December 27, 2011By: Peter Smith Category: Advocacy
Just an idea I thought of when walking about on Christmas Day. The streets were eerily empty of motorized traffic, and some people were actually walking around, seemingly just for the enjoyment of it — spending some time with family, etc. It was almost like you could see people thinking to themselves in an approving fashion, “Huh. So this is what walking around feels like. Kinda cool.”
And it was so quiet (little to no motor traffic).
The lack motor traffic made me think it might be pretty easy to pull off a Christmas Day Ciclovia. Of course, most businesses/schools/organizations are closed on Christmas Day.
Lots of people get new bikes/skateboards/basketballs/sneakers/etc. on Christmas Day, and during the holidays generally, so they’d like to get outside and try their new gear.
It seems Bogota has a type of holiday night time ciclovia, Ciclovia Nocturna (English) — the bike path is so crowded, it’s more of a walkavia — theirs was held on Wednesday, December 8.
If San Jose was bikeable, I’d like to go see a bunch of the cool light displays (more here).
Side commentary:
Don’t try to bury highways a la Boston/Big Dig (they’re too expensive and just leave in place the cancer pump that is every highway); instead, just tear them down, a la SF/Embarcadero Freeway.
Our local (San Jose) transit authority has some historic streetcars (like San Francisco’s), and they’re running a holiday route — the program is called The Candyland Express. Public transit should not just be about making poor people suffer — it should be about allowing people to move about freely, conveniently, with dignity intact — and it should strive to be…<gulp>…pleasant. The old streetcars have style, and they have windows all the way around so one can actually see what is going on on the streets as you travel them, and some of the old streetcars are at least partially open-air and have windows that could be opened so you could get some fresh air in case of an on-board stench or if the heat is up too high. We need to try to introduce a little humanity into public transportation — public bike sharing is making that happen at least a little bit — these old streetcars can help, too.
End of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you prevent people from biking by building LRT or BRT — you’re still preventing biking — especially when you build this motorized infrastructure in the outside travel lanes, where bicycles would typically be. And when you prevent biking, that is not ‘sustainability’, unless you’re talking about the sustainability of the auto industry.
Most US transit agencies can’t keep their inside escalators working. Will Colombia be able to keep its outside escalators working? They’ll start by operating only 3 hours a day.
December 07, 2011By: Peter Smith Category: Advocacy
The Google LatLong blog just profiled a real estate business in Boulder, Colorado, Pedal to Properties, that uses Google Maps Bike Directions to figure out how to get to and from various properties that they are showing to prospective home buyers:
Q. Why is the Pedal to Properties option better than the standard way of viewing homes? A. As a home buyer, you want to know that the neighborhood you may potentially live in is safe, practical for your needs, and fits your lifestyle. Touring neighborhoods on bicycles gives you an up-close and personal look at each street you travel. You will truly experience a neighborhood by riding up and down its streets, rather than zooming by in a car, giving you a feel for what it might be like if you lived there someday.
November 30, 2011By: Peter Smith Category: Advocacy
No.
Multimodalism (the ability to make a trip using more than one mode of transport — e.g. walking and biking, biking and driving, etc.) is overrated. Multimodalism has certain advantages over unimodalism just as it has certain disadvantages. A community or society may decide that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, or vice-versa, but our goal should not be ‘multimodalism’ – it should be ‘an awesome transportation system’.
‘Multimodalism’ in much of the blogosphere today means that a particular town allows people to get around by bike, at least a little bit. Sometimes it means that a town has a streetcar system, so at least 1% of the population can get around without a car. Fine. It’s not the end of the world. Popular use of various transportation terms is not something to get hung up about, but I think it’s important to stay clear about what our goals are, because language affects how we think about the problems we’re facing. The implication of too many posts I read is, “Hey — we’re multimodal, therefore we’re awesome, and our job is done.” I say, ‘Not quite.’
If a town has a mode split of 99% driving and 1% walk/bike/skate/train/etc., then that town is, by definition, multimodal. Mission accomplished? Of course, not.
