Top recent posts by Active Transportation Advocates on Bluesky

Why do I love front-load cargo bikes? Because, this face stares right back at me and my heart almost explodes with each smile. ❤️

You can't buy happiness, but you can buy a bike, and that's kind of the same thing.

UK transit nerds are next level.

Montréal on two wheels is pure joy. There’s a reason this city feels so effortless by bike: it boasts one of North America’s oldest and largest network of protected bike lanes, with 250 km of physically separated infrastructure woven into a network that stretches over 1,000 km across the island.

Enough. Billboard with @visionzerovancouver.ca from last Fall.

The rough ride at Lewes was reported by multiple drivers and the defect picked up on cab video. The issue isn't a lack of tech, it's the lack of engineers and track access to maintain and renew track assets. This is deflection and the press shouldn't fall for it.

“Researchers found that children in London whose lung growth had been stunted by pollution showed impressive improvements after the introduction of an Ultra Low Emission Zone in 2019 reduced emission… …local clean air zones could help reduce some of the harm caused by pollution during childhood.”

No one is proposing old-timey cop-on-your-block foot patrols. Seattle is meeting its 7-minute 911 goal. We already prohibit "camping" and sweep people pointlessly from place to place. And crime is down. But if you ask people leading questions that imply lack of action, you get the result you want.

"The county’s district attorney, Steve Finney, said a 69-year-old man from North Carolina had been arrested and faced two counts of reckless vehicular homicide and five counts of aggravated assault by vehicle with recklessness."

Just spent a week in Norway where drivers are basically 100% polite and compliant with traffic regulations. Back in North America, this is the norm. The level of chaos and sometimes aggression - from cars, from drivers - is striking.

Real men walk right out into traffic to cross the street.

I know for me leaving the ad agency world to talk about crosswalks has been wildly lucrative.

Gentle density reform in Toronto has been a waste of time. After 4.5 years, 1,200 net new homes. That’s 266 homes/year, equal to one highrise apartment building. And that’s not counting multiplexes being “deconverted” to houses. malcolmkennedy.com/to-multiplex...

the problem with making every policy debate about “good vs. evil” and having zero theory of change is that if you think a tech company is universally evil, you can justify doing insane things like vomitting on commuter shuttles

The crazy thing about this? You could buy a new electric cargo bike every single year, *throw the old one away*, and still be spending less than the average yearly total cost of ownership for a car. Possibly substantially less, depending on the exact comparison.

yes, these are some freaky ass letters but I also need to comment on how she writes like a remedial middle school student. there is something extremely wrong with this person.

Congratulations Congresswoman Wahab!

The insanely biased headline the Seattle Times ran with for this poll: "Seattle voters are done waiting on public safety, new poll finds." The writer, Gene Balk, found it "staggering" that 90 percent of people liked the idea of foot patrols in crime hot spots. I would call that "predictable."

How do changes in transportation commutes correlate with changes in political views? Among large US counties, a growing vote share for Dem presidential candidates, 2000 to 2024, was associated with: 1—less driving to work alone 2—more working from home www.thetransportpolitic.com/databook/pol...

The cohort of counties with the greatest support for Harris in 2024 presidential race had highest % of people commuting by transit, walking or biking. Inverse was true for counties with the strongest support for Trump, where driving to work predominated. www.thetransportpolitic.com/databook/pol...

"I don't take taxpayer dollar money" is quite the spin on "I constantly demand government funds and act aggrieved when I don't get them, but no public agency wants anything to do with me" mynorthwest.com/gee-and-ursu...

this is how I learned that King County Executive Girmay Zahilay hired former Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison's onetime criminal division chief (she went on to be Bruce Harrell's public safety advisor)

Brutal column on LA Mayor Bass' apparently terrible debate performance last night.

Admin is possibly losing their mind because they said they could hear the urban trees throwing shade…🤷

Urbanist Philomena Cunk. Some people think a "flex post" is when you go on the internet to show off your new haircut or a fancy dinner, but in urbanism, it’s just a row of wobbly plastic sticks that drivers use as a sort of high-stakes bowling minigame on their way to the shops.

