiring
musician with a long history of traffic offenses. Bertonatti drove for miles with Le Canne’s blue Cannondale wedged beneath his Volkswagen Jetta.
Le Canne died before paramedics arrived on the scene.

Bertonatti was arrested outside his Key Biscayne apartment after a police officer observed him
dragging Le Canne’s bike. He was charged with DUI manslaughter,
vehicular homicide, resisting arrest, driving without a license and
leaving the scene of a fatal accident. 

This could have been
written off as an isolated incident — another drunk driver with a
checkered driving record takes another life. But for several possible
reasons, that didn’t happen. Consider the arrogance of the killer.
Bertonatti’s website, according to the Miami Herald, "had boasted of his poor driving record." Police had to strap him to a fire department backer board in order to extract a blood sample. After the crash, Bertonatti issued regrets through his publicist. He is currently out on bail.

Some
also blame Le Canne’s death in part on a bungled response by emergency
personnel. Due to confusion over who should handle the 911 call, it
took more than 15 minutes for help to reach the victim. By then it was
too late.

Whatever the reason, Le Canne’s death has acted as
a flashpoint for cyclists who have long endured pariah status on the
chaotic streets of the Miami megalopolis. A memorial ride for Le Canne drew thousands. Advocates are calling for
separated bike facilities, in addition to tougher penalties for drivers who harass or harm cyclists. The Miami-Dade County Commission has discussed lowering speed limits, increasing police presence, and streamlining emergency response operations.
Stricter rules for alcohol service have also come up.

It’s
impossible to ignore the parallels between the Le Canne tragedy and any
number of local cyclist and pedestrian fatalities. A driver with a long
rap sheet is allowed to remain behind the wheel of his own car until he, almost inevitably, ends up visiting misery on innocent victims.

And
as in New York, the perniciousness of motorist entitlement asserts
itself in less obvious ways. There was once talk of raising the toll on
the Rickenbacker at Key Biscayne, which could have funded extended
hours for a fire-rescue station closer to the spot where Le Canne was
hit. That station was closed at the time of the crash.

Western Union cellphone ad from 1984. Image via NYT

Concerns
arose not long after it hit the market. External studies seemed to
confirm what industry insiders feared: The product could pose a public
health risk. But as sales soared, whistleblowers who didn’t leave their
jobs were forced to keep quiet. Companies maintained a posture of
denial as a mountain of damning evidence, some of it from their own
investigations, kept growing. Bowing to pressure, some consented to
warning labels and other notices, but still insisted that claims of
product-related injuries and deaths remained unproven.

It’s a familiar story. And in the latest installment of
its "Driven to Distraction" series, the NY Times lays out in detail how,
in this case, it was the mobile phone industry that continued to market its product
for use in a manner long believed to be hazardous to its customers and
the population at large. The result: As far back as seven years ago,
the Times reports, "drivers using cellphones were causing 2,600 fatal
crashes a year in the United States and 570,000 accidents that resulted
in a range of injuries, from minor to serious." Now a lawsuit, among
the first of its kind, has been filed against Samsung and Sprint Nextel
by a woman whose mother was killed by a distracted driver in Oklahoma City in 2008.

Of
course a key issue is the line between provider and motorist
responsibility. The driver in this case, who pleaded to misdemeanor
negligent homicide, does not blame the cellular industry. "It’s our
choice if we’re going to talk on the cellphone while driving or walking
down the street or in the office," he said. "The cellphone companies
don’t say you should talk on the phone and drive."

Actually, they do — and, as the Times reveals, they always have.
It’s certainly true that "the mobile device has moved well beyond its
origins as a car phone," to paraphrase industry reps, but cellphone
manufacturers and sellers are advertising the benefits of talking while
driving to this day, even as they inch toward acknowledgment of the inherent dangers.

The
CTIA, the industry’s trade group, supports legislation banning texting
while driving. It has also changed its stance on legislation to ban
talking on phones while driving – for years, it opposed such laws; now
it is neutral.

