For those of you who get the TV station Trio on your cable systems,
their special theme this month is Texas, and last night I saw a
documentary called "Fat City," about Houston's place as the city with
the highest level of obesity in the country. Of course, the film shows
some prodigious eaters, otherwise  empty people whose only hobby seems
to be eating enormous quantities of food. However, there are also some
incredible examples of car potatoes, such as the man who won't walk out
to his mailbox but always waits until he has an errand that requires
driving.

The next showing is Wednesday night, 9PM CDT.

In transit,
Karen Sandness

I think there is a connection between the carfree and the creative, so
I pass this on.
Colin
--
http://carfreeuniverse.org


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Karen Raihill <kraihill@...>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 12:13:53 -0400
Subject: [Creative100] Creative Cities Summit, Sept. 8-9, St. Pete, FL
To: creative100@...

Creative Cities Summit Announces

Impressive Panelist Lineup, Sponsors for Sept. 9 Event

Contact:  Peter Kageyama

(727) 643-8498; pkageyama@...

TAMPA, FL (August 9, 2004) - Creative Cities Summit 2004 will feature a
dynamic  group of speakers in urban planning, economic and community
development, entrepreneurship, marketing, and creative industries during
a jam-packed conference on Thursday, September 9 in downtown St.
Petersburg, Florida.

Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, will open the
conference live via satellite.  Charles Landry, author of The Creative
City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators and a leading expert in the
creative movement in the United Kingdom, will be a special keynoter,
along with Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood.

The unique focus of the conference is on putting creative economy
theories into practice, with real-world examples that illustrate how
cities and communities across the globe are fast becoming "doers" and
implementers.

To register, go to www.creativecitiessummit.com
<http://www.creativecitiessummit.com/> .

Breakout panels include:

Creative Industries-Design, featuring Matthew Childs, FKQ Advertising,
Clearwater, FL; Paul Houghton, KT Studio, Western Australia; Alessandro
Franchi, Crate & Barrel, Chicago, IL

Financing the Creative Enterprise, with Brent C.J. Britton, Akerman
Senterfitt, Tampa, FL; Bryan Crino, Skyway, Capital, Tampa; Ben Older,
Older & Lundy, Tampa

Educating the Creative Workforce, with Julie Burros, City of Chicago
Cultural Affairs; Judson French, Digital Media Alliance Florida,
Orlando, FL

A Shared Vision - How Culture Drives the Economy of Southeast Florida,
with Don Upton, Fairfield Index, Lithia, FL; Mark Nerenhausen, Broward
Center for the Performing Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; J.T. Tarlton,
Broward Alliance, Ft. Lauderdale; Suzanne Jewell, Motivus Consulting,
Miami, FL

Creative Industries Focus-Digital Media & Film, with Rob Tisler, Tampa
Digital Studios; Mark Smith, Louisiana Film Commission; Steven Emery,
Valhalla Motion Pictures, Beverly Hills, CA; Sterling Van Wagenen,
University of Central Florida Film School, Orlando; Susan Albershardt,
State of Florida Film Commission

Incubators & Hives of Entrepreneurial Activity, with Umberto Crenca,
AS220, Providence, RI; Carol Ann Dykes, UCF Technology Incubator,
Orlando; Nadine Gabai-Botero, CuDC-Flashpoint, Washington, D.C.

The Downtown Core: Redevelopment Challenges, with Neisen O. Kasdin,
Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, Miami, and former mayor of Miami Beach;
Mayor Wayne Poston, City of Bradenton, FL

Creativity & the Corporation, Martin Bosman, University of South
Florida, Tampa, FL; Larry Quick, Larry Quick & Associates, Melbourne,
Australia; John B. Zumwalt, PBS&J, Tampa

Creative Industries Focus-Technology & Software, with Kurt Long, Tampa
Bay Technology Forum; George Gordon, Enporion, Tampa, FL; Monica Doss,
CED NC, Research Triangle Park, NC

Marketing the Creative City, with Carol Coletta, Coletta & Co. and Smart
City Radio, Memphis, TN; Wendy Ceccherelli, Arts & Cultural Affairs,
City of Tampa; Bruce Turkel, Turkel Advertising, Miami

New Models & Trends in Economic Development, with Stuart Rogel, Tampa
Bay Partnership; Richard Bendis, Innovation Philadelphia; Kip Bergstrom,
Rhode Island Economic Policy Council; John Fremstad, Metro Orlando
Economic Development Commission; Lou Musante, Catalytix - A Richard
Florida Creativity Company, Pittsburgh, PA.

Role of Networks & Grassroots Organizations, with Deanne Roberts,
Roberts Communications & Marketing and Creative Tampa Bay; Henry T.
Perea, Fresno (CA) city council member; Jessica Muroff, Emerge Tampa;
Robert E. Johnson, Department of Labor & Economic Growth, State of
Michigan.

Sponsors to date are: the Florida High Tech Corridor, Tampa Bay
Technology Forum, Tampa Bay Partnership, University of South Florida,
Verizon, SunTrust Bank, Progress Energy, PBS&J, South Tampa Bay economic
development, Tucker Hall, Catalytix, The Tampa Tribune, City of St.
Petersburg, Suncoast Workforce Board, Patel Foundation for Global
Understanding, Roberts Communications, Cambridge Systematics, Akerman
Senterfitt attorneys at law, Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council,
Florida League of Cities, and Lakeland Economic Development Council.

The Renaissance Vinoy Hotel in downtown St. Petersburg is the site for
the summit, with an opening night reception at the Salvador Dali Museum
on the St. Pete waterfront.  Participants can register online at
www.creativecitiessummit.com <http://www.creativecitiessummit.com/>  and
get additional details about the agenda, conference location, and
accommodations.

_______________________________________________
Creative100 mailing list
Creative100@...
http://list.smartcityradio.com/mailman/listinfo/creative100
________

The Creative 100 Listserv facilitates communication among those
selected to attend the Memphis Manifesto Summit.  It is a forum for
the exchange of ideas, resources, and contacts. For enquiries about
subscriptions please contact Carol Coletta (carol@...).

You are right about the appropriation of words.  And it is a serious
issue.

The lordly right of giving names extends so far that one should allow
oneself to conceive the origin of language itself as an expression of
power on the part of the rulers: they say `this is this and
this,'they seal every thing and event with a sound and, as it
were, take possession of it.
(Nietzsche, p. 462)

I don't see a need to use words like, "new- or neo-" or
even transit oriented.  The words city and urban have had a long
accepted meaning.

Between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, the first cities were settled in
the Middle East.  From then until the middle of the nineteenth
century, the form of cites everywhere was based on walking.
  (Newman & Kenworthy, p. 27-28)

The onerous is on them to coin new terms for the new arrangement that
has resulted from the automobile – fortunately, such a word
exists it is "sprawl."

The traditional neighborhood and suburban sprawl… are polar
opposites in appearance, function, and character: they look
different, they act differently, and they affect us in different ways.
  (Duany, p. 3)

Example of such word stealing on a major scale are Garreau's Edge
City, which really is just sprawl at a cancerous scale.

Edge Cities exemplify the new mix of urbanity… any place that is
a trade, employment, and entertainment center of vast magnitude is
functionally a city.
(Garreau, p. 25-26)

This is nothing new, the Radiant City/Garden City/City Beautiful were
all misappropriations of the word city.