A city that is proclaimed as ‘really multimodal,’ like New York City, might boast of a non-driving mode share of about 71%. A town that is just multimodal, like the San Jose, might boast of a non-driving mode share around 12%. Are these cities similar in any way? They’re both multimodal, but is that meaningful at all? Hardly. And they both still have disastrous transportation systems. If the majority of your population cannot get around safely, comfortably, and conveniently, with dignity intact, under their own power, then your transportation system fails, period.
The ability to get around under one’s own power is a human right — it has to be guaranteed in order to restore people’s dignity, and of course, to help head off further climate disaster.
If a town allows most of its citizens to get around under their own power — by walk, bike, skate, whatever — then that town potentially has an awesome transportation system.
Every few weeks a cycling ‘advocate’ will tear into people for daring to ride their bikes on the sidewalk — usually after someone riding a bike on the sidewalk was killed. We get some of the same from many cycling ‘advocates’ when cyclists riding in the road are killed, but the pomposity really flows when the killed cyclist was cycling on the sidewalk. This ‘criticizing the dead’ behavior is boorish, but it doesn’t seem to stop people. C’est la vie.
The concern these ‘sidewalk cycling bloggers’ are trolling is one of ‘safety’ — in theory, presumably they care, or claim to care, about the safety of the person doing the sidewalk cycling — not the drivers and walkers.
These bloggers point to various dubious studies by vehicular cycling advocates, and they fail to provide context for the studies. For instance, I could probably find data that shows walking on one-way streets is much safer than walking on two-way streets. But what use is the study if we don’t talk about the fact that people don’t walk on one-way streets because they’re so anti-human? Not much.
Ditto with these ‘sidewalks are dangerous’ studies — they simply don’t hold water if we claim to care about implementing policies which allow people to ride their bikes. We need studies that look at the totality of safety effects of riding on sidewalks vs. riding on the street — to the extent that such studies can even be statistically significant.
For instance, this safety page (which is, overall, very good — even if it’s old school, and has some nonsense in there about headphones and other alleged dangers) says don’t ride on the sidewalk, except in certain cases where it is OK to ride on the sidewalk – so, which one is it? Always, never, or sometimes? And who gets to decide the criteria?
This video makes a strong case for sidewalk cycling (the narrator clowns League cyclists while he’s at it — funny):
As a new or continuing city cyclist, you are bound to hear the admonishment: “Don’t ride on the sidewalk. It’s dangerous.” I swallowed that Kool-Aid for quite a while. After all, I want cycling to be a respected part of the transport infrastructure, I want cyclists to be generally law abiding and not continually agitate either pedestrians or car drivers (or each other!). But that word “dangerous,” bandied about as it is so frequently in cycling, should serve as the first clue that the warning to not sidewalk ride is a complicated, multi-faceted subject.
One oft-cited study seems to make some sense — it says, at a minimum, the haters need to stop hating:
Whatever the reasons, sidewalk cyclists should not simply be taught that sidewalk cycling is dangerous and should, therefore, be discontinued. Attempts to teach cyclists effective cycling skills should be considered.
The rate of collision on off-road paths and sidewalks was lower than for roads.
And, if riding on sidewalks and sidepaths is so dangerous, why are they primary features of the roadway infrastructure of The Netherlands, the safest place on earth to ride a bike?
Because sidewalk and sidepath cycling is safe.
If you were ever told otherwise, you were fed a line — by the same people who probably admonished you to wear a helmet.
And when measured in the most critical terms — your ability to bike another day — you are almost certainly safer on the sidewalk than in the road — because most collisions occur in the road — i.e. doorings, hit from behind, etc.
So when certain ‘advocates’ tell cyclists not to ride on the sidewalk — they are effectively telling these cyclists to stop riding — which makes riding overall that much more dangerous for everyone else — because of the safety in numbers effect, in reverse.