"This was never something we anticipated,"
said Mr. [Steve] Largent, head of the CTIA, adding that distracted
driving is a growing threat now that more than 90 percent of Americans
have cellphones. "The reality of distracted driving has become more
apparent to all of us."

This supposed
revelation comes nearly 50 years and thousands of casualties after
Motorola developer Martin Cooper testified of the earliest mobile
phones: "There should be a lock on the dial so that you couldn’t dial
while driving."

The first time I saw this ad I thought my eyes and ears were deceiving me. But no, there it is: a young woman holding a cellphone toward the camera as "nüvifone" maker Garmin beckons viewers to "communicate while navigating."

"With my nüvifone, I can take calls from my friends while I'm driving to them," she says as she's shown piloting an SUV with two passengers, one of whom accepts an incoming call on a phone mounted to the windshield. (Note to Garmin: Hands-free is not brain-free.)

Maybe the most egregious aspect is the "Do not drive while distracted" disclaimer -- which pops up as the young woman is depicted driving while distracted.

Dr. Christopher Thompson is taken away in cuffs Monday. Photo: Los Angeles Times

Following
a highly-publicized, intensely-followed trial, Christopher Thompson,
the physician accused of using his car to seriously injure two cyclists
in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, is behind bars.

Thompson was convicted yesterday of six felony counts: two counts each, according to VeloNews, of assault with a deadly weapon, battery with
serious bodily injury, and reckless driving causing specified
injury and mayhem.

On
July 4, 2008, Thompson passed cyclists Ron Peterson and Christian
Stoehr as the pair rode through the emergency room surgeon’s upscale
neighborhood. Angry after a verbal exchange with the men, Thompson slammed on the brakes
of his red Infiniti as Peterson and Stoehr rode behind. Stoehr ended up
in front of the car, wounded with a separated shoulder. Peterson hit
the rear window, suffering severe facial injuries. Thompson told police
on the scene that he was tired of cyclists in his neighborhood and
wanted to "teach them a lesson."

At trial, Thompson denied
making that statement, claiming that he had been attempting to get
photographs of the cyclists, who he said had frightened him. But the
jury didn’t buy it, possibly because of Thompson’s history of hostility
toward people on bikes. He was also convicted Monday of misdemeanor
reckless driving, a charge stemming from a prior encounter with two
other cyclists.

Prosecutor Mary
Stone urged that Thompson be remanded to jail, saying: "In terms of
public safety, there isn’t a cyclist in Los Angeles who would be
comfortable if he were out on the streets." Judge Scott Millington
apparently agreed, ordering Thompson held without bail. Sentencing is
set for December 3. Thompson faces up to 10 years in prison.

Thompson
could very well get off with a light sentence. But to have prosecutors,
a judge and jury members agree on the heinous nature of this crime, and
to deem its non-driving victims worthy of justice, can scarcely be
interpreted as anything other than a positive development — one that
will hopefully be noticed by law enforcement officials nationwide.

Damien Newton at Streetsblog LA has followed this case since Thompson’s arrest last year. You can catch up on the coverage here.

Salt Lake City's new-urbanism epiphany -- fervently backed by Mayor Ralph Becker and the City Council -- appears to be catching static from an unlikely source.

Transit-oriented development isn't stymied by outdated zoning, unwilling developers or a lack of space. It turns out, banks, wedded to old-fashioned lending standards that stress parking, may pose the biggest blockade by denying financing.

The reason: Lenders operate from a tried-and-true principle that maintains more parking means less risk and a higher return on their investment. But ditching cars is the whole point of urban developers looking to create 24-hour live, work and play environments that hug light-rail hubs. 

Real estate lending standards: A work in progress. Photo: MSN.

That's right, the same sector that got such fantastic returns from the car-dependent suburban fringe isn't sold on the viability of neighborhoods where you can get around without driving. Salt Lake City banks are hardly the exception. We've heard time and again that limits on parking in the Bay Area would send lenders running to the hills (or over them, to Walnut Creek).

If we're ever going to build housing with limited parking and stop the tide of conditional use exemptions to parking restrictions, we'll need banks to change their assumptions. As Jensen reports, Portland shows that it can be done.

