When changes to traffic laws were approved in my city recently — little things like requiring drivers to give more space to cyclists when passing — it was heralded as a step forward for bike friendliness. But after reading a fascinating new paper, my enthusiasm for these new laws feels dwarfed by a realization that …
There’s a scene in the 1942 Orson Welles film The Magnificent Ambersons that has some eerie parallels to today. The scene, set around the early part of the 20th century, is a confrontation between the maker of new-fangled “horseless carriages” (automobiles) and the old guard. In the film, the automobile is a metaphor for the …
Read more “We need to choose what kind of city we want before we let the robots do it for us”
The recent dust-up between Tesla founder Elon Musk and humans who believe that urban transit isn’t a dystopian nightmare highlighted a broader question: Do automakers really care about our cities? It’s not just Musk’s comments that have sparked this conversation. In recent years, leaders of the American automobile industry giants have been musing about how …
Read more “Do automakers really want to help save our cities from the car?”