Hey gang, can you do me a favour? If you’re on Instagram too, can you consider following me there as well? I’m working to be more effective there than I have been in the past. Thanks.

Politics is tough. It would be easier to feel sympathy for Bradford if he was a principled conservative, rather than an urban-planner cyclist who's rebranded himself as Talk Radio Lex Luthor.

Urbanist Walter Sobchak. You look at a Dutch intersection, Dude. Beautiful, protected, separated phases. The fietser is safely behind the bollard. Across this line, you do not drive! Also, Dude, "cyclist" is not the preferred nomenclature. Active transportation user, please.

Theater, mystery and surprise definitely doesn't come from the cars.

Gosh, whatever will they do without slam-dunk, sparklingly original observations like "The best things in life are free — speech being at the top of the list”

BRB, gotta take time out of my life to go attend a meeting rooted in car brained ignorance.

another plug for The Unaccountability Machine here

A new Seattle task force was born Wednesday. Mayor Katie Wilson chartered the group to advise her housing agenda, looking for ways to streamline permitting and boost housing production over the long-term. Story: www.theurbanist.org/wilson-launc...

Part of "you can just do things" is you can commission artists to help you make unhinged gifts, such as this duvet cover I received a few years ago. Art by Adam Villacin.

apparently these raised crosswalks at Rainier/I-90 are the first WSDOT has installed for highway ramp crossings. & the speed decreases are impressive. wish they'd have measured pedestrian, scooter and bike volumes at these crossings before/after to be able to show how safer crossings induce use.

“Housing starts have been in a nosedive in Seattle after a boom period that lasted more than a decade, allowing Seattle's population to grow beyond 820,000 residents.”

Why are dead malls a thing? Why do they sit blighted for so long? And why can you still walk around inside them? It's more complicated than you might think. In my latest blog post, I explain the private thicket of rules and constraints blocking redevelopment: mnolangray.substack.com/p/why-are-de...

you could say absolutely anything and somehow someone will chime in with "yeah but cyclists need to obey the rules of the road"

Picked up a few of my favourite singles of all time today.

Birthday shoutout to the biggest Brian Jonestown Massacre fan I know and the one who holds it altogether around here.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the entire San Francisco region was "popping with [housing] construction" when it averaged like 1/3 of the permitting rate of Toronto or Vancouver (also cities that needed to build more).

Let’s remove speed cameras and rip out bike lanes - then let’s ticket cyclists without helmets to keep our roads safe. 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

Naturally, some geniuses at the police department think the solution to this problem is to have people on bikes dismount and walk this block rather than close this quaint street to cars who already have a multitude of options in our downtown.

I am Katie's biggest fan but I will be scrutinizing the details of this EO carefully. To be effective, it needs to significantly affect the direction of major arterial projects currently in flight. I expect the Elliott-Western repave may provide our first indication of whether or not it's working.

"I as mayor am going to come out with an Executive Order, so I sure hope the Transportation Chair doesn't try to pass similar legislation first and take all the credit" is a great strategy, actually, for the mayor to get her policies codified.

Report: Police Contract Severely Limits CARE Team's Ability to Do Their Jobs But CARE Chief Amy Barden says there’s reason for optimism.

It's fun to watch all of these side yards in Portland, Oregon incrementally turn into tuck-under townhouses. Ironically, the only other place where you see townhouse infill that's this creative is Houston, a city I imagine many Portlanders don't view as a peer! (2011➡️2014➡️2019)

It would have been sweet poetry for this guy to be able to ride to the council meeting on @sundance.bikesky.social's cargo bike.

What's the price of gas again?

The media‘s gleeful, click-bait, headlines and double standard compared to the way they covered Harrell (who was an absolute mess) turns out to affect perceptions. Imagine that.