Livable streets prodigy Elli Giammona. Photo: The Missoulian

Elli is a 9-year-old in Missoula, Montana who a couple of years ago began to question why she couldn’t bike to school.
When her mother explained that it wasn’t safe because the road leading
from their home to Hellgate Elementary — a typical suburban arterial,
from the looks of it — didn’t have a sidewalk, Elli took action.

With
encouragement from her mom and the help of her younger sister and older
brother, she petitioned Missoula County, gathering signatures and
composing a letter explaining the benefits of a walkable Mullan Road. The Missoulian reports:

The letter is dated Jan. 14, 2009, around the time [county public works director Greg] Robertson was
looking for a project eligible for American Reinvestment and
Recovery Act dollars. Criteria? A quick turnaround, a project in
the urban area, and one uncomplicated by problems like right-of-way
negotiations and extra environmental reviews.

"Honestly, I didn’t have any other projects for consideration at
the time that would have met the criteria," he said.

Long story short: A new trail is expected to be finished in time for Elli to ride it to school next fall.

Not
only has Elli made it safer for herself and her neighbors to ride a
bike or take a walk, she’s also made plain how completely the stars
must align for something as simple as a car-free ribbon of asphalt to
become reality. (Even now, the planned Missoula trail won’t connect
with the school because of right-of-way costs.) Just a few decades ago
a kid riding or walking to school would be considered the epitome of
American wholesomeness. Now it’s a symptom of child neglect, in part because of infrastructure so obviously inhospitable that even a 7-year-old gets it.

Maybe,
above all, Elli Giammona and her family have given us hope for a future
in which full-grown adults get it too. One where it won’t take an act
of Congress to get a child to school safely.

The average commuter in São Paulo, Brazil spends nearly three hours a day stuck in traffic. Gridlock is so prevalent and stifling that the wealthy prefer to get about via helicopter. But the recent São Paulo Intermodal Challenge suggests that human-powered ground transport may be the way to go. PSFK reports:

The means of transportation chosen ranged from cars, bikes, motorbikes, and a helicopter to buses, metro, their own feet and even a wheelchair. Contrary to all forecasts, a biker won the challenge, with a total time of 22 minutes -- more than 10 minutes faster than the person on the helicopter, who spent a total of 33 minutes and 30 seconds between going to the heliport, waiting for takeoff clearance, flying and landing. The car came way behind, with a total time of 1:22 -- slower than the runner, who took 1:06, the bus (1:11) and just 10 minutes faster than the person who chose to walk the whole path (1:32).

And congratulations to Rio de Janeiro for winning the 2016 Summer Olympics bid! I wonder how much the city's public transit plan had an effect on the result?  From the IOC page:

The competition venues will be clustered in four zones – Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro and Maracanã – and connected by a high-performance transport ring. Nearly half of the athletes will be able to reach their venues in less than 10 minutes, and almost 75 per cent will do so in less than 25 minutes.

Here's another installment in what could ideally become a series on how police departments are doing right by pedestrians and cyclists. We posted the Chicago bike video a couple of weeks back. We now present the Sacramento crosswalk sting. (Warning: Insufferable Geico commercial may precede video.)

Back in April, TV station KCRA filmed a plainclothes Sacramento officer busting motorists who couldn't be bothered to yield the right of way. Notice how, though they cite the potential amount of the fine, neither the anchor nor the reporter ever intimate that the operation is a money-making scheme? Instead of sticking a mic in a driver's face for a quick-and-dirty accusation of extortion -- a near-must in most any mainstream media story about traffic enforcement -- the reporter is completely sympathetic to the pedestrians in harm's way, and rightly credits the officer for putting his life on the line.

According to Movieline (via New York Mag), Jay Leno's new prime time show, set to debut on NBC in September, hasn't exactly been generating a lot of buzz. But since nothing says funny like a grisly hit-and-run, this promo, co-starring Fred Armisen of "Saturday Night Live," should turn things around.