Reguards,
Greg



--- In carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, Simon Baddeley
<s.j.baddeley@b...> wrote:
> Yes but. "Smart growth" was rather a successful colonisation
by "our lot" of
> the language and style of the sprawlists. It's a feature of
political
> movements to invade, purloin and otherwise recycle the language of
the
> opposition and then be accused of lying distortion to the delight
of the
> thieves who by such reaction know they've made a hit. In a snowball
fight
> don't you pick up those spent by the other side and throw them back?
> Compressed? Enlarged? More rounded? Sometimes (not me this!) with
hard
> object inserted?
>
> To stay in a debate we constantly rewrite the truths we perceive as
> self-evident - because they never really are. "Greenwash" was quite
a good
> word and on the other side "eco-terrorists" for people who campaign
> non-violently action against polluters, not to mention "tree-
huggers". Of
> course the most successfully damaged word in the American political
scene is
> "liberal". I have a liking for the word "speedophile" for
hypermobility
> addicts but "auto-dependency" is a good one isn't it, along with
petrol
> heads"? As well as the words there's the constant invention of
ideas - lie
> "motorists use up their extra-safety on speed" which is spawned by
the still
> contested concept of "risk compensation".
>
> We are working hard in UK to downgrade the universal use of the word
> "accident" when people are killed and maimed by motorised traffic,
as
> though' these crashes and collisions and their consequences were
not the
> result of human choice, irresponsibility and sometimes outright
criminal
> negligence.
>
> So if you think your being appropriated, remember its only your own
good
> methods being played back. ".. words are wise menąs
counters,‹they
do but
> reckon by them; but they are the money of fools." Thomas Hobbes
>
> Best
>
> Simon
>
>
>
> On 3/8/04 6:01 pm, "Lanyon, Ryan" <ryan.lanyon@o...> wrote:
>
> > It never ceases to amaze me how progressive terminology gets
adopted and
> > redefined by others, particularly from the right, to redefine the
debate.
> > We in Ontario recently had a 'Smart Growth' project from our
provincial
> > government that included rural economic development and highway
building
> > (luckily that government got tossed).
> >
> > In the latest chapter, the auto industry is seeking to
redefine 'sustainable
> > transportation'.  The report below is from Centerlines, the
newsletter of
> > the national center for bicycling and walking in the US.

Astute commentary from my colleague Christopher Gagnon on the Chicago
Critical Mass list. -RJM

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [*CCM*] Death rate higher near busy roads
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 18:13:25 -0500
From: Christopher Gagnon <cgagno1@...>
Reply-To: Chicago Critical Mass <CHI-CRIT-MASS@...>
To: CHI-CRIT-MASS@...

I realize this report is focused primarily on pointing out some
statistical information, and not on dealing with all the possible
consequences and solutions on a large scale.  Still, the reporter saw
fit to include a couple ludicrous "suggestions" for coping with the
heart-health effects of air pollution (avoid living near too much
traffic and install air purifiers in your home).  I have the best
suggestion: *reduce air pollution.*  (Ask me how.  Hint: it has
something to do with transit, walkig, and yes, *BIKES*....)

So many people still seem unable to make this connection that, in terms
of health and air quality, their own behavior has consequences for
everyone.  We know people *can* make these connections--we did it with
tobacco.

Years ago, one could have argued for leaving cigarette smokers alone
because their behavior, if conducted politely, was harmful only to
themselves.  But the connection between tobacco use and disease has
become clear and has been embraced by society at large: people do seem
to be getting the message, and tobacco use is declining.

Even though tobacco use would appear to be a simple personal choice, one
thing seemed to get people worked up: the notion that someone else's
personal choice to smoke could cost a *non-smoker* money--in the form of
increased burdens on the healthcare system.  Non-smokers reasonably
don't really want to subsidize the bad habits of other people,
especially keeping them alive years after emphysema or cancer should
have killed them off.

Smoking became a "public health concern" to be ameliorated with
legislation, taxation, and stigmatization.  We also went after the
duplicitous, greedy corporations who we believed were doing all kinds of
nefarious things to keep us buying their products.

Meanwhile, cars continue, unfettered, to contribute to rising obesity
rates (obesity is soon to be the number two cause of preventable illness
in the U.S., second only to--you guessed it--tobacco use), asthma,
emphysema, and apparently heart disease, not to mention traffic-related
injuries and deaths, and the very timely debate about our dependence on
foreign oil.

Where is our notion of air pollution caused by cars as a "public health
concern," where we point out the costs and ramifications to everyone of
the personal choices people make?  Where is the legislation, taxation,
and stigmatization (so effective against tobacco) for unnecessary car
use?  Where is our suspicion about the motives and tactics of the
automobile makers and petroleum companies?  Why are cigarette ads
prohibited on TV, but you can't watch for an hour without seeing two or
three car commercials?

Why is smoking a cigarette so ghastly to us that we've all but
prohibited it, forcing people out on to crowded sidewalks for their
smoke breaks, but we demand builders of new homes to meet parking space
quotas, which in turn increase traffic and ultimately, pollution?  We
don't merely permit excessive, unnecessary car use (and its attendant
pollution), we practically demand it, by constructing our build
environment in a way that encourages as much driving as possible.

Isn't it unfortunate that yet another medical study links car use to
very deadly serious health hazards, and the best thing we are offered is
the helpful suggestion to move away?  Why should anyone have to move to
a less polluted location and install air purifiers in order not to die
of heart disease?  What, you don't like my cigarette smoke in the
workplace?  Then get a job somewhere else, or put an air purifier in
your cubicle.

And where would this mythical land of non-pollution be?  How would one
get there?  In a car?  Perhaps commuting 2-3 hours a day in a car
spewing even more pollution into someone else's neighborhood?

I want to say to those who clearly understand the hazards of smoking
tobacco and support its reprehension, yet continue to drive cars
excessively, and to those who, despite the mountains of evidence,
haven't yet understood the connection between cars and illness: your car
is killing people--and we are all paying for it.

--Chris (climbing down from his soapbox)

P.S.: Air quality inside cars is about as bad as outside--and often
worse, depending on the car.  I guess I take it as cold comfort that, as
I'm huffing car exhaust on my bike-commute to work or school every day,
those inside the cars have it worse: all the pollution, plus the ill
effects of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.  I hope my active
lifestyle is enough to tip the pollution scales in my favor....

