David Zipper

Miracle on 14th Street getting even better

gothamist.com/news/city-pl...

Wow. Did not expect Bowser to release the congestion pricing report she has long (and inexplicably) buried.

Bowser — a generally retrograde voice on transportation — calls CP "the wrong policy at the wrong time."

But she's a lame duck, and several mayoral candidates say they support CP. 🤔

Uncovered records reveal the hidden costs of Waymo robotaxis on San Francisco streets Self-driving cars are creating new problems for city transit systems. Officials are still figuring out how to adapt.

The many transit disruptions outlined in this story have happened with Waymo operating a fleet in San Francisco that is <1,000 vehicles.

What happens when there are 10,000 Waymos roaming San Francisco streets? 100,000?

Pretty much the last thing I want to see happen on my city’s streets

Denmark responded to 1973 oil crisis by reducing car-dependency. Let's do that now. - Streetsblog Chicago "The government had to introduce car-free Sundays. And then people realized that the car-free Sunday was the best day of the week."

FYI the 1970s oil crisis was the impetus for Copenhagen turning into a cycling city

Oil and gas prices rapidly rise as Iran war shows no signs of letting up The price of oil surged higher and showed no signs of halting its rapid climb a week after the U.S. and Israel launched major attacks on Iran that escalated into a war in the Middle East.

Hello historian of #bicycling here; if anyone wants to hear about what happened in WWII and also during the 1970s energy crisis (when Americans turned to bicycles as alternative transportation solutions) I'm certainly available. I've written about both in _Bike Battles_.

apnews.com/article/oil-...

It is a self-driving issue. Not sure what to tell you. Bye.

It was the company at fault.

And that was only one of many instances.

NTSB says Waymo robotaxis illegally passed stopped school buses in new incidents The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday it is investigating a new incident in ​January of Waymo self-driving vehicles passing a stopped school bus with its ‌lights activated in violation...

Note that these incidents occurred *after* Waymo did a recall to ensure its vehicles wouldn't keep passing stopped school buses.

The company doesn't seem to know how to fix this.

We clearly know different city people

I know it’s trendy to dismiss rural Americans as superfluous yokels. But I don’t think it’s true, and I don’t think it gets us anywhere useful.

To be fair, cities rely on rural areas too.

Good book on the relationship ⤵️

Flemings are cycling to work more than ever before! | VRT NWS: news One in every four Flemings cycled to work in 2024, which is twice as many as 20 years ago. The figure comes from a large-scale study looking at the mobility habits of almost 1.8 million employees in B...

Denmark and the Netherlands get headlines for their cycling culture, but don't sleep on Belgium.

One in four Flanders workers bikes to work (double the share from 20 years ago). That's a lot!

Chicago, you are beautiful but I don’t understand why you waste downtown real estate on drive thrus

In 1984, an episode of Murder She Wrote featured a self-driving car with a murderous remote operator. Seriously.

@wesmars.bsky.social explains (clip from the new pod, out later this week)

The biggest drawback of driverless cars Driverless cars could save thousands of lives. They might also break our cities.

"AVs almost by definition lower the friction and costs associated with driving ... And we already know, from the last century-plus of experience in the US, what happens when we make driving easier: We will get more of it. And more concrete and asphalt infrastructure to accommodate it."

Seems bad

sfstandard.com/2026/03/03/w...

Congestion Pricing Wins in Court After Lengthy Battle With Trump

For once, at least, sanity has prevailed

Very grateful to @rmartincole.bsky.social for unearthing this treasure.

Chairman Alan Bible (D-NV) replies to Vickrey's proposal for congestion pricing in Washington DC:

"I think it has some possible possibilities, [but]I would not think it would be a good platform, perhaps, Professor, to launch into a political career on."

Currently reading the 1959 Congressional hearing where Bill Vickrey — a future Nobel Prize winner — made the first public case for congestion pricing.

Vickrey: "One of the advantages of this type of charge is that you discourage the peak use at the same time that you encourage the nonpeak use."

BONUS EPISODE — Live from Fort Lauderdale — is now available: lookbothwayspod.podbean.com/e/bonus-epis...

Get answers to all your South Florida transportation questions, like "What happens when a Brightline train meets a sidewalk robot?"

The Screens in Cars Are Becoming a Problem "Infotainment” systems are increasingly flashy and distracting—and the auto industry is just getting started.

If you're wondering, NHTSA does nothing to regulate touchscreen safety.

Zip. Nada. Zero.

(I wrote this story 5 years ago, and t's still accurate.)

These authors reviewed 73 previous studies examining car touchscreens.

Conclusion: They're awful

"Touchscreens tended to have negative effects on driving performance, visual attention, and secondary task performance compared with voice control and physical controls."

doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Big news for transportation sickos

this elicits the same thrill as seeing nic cage holding the declaration of independence

​Greetings from the Northwestern University Transportation Library, where Rachel just showed me the original!

Plan to pedestrianise London’s Oxford Street given official go-ahead Sadiq Khan promises to create ‘world-leading urban space’, with remaining traffic removed this summer

As of this summer London's Oxford Street will finally be car-free.

Yes, but that's really an argument for automatic cameras that reliably compel drivers to obey traffic laws (and are far easier/cheaper/faster to deploy than replacing human-driven cars with AVs).

Same goes for speeding. Yes, AVs don't speed, but neither do today's cars w/ Intelligent Speed Assist.

VIDEO: Waymo seen blocking first responders during West Sixth shooting A video shared with KXAN shows a Waymo car blocking emergency and first responder vehicles during the active scene of the deadly West Sixth Street shooting in Austin.

Last night a Waymo vehicle froze on an Austin street after a mass shooting, delaying emergency response.

Note to regulators: Crashing is only one of the ways AVs can harm people.