Though I'm pretty sure Leno has never gotten as much as a chuckle from me, I understand where the humor is supposed to be here. Yet for some reason the laughter isn't coming.

Somewhere, though, I imagine pedestrian-hater Robert Novak is yukking it up.

Picking up on a thread from earlier this week on how street design can be used to prevent high-speed crashes in dense urban environments, today on the Network we hear from Streetsblog regular Andy B from Jersey, via WalkBikeJersey Blog.

On a recent drive along the Jersey shore, Andy found Route 35 packed with people, and the street ill-suited to accommodate them.

A 21-year-old pedestrian was killed
at this Ocean City, NJ intersection in July. Locals say design changes
are needed to prevent future casualties. Photo: pressofAtanticCity.com

Talk of pedestrian and bicycle traffic! It was everywhere and
coming from every conceivable direction. This was particularly true in
the Lavallette and Ortley Beach areas. Despite the volumes of bike and
pedestrian traffic facilities for them were extremely minimal and often
in poor condition. Bike lanes are nonexistent and even sidewalks were
intermittent. Bicyclists came from every direction with only one of
over a hundred having any lights even though it was completely dark by
this time. Pedestrians were also hard to see, including ones making
every effort to use the marked crosswalks. Local authorities did try to
help pedestrians by placing construction barrels in the roadway to
accent crosswalks but at night this seemed (to me at least) to cause
more confusion.

With repairs coming soon at some point it is time for NJDOT to step up and come up with a Context Sensitive Solution for this highway that suits the needs of all roadway users and increases safety for all.

Traffic
enforcement and equitable street design shouldn’t be an either/or
proposition. Can citizens prod law enforcers and urban planners to work
together to improve conditions for all road users? If so, where do we
begin?

Also today, Transit Miami finds that Quito, Ecuador, is getting it right when it comes to people-friendly streetscaping, while UrbanCincy ponders the merits of signal timing in keeping speeds down. And WashCycle
reports that Roanoke, Virginia, cyclists bulked up their bikes to
illustrate how much street space is required for the average driver.

In Portland, fears of liability turned Safe Routes to School to "Safer Routes." Photo: BikePortland.org

"It’s pervasive throughout the country and we’re hearing about it more and more,” [Ping] said. The problem, according to Ping, is that many school principals and administrators feel that biking and walking to school is simply unsafe. They are concerned about being held liable for anything that happens during the trip to and/or from school.

In addition to studying the current scope of the problem, the Safe Routes National Partnership is putting together a team of legal experts who will craft a legal statement directed at school principals, outlining why improving biking and walking options will not increase their liability exposure. They hope the legal statement will also help allay the fears that lead to bike ban policies in the first place.

Though, as Ping points out, principals can't actually stop students from walking and biking, they can use their influence to discourage it. Administrators can also deny students a decent place to store their bikes during the school day. But if the issue is safety and liability, what about those high school parking lots?

Ping said one safe routes advocate he heard from countered a bike ban in their community by asking the principal whether or not he felt liable for kids who drive to school. “That’s a great way to push back on this idea.”

In response to the President's State of the Union Address in February, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) criticized the stimulus, arguing that it was "larded with wasteful spending." He pointed to the $8 billion devoted to high-speed rail as a specifically unnecessary expenditure. It became clear at that moment that the road to an improved American transportation system would not be a straight shot. How will the members of the Senate react when they are forced to consider expanding the federal commitment to transportation? That's what this Transport Index is intended to anticipate.

The health reform debate of the last several weeks has made evident the fact that Republicans in Congress will be able to rile up an intimidating opposition to legislation proposed by the Democratic Party. Though Democrats have 60 seats in the Senate -- a number that is large enough to vote down a potentially fatal filibuster -- the sudden arrival of thousands of right-wing demonstrators on scene at town hall meetings has slowed down and problematized the passage of any legislation.

Would Republicans stage a similar temper tantrum if the Congress embarked on a massive transportation program? It's unclear, but Mr. Jindal's reaction in February indicates that it's a distinct possibility.