http://www.latimes.com/features/outdoors/la-os-wildwest10aug10.column
> WILD WEST
> Why cars still clog all routes to the rim
> At one time, the Grand Canyon was going to be accessible by rail. But politics
and economics redrew that plan.
> Christopher Reynolds
>
> August 10, 2004
>
> Another summer sunset at the big ditch, Hundreds of us have gathered at Mather
Point, one of the South Rim's prime viewpoints, although I'm the only one in
sight who's traveling on two unmotorized wheels.
>
> I steer my rented mountain bike past the creeping traffic — entering the park
in these peak weeks often means sitting through a 30-minute traffic jam at the
gates — then lean the bike against a fence, step to the lip. The awesome view
lies before us, a thousand dusty reds and pinks, each deepening by the moment.
And then a guy to my left turns to his late- arriving friend and says what
everyone seems to be thinking.
>
> "Hey, brudda! Got a parking spot, huh?"
>
> This summer was supposed to be different. After a long epoch of growing
automotive domination, a new light-rail system was supposed to roll out this
year, centerpiece of a scheme that would fill the park's byways with
pedestrians, cyclists and riders of trains and buses. But that train ain't
coming, and I had to drag this bike 75 miles from a shop in Flagstaff.
>
> Just look at all the cars lined up alongside the road. The Park Service's free
shuttle buses may carry visitors daily along three rim-adjacent routes, from
which visitors' cars are mostly banned, but we have no winners yet in the battle
to make this territory more park and less parking lot.
>
> I blame us, the 4 million auto-dependent people a year who use the place, and
the other us: the taxpayers who underwrite it and are apparently unwilling to
invest in a dramatic change.
>
> Not that it's all hell for a cyclist. Though banned from hiking trails and all
other off-road zones, bikes are welcome on any paved or unpaved road in the
park. The superintendent, Joe Alston, has said he might consider allowing bikes
onto some of the panoramic rim trails now reserved for pedestrians. And many
park workers commute on two wheels.
>
> I glimpse one or two of them as I pedal a couple of miles from Grand Canyon
Village to the Canyon View Information Plaza, looking in vain for signs to
clarify what's part of the park's bike-friendly "greenway" and what isn't. The
2-year-old plaza impresses visitors (who approach by foot and bus) with its
handsome and educational displays. But as the park newsletter notes, it "was
designed as the terminus for a mass transit system that is not yet in
operation." The spot on the display that once said "greenway" has been amended,
in recognition of uncompleted miles, to say "proposed greenway."
>
> I glide over to the panel devoted to cycling and read that the facility's
future includes a bike rental shop — but its present does not.
>
> Is there a future in this place for a man on a bike?
>
> Yes, says Alston, the superintendent. So does Deborah Tuck, president of the
Flagstaff-based Grand Canyon National Park Foundation, a nonprofit group that
specializes in fundraising for trails. But it's complicated.
>
> In the late 1990s, after years of debate, the feds agreed on a long-term plan:
have people park farther from the rim and build a light-rail system to bring
them in, at a cost of something like $170 million. Meanwhile, the Park Service
and the foundation would together raise money and build a $31-million "greenway"
— more than 70 miles of trails on the South and North rims for walkers,
bicyclists, wheelchair users and a few bits for equestrians.
>
> But then, in 2000, came the big detour. Look, said Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio),
chairman of the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, this is too bold and
costly for a park whose visitor figures have gone nearly flat. So, just a few
days after Alston arrived as superintendent, Regula's subcommittee gathered at
the park and pulled the plug on the light-rail plan.
>
> The bit about visitors is true; from 1994 to 1999, visitor numbers climbed
less than 1% per year, and the numbers have since slumped further. But let me
tell you, outdoorists, it's a uniquely educational moment to stand amid these
fumes and idling engines and consider that, by the reckoning of Congress, this
place and its parking lots just aren't crowded enough.
>
> (It's also true, although Alston never volunteered it, that any plan for
change probably will stir opposition in neighboring towns like Tusuyan, Williams
and Flagstaff, where the economies hinge on existing driving and lodging habits.
The air and population may be thin, but the politics are thick.)
>
> "In fact, I think it was a pretty wise decision to look at alternatives,"
Alston says. "In retrospect, I understand it."
>
> Four years later, however, park system pooh-bahs and other federal authorities
are still looking. More buses? Maybe a faster set of rolling stock on the
historical Grand Canyon Railway that runs between Williams and Grand Canyon
Village?
>
> Meanwhile, the Canyon View Information Plaza (completed just before the big
detour) receives buses, pedestrians and bikes, and the greenway plan inches
toward the 10-mile mark, mostly reliant on private-sector gifts. On the South
Rim, a two-mile trail connects the Canyon View Information Plaza to Grand Canyon
Village, where most of the lodgings and restaurants are. Another two-mile trail
along the rim connects Yavapai Point to Pipe Creek Vista on Desert View Drive,
although that one's not for bikes.
>
> Work began last year on a 7.5-mile route connecting the plaza to Tusuyan, a
2.4-mile North Rim trail starts in October, and plans are advancing for an
eight-mile route from Grand Canyon Village to Hermits Rest to the west.
>
> Everything else is further off. And the completed greenway miles aren't always
easy to spot. "It is confusing, and we recognize that," Alston acknowledged.
Still, by 2009, Tuck says, "there's going to be a feast of opportunities for
biking." And if, she muses, the foundation lands the park bike-shop concession,
it can pump the revenue in trails.
>
> Let's hope so. It's no stroll in the park, dodging the four-wheeled traffic in
this insufficiently busy public resource.
>
> To e-mail Christopher Reynolds or to read his previous Wild West columns, go
to latimes.com/chrisreynolds.


--
Richard Risemberg
http://www.living-room.org
http://www.newcolonist.com

"It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of
death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and
believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own
salvation, whether they are in the warrens of Iraq, or in the White
House.  I prefer to be a card-carrying member of the party of life."

					 Wole Soyinka

I think the saying goes "you can't have it both ways".
  Id love to see this enforced!!!  Alll the SUV owners
balling their eyes out about how they have to go the
long way and how much extra gas that uses in their
guzzlers  DUH.  This law was in place at the time of
purchase and has a very practical purpose, to preserve
our residential roads from needing repairs more often.
  I am gonna be watching to see if anything comes of
this.

have a great day
Joe

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--- In carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, Suzanne Wooten
<hazyzane68@y...> wrote:
> Thank you for your carfree city ideas I`ll keep all of them in
mind.What about Arizona ,does anyone live in Arizona without a car?
>
Sorry about the delayed reply ... I just noticed this thread today.

I arrived in Tucson at the end of very long cross-country bicycle
trip in 1985.  It seemed like a wonderful place to stay and commute
by bicycle.  I haven't been disappointed although the town has grown
considerably since my arrival.

For a while I had a car and a couple of motorcycles for
transportation.  But, almost three years ago I donated the car to
charity and only ride one of the motorcycles (if I have a fairly
distant destination) -- 99% of my travel is by bicycle which I find
quite satisfying.  Tucson does have a fairly good bus system, but I
haven't used it in years as I live out in the county and the nearest
bus stop is 5 miles away.  Be warned, the Tucson urban area is
really spread out.

It's a relatively low wage town but, then, the cost of living is
also fairly low -- it works out.  BTW, I lived in Phoenix for a
couple of years (for employment reasons) and consider it the anti-
Tucson.  I'll never go back there to live -- no offense meant to
those who reside there.

I came across this quote in our local business newspaper from the chair of a
public advisory committee and a member of the chamber of commerce.  The
issue is a Wal-Mart is moving from a shopping mall to a strip mall in a
newer part of town.  I don't think Wal-Mart's typically locate inside
shopping malls, so I suspect this is one of the stores that might have been
converted when Wal-Mart bought out a Canadian retailer (Woolco).

Anyhow, I find the aversion to walking in Big Box stores curious.  Big Box
shopping seems to me to have even less walking than indoor mall shopping,
but perhaps because the walking environment is so poor (inside and outside
the store), the walking seems more like work?

From: http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/284963068977191.php

Ms Boucher would have preferred to see Wal-Mart remain at Place d'Orleans.

"We're an aging population with increasing health issues, whether it's
arthritis or whatever. I abhor - and I know a lot of my friends do - big box
stores, because you're walking forever. You have to go into a massive
parking lot, find a parking space, get into the store, walk from one end to
the next and I have a problem with it and I am reasonably mobile."

-RL

whats the tempeture in arizona?

monoceroos <monoceroos@...> wrote:--- In carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com,
Suzanne Wooten
wrote:
> Thank you for your carfree city ideas I`ll keep all of them in
mind.What about Arizona ,does anyone live in Arizona without a car?
>
Sorry about the delayed reply ... I just noticed this thread today.

I arrived in Tucson at the end of very long cross-country bicycle
trip in 1985. It seemed like a wonderful place to stay and commute
by bicycle. I haven't been disappointed although the town has grown
considerably since my arrival.

For a while I had a car and a couple of motorcycles for
transportation. But, almost three years ago I donated the car to
charity and only ride one of the motorcycles (if I have a fairly
distant destination) -- 99% of my travel is by bicycle which I find
quite satisfying. Tucson does have a fairly good bus system, but I
haven't used it in years as I live out in the county and the nearest
bus stop is 5 miles away. Be warned, the Tucson urban area is
really spread out.

It's a relatively low wage town but, then, the cost of living is
also fairly low -- it works out. BTW, I lived in Phoenix for a
couple of years (for employment reasons) and consider it the anti-
Tucson. I'll never go back there to live -- no offense meant to
those who reside there.