So, if you are confused as to what you should tell a new sidewalk rider who has been accosted by the anti-cycling zealots, go with this:
Dude(tte) — I am so happy to hear you’re riding your bike — that’s so cool. Keep it up. Don’t let the haters get you down — haters gonna hate. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and if you feel more comfortable on the sidewalk, then you keep riding on the sidewalk. It’s probably safer there anyways.
I would advise that you not injure, maim, or kill any pedestrians — that just goes without saying — the same argument for cars — they shouldn’t injure, maim, or kill any cyclists or pedestrians — so watch out for pedestrians, and just generally be considerate of them, especially if they’re old — flying by a walker on the sidewalk can make them jump (make the jump/twitch! move here), and that’s kinda scary and just not cool. But other than that, have at it.
You’ll learn that the slower you ride on the sidewalk, the generally-more comfortable ride you’ll have, just because you can relax more, not worry about hitting walkers so much, etc. Try to watch out for blind entrances/exits from shops/apartments — if you start taking the same route every day you’ll learn which doors are busy. It might be technically illegal to ride your bike on some sidewalks, so some cops might harass you if you’re blazing down the sidewalk and menacing people, but if you’re kinda chillin and just moseying then they probably won’t bug you.
All the same rules apply as if you were riding in the road — so read this page if you haven’t yet — watch out for the right hook, definitely watch out for the left hook, watch out for all the cars that are going to blow through every Stop sign on every street along your route — you know, all the usual stuff.
Ride on!
Oh, don’t forget to top up your tires once a week (get a good pump — it’s worth it) — you won’t notice the difference until you top up and then you’ll be like, “Dang! I wish I topped up earlier!” And, it’ll help keep you from getting pinch flats, which are super-common for noob riders like you.
A couple of other points — telling people to ride in the street is akin to telling them to subject themselves to harassment, random violence and threats of violence (i.e. terrorism) — from outlaw drivers — I don’t think that’s a very nice thing to do.
Also, telling cyclists to do anything other than not kill pedestrians absolves drivers of…injuring, maiming, and killing people. Just because it is legal to kill bikers and walkers doesn’t mean that it should be legal. The laws should be changed, and we should push for them to be changed. We should pass a radical new law that says ‘Nobody is allowed to kill walkers and bikers.’ — something like that.
Happy sidewalk cycling!
Update: I didn’t point out some more of the obvious, but if cycling on the sidewalk is more dangerous than cycling in the road, why in the world would the federal government recommend that young children ride on the sidewalk?
Update: Want to continue to excuse the deadly, outlaw behavior of motorists? Easy — just keep telling people to stop riding on the sidewalks — implying that it is their fault that they just got run over. They were riding on the sidewalk — they had it coming — zing! The were riding in the road — they had it coming — zing! They were riding anywhere at all doing everything or nothing at all — they had it coming — zing! This blame the victim stuff is fun — it’s easy too — the victims are not around to defend themselves.
Update: Thought I’d take a snapshot of some outlaw driver behavior over the last few days, as it shows up in my feed reader and in Google News, and see if we could divine a pattern of injury and death rained down upon cyclists — and, by extension, determine whether riding on the sidewalk is more dangerous than riding in the road. Some/most of the events are more recent — some older. Of course, generally speaking, deaths are going to be reported more often than ‘just’ injuries, so I would expect the results to scew ‘in favor’ of ‘road’ injuries/deaths (as opposed to ‘sidewalk and sidewalk-enabled’ injuries/death), and that does appear to be the case. This is just anecdote, of course, but it’s all real — hundreds/thousands of lives destroyed and severely/adversely affected by outlaw drivers, propped up by an insufficient and corrupt legal system, unsafe infrastructure, and a certain group of cycling ‘advocates’:
Update: If you hate folks riding on the sidewalk, then spend your time advocating for real bicycle infrastructure — namely, cycletracks – sidewalks for cyclists.
Update: Pedestrians being forced to share the sidewalk with cyclists is like cyclists being forced to share the roads with cars/trucks/buses — only, 10,000 times safer.
