Tag: roads
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An open letter to the Aberdeen City Council about South College Street
This past week I have felt very frustrated with the Aberdeen City Council after I read about their plans to spend £5.5 million adding another lane for private motor vehicles to a road in central Aberdeen. A bike path has not been included in these plans and the road in question is uninviting for pedestrians […]
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Building new roads leads to more new roads
Last month I stumbled across an article from 2006 called Induced traffic. Again. And again. And again. It was first observed early last century that building new roads generates new traffic. So 1925, 1937, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1994, 1996, now 2006: for 80 years, every eight years on average, there has been […]
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Shared spaces
I want to write about shared spaces. These are road spaces that everyone shares – pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, buses, and taxis. Rather than segregating users into their own space, all signalling and road markings are removed and everyone is thrown in together. The theory is that if you remove all the road markings, traffic lights, […]
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In praise of cycling and a dress colour
It must be about time I posted another photo of Busby so here he is, with precious cargo: I cycle to and from school everyday and I love it. My only complaint is that it has become too easy and the distance to school too short. I’m stronger than I was when we first arrived and […]
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Cycling in Auckland part 2
Cycling on the footpath sucks. It really does. I’ve just returned from cycling Elizabeth to kindergarten and I’ve started cycling on the road for parts of the trip now. In fact, when I’m on my own cycling home I use the road almost the whole way. Why? Because the footpath is difficult to navigate. It’s […]
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Roads, traffic and Braess’s paradox
I understand that we all have differing ideas about what we find beautiful and pleasing to the eye, but is there anyone who would choose the first photograph below over the second? The two photos are before and after pics from the Cheonggyecheon Stream restoration project in Seoul, South Korea. The concrete highways were built […]
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Australians say no to rail
It’s no surprise that I am not a fan of Australia’s new Prime Minister. In particular, I disagree with his views on climate change but here I want to write about his plans or lack of for urban/commuter rail. To quote Tony Abbott, We have no history of funding urban rail and I think it’s […]
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Parking for five cars
There’s an article in the NZ Herald this week, Auckland house prices vs world’s, which compares the median house price in Auckland – a whopping $670,000 – with other similarly priced homes around the world. The house chosen for comparison in Auckland, is a $675,000 five-bedroom, three-bathroom house in the suburb of New Windsor. New […]