To Post a message, send it to: carfree_cities@eGroups.com
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ANYBODY WANT TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING SPEAK YOUR MIND COME TO
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Between electricity and water usage, I think Tucson, like others, should
reassess the way they live and do business


Working for peace and cooperation,

Mike Morin

----- Original Message -----
From: "J B" <jab44helix@...>
To: <carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: [carfree_cities] Re: Atlanta and other Cities


> whats the tempeture in arizona?
>
> monoceroos <monoceroos@...> wrote:--- In
carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, Suzanne Wooten
> wrote:
> > Thank you for your carfree city ideas I`ll keep all of them in
> mind.What about Arizona ,does anyone live in Arizona without a car?
> >
> Sorry about the delayed reply ... I just noticed this thread today.
>
> I arrived in Tucson at the end of very long cross-country bicycle
> trip in 1985. It seemed like a wonderful place to stay and commute
> by bicycle. I haven't been disappointed although the town has grown
> considerably since my arrival.
>
> For a while I had a car and a couple of motorcycles for
> transportation. But, almost three years ago I donated the car to
> charity and only ride one of the motorcycles (if I have a fairly
> distant destination) -- 99% of my travel is by bicycle which I find
> quite satisfying. Tucson does have a fairly good bus system, but I
> haven't used it in years as I live out in the county and the nearest
> bus stop is 5 miles away. Be warned, the Tucson urban area is
> really spread out.
>
> It's a relatively low wage town but, then, the cost of living is
> also fairly low -- it works out. BTW, I lived in Phoenix for a
> couple of years (for employment reasons) and consider it the anti-
> Tucson. I'll never go back there to live -- no offense meant to
> those who reside there.
>
>
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to: carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers!
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
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>
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>
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>
>

--- In carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, J B <jab44helix@y...> wrote:
> whats the tempeture in arizona?
>
I'd like to restate my original message a bit for clarity.

Arizona is a large state with a wide variety of average
temperatures.  Tucson is located in the Sonora Desert and is a bit
warmer than other areas of the state, but still not so hot as
Phoenix and Yuma.

I find Tucson very livable 10 months of the year -- I manage to
bicycle 12 months of the year. July and August can be a bit toasty.
In August, the average temperature is 84.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The nice thing about Arizona, is the wide variety of available
climatic conditions primarily determined by altitude. For example,
on the north side of town, Mt. Lemmon sports a ski area.  And if you
really like cold and snow, there is Flagstaff and the White
Mountains.

Unfortunately, the population is increasing dramatically since I
moved to Arizona in 1985.  And that population increase is ruining
many of the qualities I initially found so enchanting about the
state.

About ten years ago, I moved to an area next to the Tucson Mountains
just outside of Tucson with few neighbors.  My area has been
discovered by the so-called developers and is in the process of
being completely devastated for ticky-tacky housing projects.  All
for a few bucks.  Hanging's too good fer 'em, IMHO.

See:
www.cityrating.com/citytemperature.asp?City=Tucson

--- In carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, "Lanyon, Ryan"
<ryan.lanyon@o...> wrote:
> I came across this quote in our local business newspaper....
>
> Anyhow, I find the aversion to walking in Big Box stores curious.
Big Box
> shopping seems to me to have even less walking than indoor mall
shopping,
> but perhaps because the walking environment is so poor (inside and
outside
> the store), the walking seems more like work?
>
> From: http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/284963068977191.php
>
> Ms Boucher would have preferred to see Wal-Mart remain at Place
d'Orleans......


That's basically it. The Place d'Orléans is definitely not downtown,
but it is *relatively* close to a neighbourhood and is served by bus
(or busses). It's also an indoor shopping centre, which means it is
easy to go from store to store by walking indoors, free from ice,
rain, cold...
The major complaint with big-store areas is that stores are typically
*around* a parking area, so one can't easily walk between stores
(strip malls are better in that regard, because there is a relatively
protected sidewalk in front of all stores). If one really wants, it's
possible to walk from the main street (and bus line) to any of the
stores, or from one store to another, but it typically has to be done
in the parking lot(s), without any protected alleyways for
pedestrians. I find these parking lots relatively accessible by bike,
because I have enough speed to deal with traffic; they are quite
another story on foot (even at the ripe age of 45).

Interestingly enough, in some places, parking lots are attributed to
individual stores, so you are "required" to move your car from one
store to another... which is a nice way to increase blood pressure,
traffic jams, pollution, etc. At the other extreme, some, like Le
Marché central (Montréal) offer a free shuttle service on the busiest
days.

Right of Way?: Congress should stop acting as if there is an inalienable right
to an SUV.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=JVWvdQiWEQQQ%2FTMXNK4Vyi%3D%3D

Hello,


 Richard thought you'd be interested in the following article from Newtopia
Magazine: http://www.newtopiamagazine.net/

Note from Richard:

Newtopia Magazine
"Exploring Common Sense Politics"
www.newtopiamagazine.net



Note: This message was not sent unsolicited.  It was sent through a form at
Newtopia Magazine (www.newtopiamagazine.net). If you believe you have received
this message in error, please contact greg@...

Yup, that is indeed a crane, and there is a cable attached to the car.
However, the cable is slack.

There is also a cable attached to the back of the car.

My guess is the back cable was used to load diagnostic data from the
vehicle's systems in realtime during the test, and the upper cable is a
safety to prevent it from flipping over in the event of high winds,
system failure, or operator error.

Doug Salzmann wrote:

>
>
>Ummm... isn't that a (ahem!) *crane* in the background of the "hover
>test" still shot?
>
>
>
--
High Prince Crashalot of the Holy Order of Multiball Madness, Suburban
Warrior of Disarray, Master of the Lost Circuit Collective, Member of
the Federal Narcoleptic Ostrich Relocation Department (FNORD)

Also known to the unenlightened as Tom Morris, KG4CYX

Discordian Code V1.3 ( http://www.23ae.com/format/discordiancode/code13.html )
DADA/DO Tpcy c s+:+ a-- Comp+++ P++ E++ F+ R+ tv+ b++ OM5 RAW? DC+ e* h! r
!ys K+++

Uniform Disinformation Locator: http://blueneon.xidus.net

* Do not use this signature as toilet paper *

A quote:

> Conventional thinking divides the world between the market and the state. The
market is responsible for productivity, while the state is responsible for
control.
>
> In reality, the economy has another sector that’s as valuable as the market
and its necessary complement as well. This sector is the commons.
>
> The commons precedes and surrounds the market, is the source of most that
enters it and the sink for all that leaves.
>
> At one time the commons was vastly larger than the market. Today, however, the
commons is in grave danger because the market relentlessly attacks it.
>
> The market assault comes from two sides. With one hand, the market takes
valuable stuff from the commons and privatizes it. Historians have called this
‘enclosure.’ With its other hand, the market dumps wastes and side-effects into
the commons and says, ‘It’s your problem.’ Economists call this ‘externalizing.’
>
> Much that is called ‘growth’ today is actually a form of cannibalization in
which the market diminishes the commons that ultimately sustains it.
>
> The state’s role is to nurture both the commons and the market, and to
maintain a healthy balance between them. This balancing role is essential to
prevent humanity from devouring its own nest. Unfortunately, in recent years,
the state has abandoned a balancing role and become a single-minded champion of
the market.

And a link:

http://friendsofthecommons.org/understanding/index.html
--
Richard Risemberg
http://www.living-room.org
http://www.newcolonist.com

"It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of
death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and
believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own
salvation, whether they are in the warrens of Iraq, or in the White
House.  I prefer to be a card-carrying member of the party of life."