And what’s good for bikes is often times good for pedestrians. [Long Beach Mobility Coordinator, Charlie] Gandy struck up a conversation with a mother and father pushing a stroller while I took pictures of the separated bike paths on 3rd Street. Even though they haven’t ridden a bike in years, they loved the lane. Why? Because it got all the bikes off the sidewalk. ”I used to see bikes on the sidewalk everyday on 3rd. I haven’t seen one in months,” the father smiled while pushing the stroller.
This stuff is not rocket science.
We can all be like those lowly crooks down in Austell, Georgia, and go after the victims — in that case, pedestrians — in our case, cyclists — or we can try to be decent human beings and go after outlaw drivers, and other crooks who continue to get off scot-free — the designers and engineers behind these malignant road designs — city and state DOT engineers and officials — they belong in jail more than anyone else when these situations arise — because of the wickedness they’ve designed into our road system — dangerous by design, indeed.
Yes! Another major-ish US city, another bike-sharing program. Boston’s Hubway bike-sharing program starts up tomorrow.
Boston is slightly bigger than Washington, DC, which is currently home to the signature bike-sharing program in the US.
Like DC, Boston has tons of students who will be eager early adopters of the bike-sharing program. Boston’s bike infrastructure lags that of DC, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out.
A Boston-area article gives some early good hope — having seen the success of bike-sharing in DC (and Montreal and Toronto), the car folks will not be able to act all hysterical — they’d be laughed off the page:
Now that the Hubway bike-sharing program is here, some Bostonians seem to believe an alien is landing, and that utter chaos — or at least massive inconvenience and injury — will ensue when kiosks open Tuesday.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
And, as we noted/hoped, many cities may start to feel a twinge of ‘lameness’ for not getting into the bike-sharing game sooner:
As it is in many other ways, Boston is late to the game in bike-sharing.
And, finally — what a pleasant way to think about the ‘unloosing’ of a fleet of bikes over the city (and at the same time, an almost-admonition directed at drivers instead of cyclists and pedestrians):
So let the pedestrian cross in the unsignaled crosswalk, look in your rear view mirror before you open the car door, and go ahead and let yourself celebrate all those slightly clunk-looking silver and black bikes that will soon be unloosed on the metropolis, like a flock of doves.
I was walking down The Alameda (wiki) the other day when I was accosted by a local news reporter trying to do a story about gas prices and the upcoming July 4 holiday — it was right in front of that ugly Shell gas station.
He put the camera in my face — like, 12 inches away, it seemed — and said something about ‘gas prices’ and ‘The Grand Canyon’ and then he started pointing at the gas prices sign — which looked a bit like the picture shown.
My first thought, and what I actually said to him, was, “We need to make this street bikeable — we need to make it safe and comfortable for people to bike on — we need to allow people to bike on this street.” (It’s an awesome street — or, has the potential to be.)
Reporter-guy-with-camera was amused, gave a smirky-smile and guffaw, and then presumably mumbled the same leading question he did before — this time gesturing more wildly towards the gas prices sign — and again, I had no idea what he said. I turned around to get a good look at the sign, and most prices seemed to be right around the $4/gallon mark, so of course my first thought was, “Wow — one gallon of gas could buy me a Pliny the Elder at Wine Affairs.” In other words, I was not thinking, “Wow — gas is cheap now.” I was thinking, “Why would you spend your $4 on a gallon of gas instead of a pint of really good beer??”
So I said, “Well I’m more of a train guy so I don’t tend to do a lot of driving — the train is awesome.”
Now he was really getting frustrated. At this point I started to figure out what he was getting at — I think he was suggesting that gas prices were down and so therefore wouldn’t that make me more likely to drive to The Grand Canyon this 4th of July holiday weekend?
After he mumbled his leading question one more time, I said, “Yes, more likely.” And then I smiled and split, and he was happy to be rid of me, I’m sure.
