Arnaud Exbalin, Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris Lumières
The debate over the place of cars in cities may seem recent, but pamphlets published during the French Revolution show that the battle was raging before the first automobile even saw the light of day.
Look both ways! Public education was the only thing policy makers did to help the rising number of pedestrians killed by cars. Staged image from Ontario Safety League 1923 safety campaign.
City of Toronto Archives
Torontonians have been experiencing pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities since the advent of the automobile. The one way to stop the deaths is to ban cars but since that won’t happen, what can be done?
A man in downtown Atlanta with an electric scooter on June 26, 2018.
Brinley Hineman/ AP Photo
Electric rideables are making life less comfortable and more dangerous for pedestrians. Here’s how makers of rideables could help make cities safer for everybody.
Paul Salmon, University of the Sunshine Coast e Gemma Read, University of the Sunshine Coast
Collisions at intersections between motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians cause many deaths and injuries. Design that considers how each group approaches intersections improves everyone’s safety.
The settings on traffic lights make pedestrians wait longer by giving higher priority to vehicle traffic.
Abaconda Management Group/Wikimedia
Everyone doesn’t simply wait their turn at traffic lights. Signals are set up to enable a ‘green wave’ for cars and adjust to heavy traffic, making walkers wait longer no matter how many there are.
Decisions made by engineers today will determine how all cars drive.
Grendelkhan
By expanding our understanding of streets and enhancing their design, every street corner could become a space to socialise, to exercise, to play, or to trade.
If all the elements in the transportation system are going to talk to each other, the people at the companies and government agencies that make those items need to talk to each other too.
Beijing residents with a variety of approaches to urban air pollution.
Bryan Ledgard/Flickr
In recent years the number of motor vehicles – and the pollution they generate – has grown astronomically, leading some citydwellers to wear facemasks in the hopes of protecting themselves. So do they work?
Sales of electric vehicles are growing fast, especially in Europe.
Sopotnicki/Shutterstock.com
Shifting to plug-in cars wouldn’t be enough to max out global oil consumption by 2040. But it could help make that happen if cities pitch in and ride-sharing doesn’t crowd out public transportation.
What can we do to avoid clashes between users of shared paths?
from www.shutterstock.com
In contrast to increases in vehicle safety over the decades, we have seen little new technology to ensure the safety of pedestrians – and current innovations are still based on a car-centric approach.
Racewalkers turn a corner – keeping one foot on the ground – during the women’s 20-km event at the 2012 London Olympics.
Maureen Barlin/flickr
Racewalking has been part of the Olympic Games since 1904, but gets little respect in the United States. That might change if Americans knew a little more about it.
Many mobile phone users now text, or intently perform some other function on their phone, while walking.
AAP/Dan Peled