					 Wole Soyinka

Hi All,

Carfree Times #36 is now available at:

http://www.carfree.com/cft/i036.html

This is an unusually big issue, with a long analysis
of the Munster project, a summary of Towards Carfree
Cities IV (held in July), and many stories on the
oil situation and climate change. There are also more
News Bits than usual.

If you happen to spot any bloopers, please advise
me OFF LIST. I'll wait until tomorrow to send out
the e-mail notices.

Regards,



--                                ###                               --

J.H. Crawford                                           Carfree Cities
mailbox@...                             http://www.carfree.com

Good overview of Peak oil in a geopolitical context.

  From : rickrise@...

Read This News  :: http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/FH24Dj01.html




============   Visit us at: http://www.atimes.com  ==========

Very interesting article that says a lot about localism in between the
lines.  The comments on overly-complex distribution systems is
especially telling in this era of rising transport costs.


<http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH24Df04.html>


--
Richard Risemberg
http://www.living-room.org
http://www.newcolonist.com

"It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of
death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and
believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own
salvation, whether they are in the warrens of Iraq, or in the White
House.  I prefer to be a card-carrying member of the party of life."

					 Wole Soyinka

Mr. Rise,

Hope you are well. I think there is a problem with this website.

Todd, Steering Committee, WCN

______________________________________________________________
> Od: Richard Risemberg <rickrise@...>
> Komu: Urban Ecology <urban-ecology@yahoogroups.com>,
carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, newcolonist <newcolonist@yahoogroups.com>
> Datum: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 07:42:52 -0700
> Předmět: [carfree_cities] Multinationals vs. Locals in India
>
> Very interesting article that says a lot about localism in between the
> lines. The comments on overly-complex distribution systems is
> especially telling in this era of rising transport costs.
>
>
> <http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH24Df04.html>
>
>
> --
> Richard Risemberg
> http://www.living-room.org
> http://www.newcolonist.com
>
> "It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of
> death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and
> believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own
> salvation, whether they are in the warrens of Iraq, or in the White
> House. I prefer to be a card-carrying member of the party of life."
>
> Wole Soyinka
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to: carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

--------------------
Já jsem tady! Ukaľ se i ty! NOKIA 6100 jiľ od 1577 Kč.
http://user.centrum.cz/redir.php?url=http://www.oskarmobil.cz/handsets/handset.p\
hp?lang=cz§ion=&id=57

Hi Todd,

It's working fine for me.

BTW--that's Richard Risemberg, not Mr. Rise. Oh well.
E-mail addresses can deceive!

Best,

Joel


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Mr. Rise,

Hope you are well. I think there is a problem with this website.

Todd, Steering Committee, WCN

______________________________________________________________
> Od: Richard Risemberg <rickrise@...>
> Komu: Urban Ecology <urban-ecology@yahoogroups.com>,
carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com, newcolonist <newcolonist@yahoogroups.com>
> Datum: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 07:42:52 -0700
> Předmět: [carfree_cities] Multinationals vs. Locals in India
>
> Very interesting article that says a lot about localism in between the
> lines. The comments on overly-complex distribution systems is
> especially telling in this era of rising transport costs.
>
>
> <http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH24Df04.html>
>
>
> --
> Richard Risemberg
> http://www.living-room.org
> http://www.newcolonist.com
>
> "It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of
> death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and
> believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own
> salvation, whether they are in the warrens of Iraq, or in the White
> House. I prefer to be a card-carrying member of the party of life."
>
> Wole Soyinka
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to: carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

--------------------
Já jsem tady! Ukaľ se i ty! NOKIA 6100 jiľ od 1577 Kč.
http://user.centrum.cz/redir.php?url=http://www.oskarmobil.cz/handsets/handset.p\
hp?lang=cz§ion=&id=57





To Post a message, send it to:   carfree_cities@eGroups.com
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
Yahoo! Groups Links






--                                ###                               --

J.H. Crawford                                           Carfree Cities
mailbox@...                             http://www.carfree.com

For your amusement, an op-ed piece I found penned by a suburban
auto-addict. -RJM

---

http://magic-city-news.com/article_1920.shtml

Traffic Calming: A Nightmare for Americans
By Susanna Lynton Jennings
Aug 13, 2004, 18:25

FREEDOM, CA -- Most people have experienced nightmares at some point in
their lives. One that’s quite common is to dream you are trying to get
somewhere, but can't.

One version of the nightmare goes like this:

You are driving home from a very long day at work. The freeway is
normally congested at this hour because few improvements have been made
to increase traffic flow in decades even though the population of your
town has grown significantly. Unfortunately for you today, the traffic
is virtually gridlocked because there has been an accident and the
clogged system cannot cope with the additional burden of a closed lane
and police activity.

Never mind. In your dream, you decide to try another route. It’s a
little out of your way, but it heads in the general direction of home,
so you feel it’s worth a try.

However, this too is a mistake. As soon as you exit to the surface
street you begin to encounter unfamiliar markings on the roadbed, such
as a super-wide bicycle lane or left-turn lanes that are wider than the
regular lane. It feels like you are being squeezed into a narrower and
narrower space as you drive along, because extra wide medians with curbs
now replace the double yellow lines.

When you get to one intersection, you notice that the sidewalk at the
corner bumps out into the driving lane of the road, making a right hand
turn difficult. Farther down the road, a circular planter fills the
center of a four-way intersection. Again you must slow down almost to a
stop in order to navigate around the hazard and then continue on.

Speed bump hazards are placed indiscriminately in the roadbed. These
bumps are so high your speed must be reduced to a level drastically
below the speed limit so that the car can pass over it without damage or
without harming your passengers.

The way home has become shockingly stressful. You decide to stop at a
deli for food, since you're now delayed past your normal dinnertime.
When you get there, something looks odd. You used to be able to park
parallel to the curb, but now there seem to be some planters with high
cement curbs in the place where your parking spot used to be. They sure
look nice with flowering trees and some low growing greenery, and they
appear to be spaced just far enough apart for a car to fit between them.
But you soon learn there isn’t quite enough space to park your
modestly-sized car.

Powerless to achieve your goal, you give up on the deli. The goal is now
to navigate through the one-way and dead-end streets, and you fear you
will never get home. This "nightmare" is reality for people all over
America.

What you discovered in your attempt to return home were roadbed hazards,
euphemistically called "traffic calming devices" by government roadwork
agencies. The devices, the lane reductions, the planted medians, the
corner bump-outs, the cement roundabouts, speed bumps and the chicanes
occupying former parking spaces are all different types of hazardous
obstacles -- whose sole purpose is to delay you or discourage you from
using your automobile. They are designed to severely restrict traffic
flow and add considerable delay to travel times.

These hazards are finding their way onto the streets of our towns and
cities with the blessing of most of our elected officials.

What motivates our local representatives to deliberately install
permanent roadway hazards in public roads? What authority do our
representatives have that grants them the power to make our roads
dangerous to cars traveling at the legally posted speed limit?

The purpose of our Constitution is to guarantee the right of the citizen
to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the duty of our elected
politicians is to defend our Constitution and our rights, then they must
also defend our right to travel in pursuit of legitimate business or
pleasure. When officials from our cities and towns employ roadbed
hazards to make legitimate travel a time-consuming and perilous
endeavor, they are -- in essence -- responsible for the corruption of
our American system of government.

By constructing hazards that restrict speeds to below the posted speed
limits local politicians have stepped over the line. They have ceased to
defend the fundamental right of citizens to travel freely around this
nation and, instead, are intentionally imposing oppressive control on
our freedom of mobility. But by what authority?

If politicians determine that roadbed hazards should be constructed to
slow the speed of drivers below the posted speed limit, aren’t they
implying by their actions that all drivers are speeders, since all
drivers will be slowed by these hazards? If our elected politicians
think that all drivers break the law, and that all drivers must be
punished, then it follows that they do not support the Natural Law
perspective on which our system of government is based -- namely, that a
person is innocent until proven guilty.