I was amused by the whole thing. Imagine you’re a local video reporter and you’re sent out to get some footage for a 4th of July-type driving and gas prices story and you just happen to try to interview someone who thinks that cars are humanity’s best example of pure-evil-on-earth. It’s tough being a local news reporter!
In his TED Talk, he suggests that we, as a society/global community, have a lot of work left to do, but that we’re well on our way to solving the global warming issue. Confident guy. The real problem we face going forward, he suggests, is traffic gridlock.
Here’s the TED Talk — it’s clownish and amateurish, and is just PR for Ford and the automobile industry, but at least it’s boring:
There are a couple of points I’d like to make:
‘Intelligent roadways’ won’t work: This ‘intelligent roadways’ stuff has been given attention and some credibility because honorable, decent, smart people like Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar, have touted the idea — Chase has referred to the ‘mesh network’ (presumably of roadways and cars and intelligent road pricing, and ancillary ideas/technologies). But ‘intelligent roadways (for cars)’ is a horrible idea if only because it seeks to delay the point in time at which humanity finally gives up on automobile transport, with its myriad lethal effects, locally and globally. But practically-speaking about today, we know that any tool/technology/policy that decreases auto congestion will only work to induce/increase demand — simply put, more people will want to drive because traffic is not quite as bad as it used to be. With cars and car technology — including ‘intelligent roadways’ and ‘mesh networks’ — even when you ‘win’ with cars, you lose — the only possible way to win, then, is not to play the game. Cars are a failed endeavor and now are threatening the survival of the human species. Biking and walking work pretty well — we should allow people to do them. You know those expensive and maddening freeway on-ramp meters? They decrease congestion by 10-15%. For some period of time — 3 months? 6 months? Until more people are driving and fill up the extra road capacity. You know, induced demand and all that. Everything about cars is just one giant FAIL. We need to let cars go the way of the dodo. The imaginary ‘hypercar’ will not save us. We know people who drive ‘clean(ish) energy cars’ drive more than people who drive regular cars — as we’ve said, even when you ‘win’ with cars, you still lose. Cars suck. They are inherently a sucky solution to the problem of mobility/transport — it’s difficult-to-impossible to fix ‘inherently sucky’. We shouldn’t work so hard to try to keep cars a viable transport option. And I’m not saying cars can’t be useful in some capacity — for instance, it’s fun to go watch a demolition derby — watching cars destroy each other is my idea of a good time — so cars can address ‘the boredom problem’ pretty well, but ‘the boredom problem’ is not ‘the mobility problem’.
Have we hit peak car travel?Folks are talking peak car use and peak travel and peak (motor) vehicle miles traveled and whatever else, but I’m not buying it. I don’t think it’s overly important for everyone to focus on whether or not this number is growing, holding steady, or shrinking — I think we should all do our best to concentrate on giving people the option to walk and bike to their destinations. If we take care of that, the car problem with take care of itself. In the TED Talk above, Bill Ford suggests that his company believes the world will be inhabited by 2 to 4 billion cars by 2050. There are ‘only’ 0.8 billion cars today. That represents up to a four-fold increase in the number of operational cars on the planet. Most of that growth will come from the developing world — China, India, and large and rising middle classes in countries around the globe. Some other folks think it is possible to sustain billions of cars on earth if we figure out how to make them…burn pixie dust or something — I have no idea. Sounds deranged to me. Global warming and its crazy effects are happening right now, with less than a billion cars in the world — someone thinks it’s wise to keep and even grow the number of cars we already have on this planet? Are we supposed to wait until San Francisco and Manhattan are underwater before we get serious about allowing people to get around on bikes?
Update: Joan Valls Fantova, president of www.bacc.info, lets us know that Barcelona’s Bicing Bicycle Share System also provides insurance — not only to the rider and property, but also covers any third party person/property involved in a collision/accident. A Google translation of the FAQ page says:
Bizi has some kind of insurance?
Yes, there is liability insurance for damage to any item, equipment or user Bicing could lead to a third party, and the damage can be done by the same user.
