A Safe New Design To Keep Trucks From Killing Cyclists | FastCompany Trucks are death traps for cyclists. In London, 50% of cyclist deaths are attributable to the hulking vehicles. Because they sit so high up, have such small side windows, and make wide turns, truck drivers often can’t even see the bicyclists they’re about to crush. One reasonable solution is to design better bike lanes, but that’s not enough to fix the problem entirely. The London Cycling Campaign (LCC) flips the responsibility to truck drivers with its Safer Urban Lorry design—a truck model that’s safer for surrounding cyclists.

A Safe New Design To Keep Trucks From Killing Cyclists | FastCompany

Trucks are death traps for cyclists. In London, 50% of cyclist deaths are attributable to the hulking vehicles. Because they sit so high up, have such small side windows, and make wide turns, truck drivers often can’t even see the bicyclists they’re about to crush.

One reasonable solution is to design better bike lanes, but that’s not enough to fix the problem entirely. The London Cycling Campaign (LCC) flips the responsibility to truck drivers with its Safer Urban Lorry design—a truck model that’s safer for surrounding cyclists.

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World’s Most Energy-Efficient Subway Systems | EarthTechling London Underground New York City Transit Singapore Mass Rapid Transit Warsaw Metro Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority Read why these are the most efficient transit systems. 

World’s Most Energy-Efficient Subway Systems | EarthTechling

London Underground

New York City Transit

Singapore Mass Rapid Transit

Warsaw Metro

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority

Read why these are the most efficient transit systems. 

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The success of London’s congestion charge, in three maps

In its first few years, the London charging scheme was heralded as a solid traffic-buster, with 15-20 percent boosts in auto and bus speeds and 30 percent reductions in congestion delays. Most of those gains appear to have disappeared in recent years, however. Transport for London (TfL), which combines the functions of our NYCDOT and MTA and which created and operates the charging system, attributes the fallback in speeds to other changes in the streetscape and traffic management …

Car Traffic Declines

Bicycle Usage Rises

Public Transit Use Increases

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nprfreshair: The World Cities That Tweet the Most The study, released by Paris-based Semiocast, tracked the number of tweets with location info in the month of June, 2012. New York is the top U.S. city for tweets, outranking Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, and Houston. San Francisco, the city that the social media company calls home, doesn’t make an appearance in the top 20.  Read more.[Image: Semiocast]

nprfreshair:

The World Cities That Tweet the Most

The study, released by Paris-based Semiocast, tracked the number of tweets with location info in the month of June, 2012. New York is the top U.S. city for tweets, outranking Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, and Houston. San Francisco, the city that the social media company calls home, doesn’t make an appearance in the top 20. 

Read more.[Image: Semiocast]

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Who Can Solve London's Great Challenges? | Planetizen

Against the backdrop of a made-for-tv mayoral election, Richard Florida looks at the litany of issues afflicting London as the city struggles with the deepest challenges it has faced since the Great Depression and post-war years.

As Ken Livingstone, the former mayor and “fiery socialist with a penchant for dropping explosive sound bites”, faces off against Boris Johnson, “the tousled-haired, bike-riding conservative incumbent”, in an election run-up resembling “a reality TV show,” the reality of the pressing challenges facing the city could make for some rather dramatic television themselves.

“The city has been buffeted by the financial crisis, suffering more severe blows than most cities, from which it is still suffering.” With the city’s economic, media, and entertainment power weakening, and forecasted to decline further, “the next mayor will have to spearhead a plan to stave off growing competition from a host of global cities.”

Florida describes a laundry list of additional challenges that the city’s next mayor will have to address: from bolstering its high-tech economy to better connecting its educational institutions to the private sector and bridging the growing class divide.

“Whether Boris or Ken, London’s next mayor is going to have to thread this needle — to make the city even more attractive to global talent and business while at the same time improving its livability and affordability for ordinary people. It’s a daunting challenge — one that the city’s future prosperity turns on.”

Full Story: London’s Next Top Mayor

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Sense and the City: Smart, Connected, and on the Move If you find yourself in London between now and March 18th, check out this exhibition: ‘Comparing contemporary experiences of London with past visions of the future, the show looks at GPS, electric vehicles, internet access, smart phones and other recent advances in data and communication technologies, presenting these alongside works from the past by architects Le Corbusier, Archigram and others who imagined what the twenty-first-century city might look like.’ More on Time Out

Sense and the City: Smart, Connected, and on the Move

If you find yourself in London between now and March 18th, check out this exhibition:

‘Comparing contemporary experiences of London with past visions of the future, the show looks at GPS, electric vehicles, internet access, smart phones and other recent advances in data and communication technologies, presenting these alongside works from the past by architects Le Corbusier, Archigram and others who imagined what the twenty-first-century city might look like.’

More on Time Out

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Urban Constellations The collection explores themes such as new forms of political mobilization, the effects of economic instability, the political ecology of urban nature and the presence of collective memory. Cultural aspects of urban change are also considered including the work of artists, film makers and others, who have sought to critically engage with processes of urban change. The global scope of the collection includes essays on London, Berlin and Los Angeles, as well as less extensively studied cities such as Buenos Aires, Lagos and Seoul. via humanscalecities:

Urban Constellations

The collection explores themes such as new forms of political mobilization, the effects of economic instability, the political ecology of urban nature and the presence of collective memory. Cultural aspects of urban change are also considered including the work of artists, film makers and others, who have sought to critically engage with processes of urban change. The global scope of the collection includes essays on London, Berlin and Los Angeles, as well as less extensively studied cities such as Buenos Aires, Lagos and Seoul.

via humanscalecities:

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