To support the idea that all drivers must be restricted because all
drivers are speeders, our politicians must rely on a different legal
perspective -- one that does not spring from our unalienable rights.
This perspective implies that all rights spring from the government, and
that the government can restrict our freedom of mobility, in order to
prevent any lawbreaking that might occur.

The origins of this perspective, sometimes called the Precautionary
Principle, can be found in the democratic socialist system that
prevailed in Germany in the 1930s. In this case, the government is
taking an interventionist measure to justify its perception that drivers
must be slowed and discouraged from using public roads. They are
attempting to prevent the potential risk that a driver might drive too
fast, or that too many drivers might drive down a particular street.

The idea that local governing officials presume they must act to prevent
the potential risk that you will violate the law, rather than allowing
you to be responsible for driving safely and allowing you unrestricted
passage over public roadways, is wholly contrary to our Constitution and
the American system. More troubling still is the fact that these
officials would identify with a perspective founded in the tenets of
German Socialism in the mid-Twentieth century.

Alarmingly, more and more council members and supervisors adopt traffic
calming and other freedom limiting measures in the name of the
Precautionary Principle.

In light of this, responsible citizens are forced to ask the following
question: If a politician does not support the most basic tenet of
American government (namely, Natural Law), but instead chooses to impose
restrictions on our freedom based on purely socialist doctrines, should
that person be allowed to hold office and exercise authority in the
American political system?

The nightmare we cannot awake from is not merely the construction of
roadbed hazards that block the way to our homes and businesses. The
nightmare we are experiencing is the corruption of the American system
of government. The socialist doctrines that are the basis for
implementing traffic calming and other transportation ordinances simply
have no place in a free society.

That this situation can even occur is also part of the nightmare. Free
citizens, knowingly or not, are electing officials who should be aware
of their duty to protect individual rights, but who, for whatever
purpose, abuse their power as elected officials by violating the right
of citizens to pass freely through our towns and cities.

###

Robert,

Where is this "nowhere" that you write about?

We have begun to realize some of these improvements in the relatively more
wealthy neighborhoods here in Eugene. However, for most folks, the reality
is that they live in an environment of automotive hell.

It is somewhat ironic that the neighborhoods of those who are adequately
represented are among those whose noisy, polluting, and unsustainable
driving wreaks havoc on the environment of the poor. Of course, many of the
poor are stuck in traffic too (That is, if they can afford it).


Working for peace and cooperation,

Mike Morin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Matter" <rjmatter@...>
To: <carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 11:41 AM
Subject: [carfree_cities] Traffic Calming: A Nightmare for Americans


> For your amusement, an op-ed piece I found penned by a suburban
> auto-addict. -RJM
>
> ---
>
> http://magic-city-news.com/article_1920.shtml
>
> Traffic Calming: A Nightmare for Americans
> By Susanna Lynton Jennings
> Aug 13, 2004, 18:25
>
> FREEDOM, CA -- Most people have experienced nightmares at some point in
> their lives. One that’s quite common is to dream you are trying to get
> somewhere, but can't.
>
> One version of the nightmare goes like this:
>
> You are driving home from a very long day at work. The freeway is
> normally congested at this hour because few improvements have been made
> to increase traffic flow in decades even though the population of your
> town has grown significantly. Unfortunately for you today, the traffic
> is virtually gridlocked because there has been an accident and the
> clogged system cannot cope with the additional burden of a closed lane
> and police activity.
>
> Never mind. In your dream, you decide to try another route. It’s a
> little out of your way, but it heads in the general direction of home,
> so you feel it’s worth a try.
>
> However, this too is a mistake. As soon as you exit to the surface
> street you begin to encounter unfamiliar markings on the roadbed, such
> as a super-wide bicycle lane or left-turn lanes that are wider than the
> regular lane. It feels like you are being squeezed into a narrower and
> narrower space as you drive along, because extra wide medians with curbs
> now replace the double yellow lines.
>
> When you get to one intersection, you notice that the sidewalk at the
> corner bumps out into the driving lane of the road, making a right hand
> turn difficult. Farther down the road, a circular planter fills the
> center of a four-way intersection. Again you must slow down almost to a
> stop in order to navigate around the hazard and then continue on.
>
> Speed bump hazards are placed indiscriminately in the roadbed. These
> bumps are so high your speed must be reduced to a level drastically
> below the speed limit so that the car can pass over it without damage or
> without harming your passengers.
>
> The way home has become shockingly stressful. You decide to stop at a
> deli for food, since you're now delayed past your normal dinnertime.
> When you get there, something looks odd. You used to be able to park
> parallel to the curb, but now there seem to be some planters with high
> cement curbs in the place where your parking spot used to be. They sure
> look nice with flowering trees and some low growing greenery, and they
> appear to be spaced just far enough apart for a car to fit between them.
> But you soon learn there isn’t quite enough space to park your
> modestly-sized car.
>
> Powerless to achieve your goal, you give up on the deli. The goal is now
> to navigate through the one-way and dead-end streets, and you fear you
> will never get home. This "nightmare" is reality for people all over
> America.
>
> What you discovered in your attempt to return home were roadbed hazards,
> euphemistically called "traffic calming devices" by government roadwork
> agencies. The devices, the lane reductions, the planted medians, the
> corner bump-outs, the cement roundabouts, speed bumps and the chicanes
> occupying former parking spaces are all different types of hazardous
> obstacles -- whose sole purpose is to delay you or discourage you from
> using your automobile. They are designed to severely restrict traffic
> flow and add considerable delay to travel times.
>
> These hazards are finding their way onto the streets of our towns and
> cities with the blessing of most of our elected officials.
>
> What motivates our local representatives to deliberately install
> permanent roadway hazards in public roads? What authority do our
> representatives have that grants them the power to make our roads
> dangerous to cars traveling at the legally posted speed limit?
>
> The purpose of our Constitution is to guarantee the right of the citizen
> to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the duty of our elected
> politicians is to defend our Constitution and our rights, then they must
> also defend our right to travel in pursuit of legitimate business or
> pleasure. When officials from our cities and towns employ roadbed
> hazards to make legitimate travel a time-consuming and perilous
> endeavor, they are -- in essence -- responsible for the corruption of
> our American system of government.
>
> By constructing hazards that restrict speeds to below the posted speed
> limits local politicians have stepped over the line. They have ceased to
> defend the fundamental right of citizens to travel freely around this
> nation and, instead, are intentionally imposing oppressive control on
> our freedom of mobility. But by what authority?
>
> If politicians determine that roadbed hazards should be constructed to
> slow the speed of drivers below the posted speed limit, aren’t they
> implying by their actions that all drivers are speeders, since all
> drivers will be slowed by these hazards? If our elected politicians
> think that all drivers break the law, and that all drivers must be
> punished, then it follows that they do not support the Natural Law
> perspective on which our system of government is based -- namely, that a
> person is innocent until proven guilty.
>
> To support the idea that all drivers must be restricted because all
> drivers are speeders, our politicians must rely on a different legal
> perspective -- one that does not spring from our unalienable rights.
> This perspective implies that all rights spring from the government, and
> that the government can restrict our freedom of mobility, in order to
> prevent any lawbreaking that might occur.
>
> The origins of this perspective, sometimes called the Precautionary
> Principle, can be found in the democratic socialist system that
> prevailed in Germany in the 1930s. In this case, the government is
> taking an interventionist measure to justify its perception that drivers
> must be slowed and discouraged from using public roads. They are
> attempting to prevent the potential risk that a driver might drive too
> fast, or that too many drivers might drive down a particular street.
>
> The idea that local governing officials presume they must act to prevent
> the potential risk that you will violate the law, rather than allowing
> you to be responsible for driving safely and allowing you unrestricted
> passage over public roadways, is wholly contrary to our Constitution and
> the American system. More troubling still is the fact that these
> officials would identify with a perspective founded in the tenets of
> German Socialism in the mid-Twentieth century.
>
> Alarmingly, more and more council members and supervisors adopt traffic
> calming and other freedom limiting measures in the name of the
> Precautionary Principle.
>
> In light of this, responsible citizens are forced to ask the following
> question: If a politician does not support the most basic tenet of
> American government (namely, Natural Law), but instead chooses to impose
> restrictions on our freedom based on purely socialist doctrines, should
> that person be allowed to hold office and exercise authority in the
> American political system?
>
> The nightmare we cannot awake from is not merely the construction of
> roadbed hazards that block the way to our homes and businesses. The
> nightmare we are experiencing is the corruption of the American system
> of government. The socialist doctrines that are the basis for
> implementing traffic calming and other transportation ordinances simply
> have no place in a free society.
>
> That this situation can even occur is also part of the nightmare. Free
> citizens, knowingly or not, are electing officials who should be aware
> of their duty to protect individual rights, but who, for whatever
> purpose, abuse their power as elected officials by violating the right
> of citizens to pass freely through our towns and cities.
>
> ###
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
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>
>
>
>
>
>