In fact, the Public Bicycle System in one of China’s wealthiest cities, Hangzhou, has surpassed Paris’ Velib as the world’s largest bike-share program, with 60,600 low-cost, low-tech bikes and more than 2,400 stations spaced out about every 200 meters, [Susan] Shaheen said. Since Hangzhou opened the floodgates in 2008, more than a dozen other cities in China have launched cycle-hire schemes. Uniquely, China provides insurance if an accident happens during a trip. “No other place has bundled that in,” said Shaheen.
I think it’s ridiculous that we ‘rich’ Americans don’t have universal health care, but health insurance is a legitimate concern for anyone without it, or with sub-optimal health insurance (which is pretty much everyone, except Congress, to my understanding).
I know for sure that I have avoided certain risky activities, like playing soccer, biking, etc., when I had a lapse in my health insurance, and I know other people do it, too. We have good reason — in 2007, 62% of all bankruptcies were tied to medical bills. That’s insane. But what’s more insane is that 80% of those people had health insurance.
It’s one thing to risk your personal safety by riding a bike — it’s another thing to risk bankrupting your family.
I’m skeptical that this concern is actually a reason significant numbers of people don’t ride, but I do believe it prevents at least a small percentage of people from riding. Maybe bike-sharing in Vermont will take off? Time will tell.
I don’t know the answer to this question, but I suspect it is a ‘Yes’. Savings on employee salaries could offset higher costs of land/office space/payroll taxes/etc.
I’m currently on the prowl for a new job. I’m not a fan of buses, so the only realistic non-car transportation choices for me are walking, biking, and train travel.
I have some choice in where I work (hard to believe, I know). I can’t pick a company I want to work for and work there (I’m not that good), but I do often end up with competing offers which have various pluses and minuses — one of the biggest factors for me, of course, is location location location.
Let’s go to a concrete example. There are myriad tech companies (my main deal) all over the Bay Area — downtown San Francisco all the way down The Peninsula (everything between San Francisco and San Jose), all the way into downtown San Jose and all of the mega-sprawl that is San Jose (the 10th biggest city in the US). Two locations I’m currently looking at are downtown Redwood City, and Redwood Shores — they sound similar because they’re pretty close — but downtown Redwood City has a train stop, and Redwood Shores has….high speed roadways, and is located on ‘the wrong side’ of 101 — that is, to get there by bike from Caltrain, for instance, you’d have to cross over the 101. Somehow.
When speaking to a recruiter about the Redwood Shores position, I said, “I’d normally ask in the range of $X k/yr, but since y’all are in a….less than optimal location for me to commute to (understatement!), I’d ask for X*1.20 (that is, 20% more than I would ask for a position in a good location, like downtown Redwood City.”
Then she hit me with the, “Well, I think they work from home sometimes, etc.,” to which I thought about my old engineering professor’s line: “Life is full of decisions.” Translated, this would mean, “Listen — y’all decided to locate on the wrong side of the 101 — that’s up to y’all — but you have to deal with the consequences of your actions and decisions.” In other words, it’s not my fault that they decided to be on the wrong/cheap-land side of the 101, and I don’t care that someone can sometimes work from home — if it’s 100% telecommute/work-from-home, then there’s something to talk about, otherwise, I just need to know if you’re good with the additional 20% salary boost to compensate for the crummy office location. Apparently, they are. [In actuality, my Crappy Commute Multiplier is closer to 40%, but I suspect I'm not normal.]
What if we could show that employees, in particular young, urban-y employees who don’t necessarily like to or want to drive, would work for…10-20% less if they could get to work without a car? That’s significant money. Also, employers like Google and Microsoft and Apple and myriad other companies run what amounts to a massive, private army of high end/luxury transportation services to shuttle employees to Caltrain, and to various locations/cities/downtowns all over the Bay Area — wouldn’t they like to get rid of this incredible expense?
