Every day, The Overhead Wire collects news about cities and sends the links to their email list. At the end of the week they take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to Streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. They are national and international links, sometimes entertaining or absurd but often useful.
Deadliest intersections in America: One in four fatal car collisions happens at an intersection. That’s the finding from a law firm analysis of 18 years of National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data on fatal traffic collisions. Eighty-two percent of those fatal collisions were at the intersection of an arterial road, and 71% were in more rural areas. There were 894 intersections with three or more deadly collisions in that time period that resulted in 3,293 deaths. (Piasta Walker Hagenbush LLC | Stacker)
A new transportation equity tool: The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) has released an equity mapping tool to address the distribution of transportation funds in the state. The tool is similar to the CalEnviroScreen, which has also been adapted for the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to find areas of burden in disadvantaged communities. This tool, however, is transportation focused — showing crash rates, traffic volumes and income levels. (Melanie Curry | Streetsblog California)
The smooth city: Architecture critic Kate Wagner reviews the book Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives and laments the sameness of places all around the world and the processes that create little more than gentrification. In the end, she says, the book’s strength isn’t in proposed solutions but a criticism of how places have evolved to rid themselves of differences. (Kate Wagner | The Nation)
The dynamically priced city: While there’s been some pushback on dynamic (read: fluctuating) pricing such as that done by Uber, Wendy’s and other corporations, Diana Lind argues that there’s room for dynamic pricing in cities if it can bring value to people looking to reduce their cost of living or benefit businesses looking to find their way in a post-pandemic world. (Diana Lind | New Urban Order)
London sees health benefits from ULEZ, LTNs: London’s ultra low emissions zone (ULEZ) reduced nitrogen oxide pollution 49% between 2016 and 2023. The fall was greater than in other areas around England, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan points to this success as the benefit of the program as politics envelop it. At the same time, a six-year survey based on thousands of people living in three outer London boroughs found that low traffic neighborhoods (LTNs) have health impacts and improvements that measure up to 100 times greater than the cost of the infrastructure investment. (Peter Walker | Guardian ULEZ | Guardian LTN)
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by skateboard advocate Aaron Breetwor, brand manager for Comet Skateboards.
Quote of the Week
“The outsize role of shelter inflation means that homeowners and renters whose leases haven’t changed are experiencing inflation very differently from those who were more exposed to rising housing costs. Indeed, rising housing costs are a double-edged sword, increasing the wealth of homeowners even as they punish many renters. Since the beginning of 2022, housing wealth has added over $2 trillion to homeowners’ balance sheets.”
— Ben Harris, director of economic studies at Brookings, discussing in the Los Angeles Times how housing is a bigger problem than inflation