It's interesting that she brings up principles from 1930s Socialist
Germany as the principles behind traffic calming.  This just happened to
be the same regime that embarked on massive Autobahn building.

And this quote was also dead-on:
"When officials from our cities and towns employ roadbed hazards to make
legitimate travel a time-consuming and perilous endeavor, they are -- in
essence -- responsible for the corruption of our American system of
government."
The motor vehicle is probably the most significant road-bed hazard that
inhibits legitimate travel.  The development of large spread out areas,
causes more of those hazards to appear in the way of the pedestrian. The
auto-centric development policies of the local government leaders
further amplifies this problem.

That site had a number of other humorous contradictions.  Another
article moaned about the importance of property rights.  ("How dare
somebody tell us what we can do with our property")  I guess that's just
not applicable if somebody wants to build something that conflicts with
the 'inalienable right' to drive a car.


"Robert J. Matter" wrote:
>
> For your amusement, an op-ed piece I found penned by a suburban
> auto-addict. -RJM
>
> ---
>
> http://magic-city-news.com/article_1920.shtml
>
> Traffic Calming: A Nightmare for Americans
> By Susanna Lynton Jennings
> Aug 13, 2004, 18:25
>
> FREEDOM, CA -- Most people have experienced nightmares at some point in
> their lives. One that’s quite common is to dream you are trying to get
> somewhere, but can't.
>
> One version of the nightmare goes like this:
>
> You are driving home from a very long day at work. The freeway is
> normally congested at this hour because few improvements have been made
> to increase traffic flow in decades even though the population of your
> town has grown significantly. Unfortunately for you today, the traffic
> is virtually gridlocked because there has been an accident and the
> clogged system cannot cope with the additional burden of a closed lane
> and police activity.
>
> Never mind. In your dream, you decide to try another route. It’s a
> little out of your way, but it heads in the general direction of home,
> so you feel it’s worth a try.
>
> However, this too is a mistake. As soon as you exit to the surface
> street you begin to encounter unfamiliar markings on the roadbed, such
> as a super-wide bicycle lane or left-turn lanes that are wider than the
> regular lane. It feels like you are being squeezed into a narrower and
> narrower space as you drive along, because extra wide medians with curbs
> now replace the double yellow lines.
>
> When you get to one intersection, you notice that the sidewalk at the
> corner bumps out into the driving lane of the road, making a right hand
> turn difficult. Farther down the road, a circular planter fills the
> center of a four-way intersection. Again you must slow down almost to a
> stop in order to navigate around the hazard and then continue on.
>
> Speed bump hazards are placed indiscriminately in the roadbed. These
> bumps are so high your speed must be reduced to a level drastically
> below the speed limit so that the car can pass over it without damage or
> without harming your passengers.
>
> The way home has become shockingly stressful. You decide to stop at a
> deli for food, since you're now delayed past your normal dinnertime.
> When you get there, something looks odd. You used to be able to park
> parallel to the curb, but now there seem to be some planters with high
> cement curbs in the place where your parking spot used to be. They sure
> look nice with flowering trees and some low growing greenery, and they
> appear to be spaced just far enough apart for a car to fit between them.
> But you soon learn there isn’t quite enough space to park your
> modestly-sized car.
>
> Powerless to achieve your goal, you give up on the deli. The goal is now
> to navigate through the one-way and dead-end streets, and you fear you
> will never get home. This "nightmare" is reality for people all over
> America.
>
> What you discovered in your attempt to return home were roadbed hazards,
> euphemistically called "traffic calming devices" by government roadwork
> agencies. The devices, the lane reductions, the planted medians, the
> corner bump-outs, the cement roundabouts, speed bumps and the chicanes
> occupying former parking spaces are all different types of hazardous
> obstacles -- whose sole purpose is to delay you or discourage you from
> using your automobile. They are designed to severely restrict traffic
> flow and add considerable delay to travel times.
>
> These hazards are finding their way onto the streets of our towns and
> cities with the blessing of most of our elected officials.
>
> What motivates our local representatives to deliberately install
> permanent roadway hazards in public roads? What authority do our
> representatives have that grants them the power to make our roads
> dangerous to cars traveling at the legally posted speed limit?
>
> The purpose of our Constitution is to guarantee the right of the citizen
> to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the duty of our elected
> politicians is to defend our Constitution and our rights, then they must
> also defend our right to travel in pursuit of legitimate business or
> pleasure. When officials from our cities and towns employ roadbed
> hazards to make legitimate travel a time-consuming and perilous
> endeavor, they are -- in essence -- responsible for the corruption of
> our American system of government.
>
> By constructing hazards that restrict speeds to below the posted speed
> limits local politicians have stepped over the line. They have ceased to
> defend the fundamental right of citizens to travel freely around this
> nation and, instead, are intentionally imposing oppressive control on
> our freedom of mobility. But by what authority?
>
> If politicians determine that roadbed hazards should be constructed to
> slow the speed of drivers below the posted speed limit, aren’t they
> implying by their actions that all drivers are speeders, since all
> drivers will be slowed by these hazards? If our elected politicians
> think that all drivers break the law, and that all drivers must be
> punished, then it follows that they do not support the Natural Law
> perspective on which our system of government is based -- namely, that a
> person is innocent until proven guilty.
>
> To support the idea that all drivers must be restricted because all
> drivers are speeders, our politicians must rely on a different legal
> perspective -- one that does not spring from our unalienable rights.
> This perspective implies that all rights spring from the government, and
> that the government can restrict our freedom of mobility, in order to
> prevent any lawbreaking that might occur.
>
> The origins of this perspective, sometimes called the Precautionary
> Principle, can be found in the democratic socialist system that
> prevailed in Germany in the 1930s. In this case, the government is
> taking an interventionist measure to justify its perception that drivers
> must be slowed and discouraged from using public roads. They are
> attempting to prevent the potential risk that a driver might drive too
> fast, or that too many drivers might drive down a particular street.
>
> The idea that local governing officials presume they must act to prevent
> the potential risk that you will violate the law, rather than allowing
> you to be responsible for driving safely and allowing you unrestricted
> passage over public roadways, is wholly contrary to our Constitution and
> the American system. More troubling still is the fact that these
> officials would identify with a perspective founded in the tenets of
> German Socialism in the mid-Twentieth century.
>
> Alarmingly, more and more council members and supervisors adopt traffic
> calming and other freedom limiting measures in the name of the
> Precautionary Principle.
>
> In light of this, responsible citizens are forced to ask the following
> question: If a politician does not support the most basic tenet of
> American government (namely, Natural Law), but instead chooses to impose
> restrictions on our freedom based on purely socialist doctrines, should
> that person be allowed to hold office and exercise authority in the
> American political system?
>
> The nightmare we cannot awake from is not merely the construction of
> roadbed hazards that block the way to our homes and businesses. The
> nightmare we are experiencing is the corruption of the American system
> of government. The socialist doctrines that are the basis for
> implementing traffic calming and other transportation ordinances simply
> have no place in a free society.
>
> That this situation can even occur is also part of the nightmare. Free
> citizens, knowingly or not, are electing officials who should be aware
> of their duty to protect individual rights, but who, for whatever
> purpose, abuse their power as elected officials by violating the right
> of citizens to pass freely through our towns and cities.
>
> ###
>
> To Post a message, send it to:   carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

> It's interesting that she brings up principles from 1930s
> Socialist Germany as the principles behind traffic calming.

