By Wes Marshall CONVENTIONAL DESIGN VS. SHARED SPACE Engineers and planners typically design transportation systems to isolate different modes of travel as much as possible; vehicles should stay on the roadway, bicycles in the bicycle lanes, and pedestrians on the sidewalk. Over the last couple decades, some visionary transportation engineers and planners […]
Kevin Krizek and I wrote “The Shapes of Streets to Come – How New Transport Technology will Reshape Urban Space” which appeared in European Financial Review (registration required) (reprinted below). In the same issue, John Renne has a piece called “Changing Preferences for Transportation and Transit-Oriented Communities Signal a Gradual Move to a Post-Oil Based […]
In the constant exhortations to pedestrians around cars and trains, we hear “Safety is a shared responsibility“. This of course is true. Many crashes are the product of a chain of failures. The driver was too fast for conditions. The driver did not pay attention. The pedestrian did not pay attention. Someone else did not pay attention and […]
There have been a forest of expired plans for public transport in Sydney. There are more plans still in the works. They almost entirely focus either on Trains (and especially Metros), or on specific lines that a particular party is pushing. But a detailed comprehensive look at the layer below the trains is missing.
We are pleased to report that Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners by David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen is now on YouTube. About the Book Nothing in cities makes sense except in the light of accessibility. Transport cannot be understood without reference to the location of activities (land […]
So your civilization kills 1.35 million people per year in automobile-related crashes. This is a tragedy, but it is no “accident“. Road deaths are largely preventable, and the evidence is that some countries (the United States, Australia) have much higher rates of road death than others (Sweden). The strategies to reduce the carnage go under […]
Joan Henson writes Taken for a ride in AltMedia. My quotes below, the full interview below that. … Sydney lags internationally for cycling University of Sydney Professor David Levinson has researched how the distance between commuters and stations can be shrunk by installing strategic station entry points, thus expanding commuter catchments. As bicycle speeds can be […]
First Path In the beginning was the path. It was undifferentiated, shared by people and animals alike, and eventually wheeled vehicles pulled by humans and animals. While dating the First Path is impossible — the very first First Path must have been a path that was reused once, and slightly better than the unimproved space […]
Below are some sources that make points similar to what might be in a Pedestrian Bill of Rights. Feel free to share more, I will add to the post. These are not in a particular order. The illustrated Charter of Pedestrian Rights (PDF) in English by Mexican pedestrian advocates @LigaPeatonal says: As pedestrians we […]
Is the purpose of bollards to keep people in or keep cars out? A reader writes: After the attack in Toronto last week with a guy driving a van and killing 10 people and injuring 15, Montreal announced a new plan for Saint Catherine street making it pedestrian friendly, with a nice wide sidewalk […]
David Levinson, Transportist 
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