[Incidentally, it is generally taken for granted that this private transit army is good for the area and its employees, but I believe it helps to keep land use sprawly and inefficient, helps increase traffic congestion and noise and various other nuisances/pollution, and it helps undermine public transit. That's a story for another day, though.]
Why is crossing the 101, on foot or bike, such a disaster? Just look at what you would see on your way to Redwood Shores from the nearest Caltrain station, Belmont — this is Ralston Ave., heading East — you’ve survived the onramp to the 101 Southbound, and now you’re faced with an uphill climb while the number of car lanes increases — once you make it to the top of the hill, you’ll once again have to not get killed by drivers zooming onto the onramp for the 101 Northbound, as the wide shoulder recedes from about 6′ wide to about 2′, before it eventually disappears altogether — and for your reward, you’ll be subjected to Marine Parkway, yet another high-speed, multi-lane roadway, with a speed-inducing raised median (those are the Oracle towers ahead) (and don’t ask about the way back — with the disappearing bike lane that drops you between four lanes of high speed auto traffic, two lanes on either side of you, while you try to maintain your balance as you ride over the reflectors that sit on the striped white line that you are now riding/praying on):
So, a few tidbits:
Freeways destroy value. I can’t say this with authority because I’m not a commercial real estate person, but i suspect office space rates on the ‘right side’ of the 101 are higher than on the ‘wrong side’ of the 101 (aka ‘the middle of nowhere’)
Any unnatural obstruction to the movement of people (and their services and ideas!) and goods has the potential to destroy value — so whether you erect an invisible Maginot line between countries to keep people from moving about freely (aka ‘borders’), some anti-human wall to trap people in Apartheid-like bantustans, or just build a massive freeway — all of these things have the potential to destroy economic value (not to mention the human spirit)
There is an abundance of labor, and most companies understand that most employees are replaceable, so companies are not hesitant to locate in the middle of nowhere. For exceptionally-talented employees, companies need only to pony up the extra coin to bring them on board
There is some talk of companies abandoning suburbia for walkable, bikeable, transit-accessible places, but I don’t believe there’s much evidence for it. For example, take Google, Facebook, and Apple — they’re all either extending and expanding their stays in The Middle of Nowhere, or they are moving even further out into The Middle of Nowhere.
The question is, how much cheaper is office space/land/taxes in the middle of nowhere (Redwood Shores, Cupertino, etc.) compared to in places that are relatively walk/bike/transit-accessible? Then factor in how much less expensively employees would be willing to work for if they were allowed to work in the more-desirable location — which means they’ll have higher-quality lives, they’ll live healthier and longer, they won’t be contributing as much to the destruction of the environment, they won’t suffer as much marital stress and unpleasantness (and ultimately, divorce), etc. If the two costs are close (savings on office space vs. savings on employee salaries), then perhaps companies should rethink where they locate.
Are you a member of the Law & Order Brigade (L&OB)? Then you have a wonderful opportunity today!
It seems that the women of Saudi Arabia (that repressive, authoritarian, extremist, torturing state supported with billions of US taxpayer dollars — yet described in the US corporate media as ‘moderate’) are about to start breaking the law, en mass, just like stop sign-running cyclists here in the USA do every day — click the image to see the full video (Warning: NSFL&OB):
I, for one, can not stand for this. I plan to write my Congresscritterimmediately and demand that they demand that the women of Saudi Arabia obey the law — the women of Saudi Arabia simply must not be allowed to drive, as it is against the law, and the law must not be broken. Further, if some women in Saudi Arabia do dare to drive, then I will implore my representative to implore the dictatorship government of Saudi Arabia to punish these outlaw women to the fullest extent of the law.
If you are with me, please leave a comment with your full name and email address so that the women drivers of Saudi Arabia will be able to thank you for your extreme magnanimity in making sure that they remained true to the ideals of modern authoritarianism — to unquestionably obey all laws, no matter how unjust, no matter the consequences (assuming we ever hear from them again).
Thank you for your prompt attention in this matter.
I was walking down 