Twenty years after the 2006 collapse, I think the evidence is pretty clear that we massively overcorrected on lending standards, punished the wrong people, and locked a lot of working- and middle-class families out of homeownership to no discernible stability benefit. www.pew.org/en/research-...

I’ve never heard a 29-storey high-rise referred to as a “multiplex”. Usually that’s reserved for small-scale buildings like a duplex, triplex, and so on, up to maybe an 8-plex. What is this, a 200-plex?

You don’t realize how fast you open up a cupboard until your heads gets in the way.

Murdering Americans.

Signed copy of Life After Cars now at the Harvard Coop in Cambridge. Go get it!

Urban transit stations be like: The Stadiums, The Symphony, The Nightlife District. Suburban transit stations be like: Your Suburban House, Your Suburban Job, A Parking Lot.

What city would you most like to visit that you haven’t yet?

Nothing like good fresh Ontario blueberries at this time of year.

Seriously, you expect people to go up a hill to detour off this section of closed sidewalk on Rainier? You've already taken a lane, why not install jersey barriers to create a temporary sidewalk?

For those who missed the first two, there will be another Lime Takeover on Saturday at 8:00pm starting at the Pergola.

Do you have a story about why late-night transit is important to you? For this year's #WeekWithoutDriving in King County, we're collecting these stories. You can email us your video to be part of our storytelling project -- info at weekwithoutdriving dot org

That’s 45 minutes we can use for more important things.

A visual representation of my safe streets advocacy energy.

Monkland Avenue in NDG to be pedestrianized for 4 days. Nice to see but Montreal’s more western neighbourhoods should also have some seasonal pedestrian streets like Wellington and Mont-Royal!

Oslo. The opera house and the adjacent Bjørvika neighbourhood, masterplanned by SLA

This Ram Mounts clamp fits perfectly on the Urban Arrow frame system and will be a good place for mounting a camera to grab footage while riding around.

San Francisco Should Not Give Free Curb Space to Waymo -OpEd I agree. Public street space is precious. Why should one private, for-profit company be allotted free curb space used by public transit vehicles and tax-paying citizens? sf.streetsblog.org/2026/08/18/o...

the effort of modeling going into the possibility of moving a freeway offramp to another corner of the cloverleaf versus the effort of modeling the impact to people who rely on the bus when their bus stops are consolidated. compare and discuss.

my moratorium on the "AI" Ring cycle: a meditation on two attention economies (ours and the 19th century's), the feasible limits of projection technology, and how boring the end of history is in times of historical change van-magazine.com/mag/bayreuth...

this guy is truly one of the worst of them

We talked about various solutions to the Rainier Valley Neighborhood Greenway, including sluicing the hills into the lake, but ultimately decided that diverters and better arterial crossings would be more cost-effective.

Waiting to cross MLK today at Graham, as usual we saw someone biking the sidewalk. Rainier Valley needs bike and scooter connections now!

Heartbreaking! Robyn was but 20-years-old when she was killed bicycling. I share an unfortunate empathy with these boy's parents.

Reminder that people routinely rate genAI as useful in *other* domains, but still poor in the ones they know well. Think about why that is.

King County Enlists Uncanny AI Videos for Ethics Training; Drop in Mayor's Approval Rating Follows Anti-Wilson Media Frenzy Today's Afternoon Fizz.

When you get home after riding your bike for transportation.

My email said: “Whether by direct interference in the endorsement process or strategically turning over the newsroom to less experienced, less rigorous, and less progressive staff, the new management group at a once-reputable outlet has…”

Incredible how these useless people cling to power.

Climate Week needs a better cities conversation. Parking, curbs, streets, housing, adaptive reuse, mobility, and land use all shape how much people have to drive. That is why PRN and partners are convening The Urban Climate Solution at NYC Climate Week. Details: www.urbanclimatesolution.org

exactly what I needed to read right now (yes, I am in a community input session). if you don't already, you should subscribe to @bethosborne.bsky.social's substack bethosbornesga.substack.com?utm_source=n...

Keep in mind that 2027 looks to be worse!