What do you think of this ranking system? Can Democratic senators from Montana, North Dakota, and Arkansas be counted on to support a bill that invests in urban transit?

More on the Network: Hard Drive details how a bike shop owner in Portland, Oregon has instituted his own Cash for Clunkers program; Urban Review STL looks at how towns are messing up Main Street; Copenhagenize anticipates the arrival of "bicycle superhighways"; and Plan Philly reports on a city plan to speed bus travel.

Photo: TITIG/Flickr

The
coalition points to a June League of American Bicyclists report that
heralds cycling as a $133 billion industry, putting some 1.1 million
Americans to work and contributing $17.7 billion in federal, state and
local taxes annually, in addition to the $46.9 billion cyclists spend
on bike tourism:

The report is brief but it
does a great job pointing to the economic/health benefits of bicycling
while dispelling myths commonly used to oppose bicycle infrastructure
investments. For example a study of bike lanes on Bloor St. in Toronto
concluded that the addition of bike lanes would be unlikely to harm
local business and predicted that commercial activity on the street
would likely increase. Three-quarters of merchants surveyed on the
street believed that business activity would improve or stay the same
if a bike lane replaced half of the on-street parking.

You can find the LAB report, with plenty of U.S. success stories, here.
If there is a downside to this bit of positive economic news, it could
be that in one of America’s most hospitable cycling towns — Portland,
Oregon — would-be pedalers may have a tough time finding an affordable starter ride. Cash for beater bikes, anyone?

In other news, Smart City Memphis laments that city’s refusal to abandon sprawl-inducing land use patterns; Second Avenue Sagas delves into this week’s subway station ceiling collapse; Streetsblog San Francisco offers analysis on the potential positive effect of the transit strike near miss; and Cycling Solution reports on livable streets improvements in Budapest, Hungary.

Photo: Columbus Dispatch

Even if all the statements are true, I didn’t like the tone of the
article. It seemed like pedestrians were being blamed for their own
deaths. One might think that the driver of a vehicle capable of
killing someone might be held responsible for hitting people in the
roadway at least some of the time.

Xing
Columbus wonders if local police have data to back up their claims, as
none was cited in the article. An August 13 editorial in the Sacramento Bee,
however, points to a study from the UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center
showing that "more than 80 percent of crosswalk collisions are related
to driver behavior."

So some skepticism is in order when drivers say, "the pedestrian ran
(darted, dashed) in front of me" or "came out of nowhere" — especially
when the pedestrian is unconscious (or dead), and there are no
witnesses at the scene.

Regardless
of statistics, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that, by inserting
themselves into the domain of cars and drivers, pedestrians and
cyclists are asking for it.

Not that further proof is needed, but if you really want to get worked up, have a look at the comments on a weekend pedestrian fatality in Athens, Georgia. As friends of the victim expressed their condolences to his family, one Athens Banner-Herald reader wrote:

Why
is it that everyone can show sympathy to the person who caused the
accident but no one seems concerned with the real victim in all of this
– the driver who had to watch someone basically commit suicide on the
front bumper of his vehicle? My heart goes out to that driver. That
must have been a horrible situation to be forced into.

Also today: Streetsblog San Francisco reports that the looming BART strike was averted over the weekend; The Wash Cycle has an update on what was once called "The Stupidest Bike Lane in America"; and Bike Portland marks another successful Sunday Parkways event.

A key corridor in a large city is cited as a prime spot to replace auto traffic with people-friendly space. Local leaders move on the idea and, once underway, the physical transition comes quickly. Cars are supplanted by street furniture and people. Critics complain, fearing negative impact on area business.

If this sounds familiar, it's probably not what you think. Streetfilms' Elizabeth Press explains:

Rua XV de Novembro (15th of November Street) is one of the major streets in downtown Curitiba. In 1972 under the direction of then Mayor Jaime Lerner, it became the first major pedestrian street in Brazil. The first phase of closing the street took place in only 72 hours.

"At first the project was unpopular," Elizabeth continues, "but today is seen as a success and spans 15 blocks."