Reducing the dangers, pollution, and emissions caused by cars
Вставка
- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
- Can you imagine Paris, London, and New York free from car dependency?
In Ep 151, Emilia Hanna discussed the Car-Free Megacities Campaign, a two-year challenge to reduce the negative impacts that motor vehicles have on cities and the environment.
A “car-free city” is a city that is free of the dangers, pollution, and emissions caused by mass private car ownership. It's not a city with no cars at all. It is recognized there are many people, including some disabled people, who cannot get around without a car, and these campaigns to reduce the number of cars in cities will make their lives easier too.
The campaign seeks to:
- Raise the ambitions of the Mayors and city officials in London, Paris and New York.
- Make sure that the very best international practice to make cities better is seen and quickly copied.
- Expose where change is unnecessarily slow to act as a lever for more rapid action.
- Empower the people living in these cities to reimagine their built environment and be part of making change happen.
Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):
- Car-Free Megacities: www.carfreemegacities.org/
- We Are Possible website: www.wearepossible.org/
- Ep 150 w/ Doug Gordon: • The War on Cars Livest...
- Ep 149 w/ Dr. Billy Fields: • Studying the resilient...
- Ep 123 Will Norman: • London, England, wants...
- Curbing Traffic by Melissa & Chris Bruntlett: bookshop.org/a/85379/97816428... or amzn.to/3GPd2cN
Video timeline:
0:00:00 Cold Open
0:00:29 My introduction
0:01:02 Beginning of the interview
0:02:24 Intro of Doug Gordon as NYC contact
0:03:44 We Are Possible org
0:06:55 Going Car-Free in 2022
0:13:16 Car-Free Megacities Campaign Overview
0:15:32 Data Dashboard
0:36:54 Challenging the Mayors to be bold
0:38:45 Noise in the city
0:43:58 Leaderboard - Cargo Bikes
0:46:44 Leaderboard - Action During Covid
0:48:46 Leaderboard - Parklets
0:49:59 Leaderboard - Political Will
0:53:23 Leaderboard - School Streets
0:55:51 Leaderboard - Micromobility
0:56:58 Leaderboard - Clean Air Zones
0:58:37 Emilia's final thoughts
1:00:21 Closing
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Credits: Video and audio production by John Simmerman
Music via Epidemic Sound: bit.ly/3rFLErD
Resources used during the production of this video:
- My recording platform is Ecamm Live: bit.ly/3rwsUup
- Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite: bit.ly/35DBDDU
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Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.
Since 2010, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."
The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.
Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.
Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2022
It's amazing to see these meaningful campaigns and people realising the importance of walking and cycling!!
Yes. Absolutely. 😀
Superb episode. Since they count number of bikes passing, and each count is a "vote", you can vote multiple times by riding your bike for hours and hours.
I like that! Thanks so much for tuning in, Mark! 😀
Competition is a great idea. I would love to see the mayors of these megacities to take the competition to heart and have a healthy race to be number one. Another place we need to see some competition is among the cities of the front range of Colorado. Some cities in Colorado say we can't do what Boulder and Ft. Collins do because they are college towns. Like they are the only colleges in Colorado? I have to give kudos to a micro city, Edgewater, CO, that is making great strides. And they are doing it without a college. Thanks, John. Love these leaderboards.
Oh, cool! I need to check out what Edgewater is up to. Thanks, Gary. Cheers! John
@@ActiveTowns I will send you some links. Edgewater started planning for bike and pedestrian safety 5 years ago and the most refreshing thing they said is that a plan must be implemented, not just talked about. Fascinating to hear about the evaluation process going into implementation.
@@garyharty1902 Good stuff! Thank you, sir. 👍
Saw a UA-cam of guy who found an old mail delivery bike from the 50’s abandoned in channel. He showed old pics & he restored it and put an exit on it. So London used to deliver mail on bike.
In many areas of so many cities, this could be easily done. Not everywhere, but in many places.
Wow what a great episode. I really enjoyed seeing the stats for each of those cities laid out side by side like that and some to the criteria for how they were "judged". A very positive centered way to envision and understand these changes.
Thanks so much! Delighted that you enjoyed it. Now, if we can just get more North American cities, especially within their relative geographic regions, to do their own challenges to up their game… For instance I could totally see LA, San Diego, and Phoenix doing something similar. And if they actually took it seriously, some good things might just come out of it. Cheers! John
Really eager to listen to this one. As a D.C. resident, it strikes me that this would be the PERFECT city to set a high bar on going car free. Let me make the case!
1) It's much more car dependent than other similar cities, 2) The density is (mostly) there, 3) Metro transit is already somewhat ok and has a fair deal of ridership, 4) the grid layout, traffic circles, and parks make for plenty of opportunities for closing roads to cars, planting more trees and paths for bikes and recreation, and 5) limited adoption of ADUs and creative approaches to increasing density...could be expanded much further.