Ten years after the 2006 collapse, I think the evidence is pretty clear that we massively overcorrected on lending standards, punished the wrong people, and locked a lot of working- and middle-class families out of homeownership to no discernible stability benefit. www.pew.org/en/research-...

Just me and the worst dog in the world waiting to see if anything else needs to come out of his body before I try to put him to bed again.

Our Patreon presale for our return to Hunter College on November 6th is on now. Sign up to get access! www.patreon.com/thewaroncars...

When public policy serves only drivers, it fails the public.

Out Museum, San Francisco's LGBTQ Chinese museum, has a new exhibit coming up, Depart to the other shore 出走到彼岸. Opening party is this Friday, 5-8pm, there's bubble tea and snacks, see you there! 🏳️‍🌈🧋 After the opening, exhibit is open Thurs-Sun 12-4:30pm. 949 Clay St in Chinatown. Outmuseum.org

This is #TorontoDanforth Ehrhardt, an Ontario public servant elected to the TDSB in 2022, said Fletcher's snap retirement decision, 2 days after registering to seek re-election on Oct. 26, was a shock that forced her to consider a council run. @dmrider.bsky.social www.thestar.com/news/gta/exc...

According to the far-right president Abelardo de la Espriella, God sent the earthquake that struck Colombia – in which 300 people died – on the first day of his term in office to test his government. He had previously declared himself to be an atheist. Narcissistic, anti-science and a manipulator

Join us tonight for our monthly meetup at Teku Tavern. Starts at 6pm. www.eventbrite.com/e/august-20t...

Advocates this week: 🧑‍🦰Do you know about the? 👱🏻‍♂️Vision Zero thing? 🧑‍🦰on Friday? 👱🏻‍♂️that we’re not talking about? 🧑‍🦰Yes, that’s the one. 👱🏻‍♂️Nope. No idea.

This one, we're doing for us, but also for you. Although I do think people on this site, at least the people I follow, are good at doing things. Maybe you need a pep talk, though. www.eventbrite.com/e/1998510914...

Real men walk right out into traffic.

San Francisco Should Not Give Free Curb Space to Waymo -OpEd I agree. Public street space is precious. Why should one private, for-profit company be allotted free curb space that belongs to public transit vehicles and tax-paying citizens? sf.streetsblog.org/2026/08/18/o...

The world's forests are burning, and indigenous people are in the front lines of this global catastrophe. So why has Constant Awahsish, the grand chief of the Atikamekw Nation, approved a deal that will see a liquefied natural gas pipeline being built across northern #Quebec?

Fayetteville Active Mobility Project Profiles with City Staff In this Excerpt you'll hear directly from Matt Mihalevich and Dane Eifling, Fayetteville, Arkansas, City Staff, a little about the Maple Street Urban Trail youtube.com/shorts/-IVYp...

“The task force is expected to be a large one and cut across sectors, likely encompassing more than 60 members. Three of the four co-chairs appeared at the press conference alongside the mayor.”

As a city of 70,000 residents, Sammamish has a dearth of commercial space, and its long-planned Town Center remains half-finished. This fall, the council will decide whether to fully pivot away from that plan and distribute housing capacity to other areas. Story: www.theurbanist.org/sammamish-po...

Mi conversación con ArchDaily, en español. Un articulo muy completo presentándo mi trabajo y proposiciones sobre la proximidad feliz. Por María Cristina Florián - www.archdaily.com/es/1138728/u...

PREMIERE ALERT: Please tune in tomorrow, Friday, August 21st, at 2 pm Eastern for a conversation with Allison Burson, National Greenway Director for the @eastcoastgreenway.bsky.social, about the status of this amazing emerging system of trails and pathways from Maine to Florida youtu.be/70K2aQptMHs

Un placer de haber grabado la entrevista para Congreso TV, la TV del Congreso de Ciudad de México. Gracias a la diputada Miriam Saldaña 💫 Un placer de estar en esta ciudad que continúa profundizando su proceso de transformación 🟢