=v= As you note, the U.S. was inspired by the Nazis to create
the Interstate Highway System, so I wouldn't be surprised if
U.S. civil engineers got other ideas from them as well.  I am
certain that the principles behind traffic calming are *not*
amongst them, though certain traffic engineering devices may
well be.  To label certain of these devices "traffic calming"
is absurdly frothingly wrong, though.

=v= "Traffic calming" is an approach, not a set of devices.
The approach has nothing to do with Nazis; it came together
over the last few decades.  It is most emphatically *not*
about blocking the flow of traffic, but rather calming it.
(Blocking is not calming.  A gentle flow is calming.)

=v= Sometimes old-school traffic engineering gets mislabeled
"traffic calming," but someone who puts the two words in the
headline of her article has no business making that mistake.
     <_Jym_>

P.S.:  Not long ago, a _Salon_ article mentioned something
called "Second Generation Traffic Calming," and we discussed
it on this list.  The article had many errors, but from what
I gathered, David Engwicht are using this phrase to get past
the mislabeling and to refocus attention on *actual* traffic
calming.  Engwicht's website describes this much better than
the _Salon_ article, by the way:

http://lesstraffic.com

--
Ads below?  Just ignore 'em.

Intelligent Grouping Transportation

I wish to draw your attention to possibly best practicable solution for tackling
urban
traffic congestion, air pollution and climate change ever devised. This solution
is an
innovative new transport concept called Intelligent Grouping Transportation
(IGT),
which is fully explained at www.taxibus.org.uk

IGT can dramatically decrease urban traffic and parking congestion by as much as
fivefold (80%), and it can reduce city air pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions by
similar amounts.

At present, corporate or government investment backing for IGT is sought.

Joe Olmi
IGT Consultant
London, UK

Web  www.taxibus.org.uk
Email  joe@...
Tel/Fax  + 44 20 8723 6575

Interesting.  It's really an update of the airport shuttle concept, and as such
fairly useful for certain situations, epseically in less-dense areas.

It won't have anything near the carrying capacity of a fixed-rail system, and
will still require much greater road surface than subways.  After all, you could
run subways under a medieval city without disturbing its character, assuming you
were willing to make the investment.  And considering that I have ridden subways
that were well over a century old--in Argentina I rode on cars that were nearly
that old--and these systems were functioning well despite relatively little
total amortized infrastructure investment--the investment is worthwhile.

Although door-to-door service is superficially appealing, station-to-station
service has several advantages hidden in its apparent disadvatange: peo0ple on
the street improve commerce (you don't window shop from a car), public safety
("eyes on the street"), public health (exercise), and social health (people mix,
meet, talk, tolerate).

The Japanese--a hard-drinking, chain-smoking folk--owe their social cohesiveness
and their lifespans--the longest in the world--in part to the walking they do to
and from train stations (a little more than a mile a day on theh average,
according to public health analyses), and the experience of respectful
togetherness they get on the streets and in the trains, with persons of all
classes walking, bicycling, and riding together.

My 2˘.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: ga_olmi <gao1@...>
Sent: Aug 26, 2004 9:13 AM
To: carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [carfree_cities] IGT - the utlimate way to beat the car

Intelligent Grouping Transportation

I wish to draw your attention to possibly best practicable solution for tackling
urban
traffic congestion, air pollution and climate change ever devised. This solution
is an
innovative new transport concept called Intelligent Grouping Transportation
(IGT),
which is fully explained at www.taxibus.org.uk

IGT can dramatically decrease urban traffic and parking congestion by as much as
fivefold (80%), and it can reduce city air pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions by
similar amounts.

At present, corporate or government investment backing for IGT is sought.

Joe Olmi
IGT Consultant
London, UK

Web  www.taxibus.org.uk
Email  joe@...
Tel/Fax  + 44 20 8723 6575



To Post a message, send it to:   carfree_cities@eGroups.com
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
Yahoo! Groups Links

Hmmmm....

1 - I dont understand how the IGT can be safer than rail-based systems (it
claims to be the safest public transport). As always, safe means both inside and
outside the vehicle
2 - One of the nice things about walking, cycling, taking existing public
transport and trains (providing you dont use an online ticket) is that it is
anonymous in TWO ways:
a - No ID, credit card, etc. connected to you
b - No strangers seeing exactly where you live (you could of course get on and
off in some public area but of course this negates some or much of the claimed
time and personal freight - shopping, etc. - advantages)
3 - In any case there should be a provision for carrying a bicycle (or it cannot
do what most public transport systems can)
4 - Eating is much easier to do in larger vehicles!
5 - With a bus or tram, especially those with short distance between stops, it
is not difficult to jump off if you see a friend, etc and go back to meet them,
and of course walking or riding a bike let you be the most spontaneous
6 - The existing road network is needed (even if roads are narrowed, etc. to get
people to their front doors), more so then with Bus Rapid Transit which also can
use existing road network with modifications.
7 - The social disadvantages of going straight from your front door to your car
are not reduced, except that perhaps using IGT might stimulate you to think more
about your mobility choices in general.
8 - Unlike underground systems and public transport which operates on major
streets, the necessity for every street to be cleared of snow, etc could also
limit the advantages in certain cities.
9 - I really object to use of language like "ultimate", "best" etc.
10 - Is it conceived to be incorporated into "Multipass" systems like those
starting in Germany where you can use public transport, carshare, etc with one
card?
11 - What about off-peak use? How efficient is a fleet of IGTs late at night? I
suppose fewer vehicles would be "online" but it seems like getting a good
balance between that number and keep journey short could be some work...

I will look more at the numbers about environmental benefits, if just to see the
methadology used...

Have fun!
Todd Edelman, Steering Commitee, World Carfree Network

______________________________________________________________
> Od: "ga_olmi" <gao1@...>
> Komu: carfree_cities@yahoogroups.com
> Datum: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 16:13:51 -0000
> Předmět: [carfree_cities] IGT - the utlimate way to beat the car
>
> Intelligent Grouping Transportation
>
> I wish to draw your attention to possibly best practicable solution for
tackling urban
> traffic congestion, air pollution and climate change ever devised. This
solution is an
> innovative new transport concept called Intelligent Grouping Transportation
(IGT),
> which is fully explained at www.taxibus.org.uk
>
> IGT can dramatically decrease urban traffic and parking congestion by as much
as
> fivefold (80%), and it can reduce city air pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions by
> similar amounts.
>
> At present, corporate or government investment backing for IGT is sought.
>
> Joe Olmi
> IGT Consultant
> London, UK
>
> Web www.taxibus.org.uk
> Email joe@...
> Tel/Fax + 44 20 8723 6575
>
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to: carfree_cities@eGroups.com
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to:
carfree_cities-unsubscribe@eGroups.com
> Group address: http://www.egroups.com/group/carfree_cities/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

--------------------
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