I completely agree! I hope enjoy the episode. I think the concept of duplicating this type of challenge for comparable peer cities could be quite helpful. What regional city(ies) would you pair up with DC? Cheers! John
@@ActiveTowns That's a great idea! I'd personally like to see everything along the Boswash corridor, but speaking of Boston... 😉
Historical city, similar geographic constraints/opportunities, similar historic/cultural constraints, similar total metro area populations and densities. But for less directly comparable cities, I think the rapid growth cities like Charlotte are also ripe for re-imagining urbanism in a city with a history of expansion/sprawl!
@@ActiveTowns Update: The episode was fantastic! I encourage everyone to go to the website and play with the noise feature with the sound on. As a property owner going into the fall I have the windows open more now. The traffic noise here in the city (at all hours) is so bad that I need to close the windows if I want to hear the TV. I NEVER sit outside on the front porch to enjoy iced tea and conversation. It's simply too loud. And unless I want a motorcycle waking me up at 2am, gotta keep those windows closed.
Imagine the boost in property values on streets like this--livable space in most row houses would double!--and quality of life would be better for everyone. What can homeowners ask of their neighborhood planning folks? Any low-hanging fruit where incentives tend to align quickly?
@@falsificationism So glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, I hear you. Strategies for decreasing noise will depend on the type of streets you live on. Two primary keys are to decrease the number of vehicles and the speed that they are traveling - frequently accomplished through traffic calming and cut-through traffic diversion techniques while preserving bike and pedestrian permeability. Additionally would be interventions to mitigate other secondary noise contributors (modified exhaust, revving of engines, loud music, etc.).
Having conversations with your neighbors about the issue, and using a smartphone sound meter such as NIOSH Sound Meter can help quantify the challenge, as well as engaging with your local representatives and leaders are all necessary steps. Cities will naturally have some noise level, but as I mentioned in the episode, they aren't inherently so noisy that they are dangerous and detrimental to health and wellbeing until motor vehicles are allowed free range everywhere at high speeds.
My fellow UA-camr and colleague Jason Slaughter produced a brilliant video on the subject that be shared to help enhance awareness of the issue: ua-cam.com/video/CTV-wwszGw8/v-deo.html
Also, if you haven't yet read it, Curbing Traffic by the Bruntletts is an amazing read, with an entire chapter on noise. I have in my Active Towns bookstore, here: Curbing Traffic by Melissa & Chris Bruntlett: bookshop.org/a/85379/9781642831658 or on Amazon of course: amzn.to/3GPd2cN
I'll be sure to record some noise level comparisons during my three-week stay in Delft in November.
Cheers!
John
@@ActiveTowns Subbed and ordered! Really thrilling to hear the followups here in the comment thread. Keep up the great work and thank you!
These are such insightful visualisations! I kind of want to see how my city ranks, but it's not a megacity by any stretch. But these could be a great start to a race between these three :)
Yeah, I could see peer cities of similar size doing a challenge. The Possible website has a Car Free Cities subpage, I wonder if they could help. www.wearepossible.org/carfreecities Thanks so much for joining in on the Premiere. Cheers! John 😀
A large amount of pm2.5 comes from combustion.
Yep.
They always show the bike riders in nice weather. What about when it rains, snows, ice on the ground? How about taking an infant on a bike in bad weather. Yes some people would ride in bad weather. If people want to live in a city without cars let them. I prefer a more rural area and owning a car or several cars. I would not want to be in a city in a natural disaster, riot or crash of the economy.
All, great points. Especially since I grew up on a ranch a couple of miles outside of town. One of my favorite past interviews to reference winter and suburban (exurban) riding is Episode 131 with Pekka Tahkola in Oulu, Finland ua-cam.com/video/EPmJswNRb7s/v-deo.html
Pekka also has a tremendous UA-cam channel in his own right, with many fascinating videos profiling winter riding: ua-cam.com/users/PekkaTahkola
As he says, it's all about two things... 1.) safe facilities away from motor vehicle traffic, and 2.) excellent winter facility maintenance.
Do those two things, and people will gladly for many, many miles (kilometers)
Thanks so much for watching and for your contru=ibution to the conversation. Cheers! John
its funny when ever you ask somebody why don't you ride a bike they always say its because theirs to many cars on the road and is not safe. you get a lot of mothers in big 4x4s so that if they have a crash they will be safe. war on cars. my mum said not long ago all a cyclist is is a car driver on a bike. its a catch 22. people don't ride bikes because theirs to many cars on the road and yet they forget their are one of the cars that is adding to their worries. its funny the norrower the roads the cars seem to go faster to try and not meet anther one coming in the opposite direction. if the people took a day or a week to leave their cars and ether walk or cycle theirs a fare bet that they would say I wish everyday was like this. that is the impprestion I got when I saw people on the News when lock down was on. personly when Im in a Pedestrian area I feel safer because I dont have to worry about getting run over. its good to see a fellow brit on your show
Thanks, Bobbie! I'm with you. It's so much nicer being in an area where you are not constantly fearing for your life. Cheers! John