Urbanism

Driverless taxi company Waymo claims to be a tool for safe streets — but at least two of the cities where Waymo operates have not experienced declines in traffic-related injuries and deaths.

In San Francisco, where Waymo began operating in June 2024, traffic injuries actually increased by 2.6 percent from 2,896 in 2023 to 2,907 in 2025, according to data tracked by the city. And crash deaths also rose, albeit by one, from 26 in 2023 to 27 in 2025, a statistically insignificant increase, but nonetheless in the wrong direction for a company that has argued it will make cities safer.

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In San Francisco, total vehicle miles traveled have gone up, and Waymo could be part of the problem, the city’s latest congestion management report claims. 

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The more likely outcome, experts say, is that Waymo and other self-driving taxi services, would divert New Yorkers from using public transit, which remains the safest transportation option. Public transportation is 95 percent safer than vehicles, and it requires no new technology. Those who want to see safer streets should force Waymo to address the amount of miles it will add to a city’s overall VMT, another expert said at the Roosevelt House conference.

“We shouldn’t be asking only like, ‘Hey, are robotaxis safer than humans on a per-mile-driven basis?’ because there’s a real risk that AVs induce people to take a lot more car trips or to replace transit,” said David Zipper, a reporter for Bloomberg whose work questions the assumption of AV safety. “We could end up with a lot more driving. And even if every individual, self-driven mile is safer, if you have that much more driving, you have more crashes overall.”

In 1977, the Dutch city of Groningen implented a plan that restricted through-traffic from the city center. Local businesses protested, threatened politicians, and predicted economic disaster. Decades later, Groningen has one of Europe's most livable inner cities without endless traffic jams—a perfect example of balancing livability with smart car accessibility.

Paywalled, unfortunately. Overview from the Guardian here.

Planning and transportation policies aim to promote wellbeing and people’s quality of life. One policy implication of our study that stems from the negative association between high levels of car dependence and life satisfaction involves promoting multimodality. One of our measures of objective car dependence (i.e., the share of car trips out of out-of-home trips) captures to some extent multimodality. The results indicate that using a car for more than 50 % of the time in a typical week, which indicates low levels of multimodality, is associated with a decrease in life satisfaction. Thus, planners and policymakers should continue to implement diverse transportation systems that integrate
alternative modes of travel such as biking, transit, ride-sharing, and micro-mobilities. Our results do not necessarily warrant the conclusion that there is a need for a complete shift away from car use; cars undoubtedly offer numerous benefits, especially given the characteristics of the U.S. transportation infrastructure and travel behaviors of American adults. Instead, our research implies the importance of travel mode diversity, which would facilitate mobility based on needs and preferences therefore reducing car dependence and mitigating its potential negative effects on life satisfaction.

Land use changes are also key strategies that would help reduce car dependence and its negative externalities on wellbeing. While many travel by car because of their positive attitudes toward this mode of transportation, not all Americans drive because of a true choice or personal preference. Some are car-dependent due to land use patterns that favor car-based mobility, which may have negative implications on life satisfaction. Policies that may address this issue include compact development patterns, transit-oriented developments, car-free neighborhoods, and mixed-used urban environments.

Sounds familiar, in practical effect at least.

Most Vancouver renters were long ago priced out of the detached home market. Then they were priced out of the condo market. And now, the city’s zoning laws mandate that most new rental housing gets built in undesirable locations, unfairly exposing apartment-dwellers to the increased health risks that come from living on busy, arterial roads.

One of the legitimate purposes of zoning is to separate incompatible uses: to keep noxious factories and their emissions as far away from people’s homes and lungs as possible, for example. But zoning that bans apartments anywhere except busy streets does the opposite: it boosts the number of people exposed to health risks. On top of that, because renters typically have lower-incomes than owners, those increased risks fall disproportionately on those with less.

There’s a deeper political dynamic here, one that former Vancouver City Councilor Gordon Price has called The Grand Bargain:

From Expo 86 to the 2010 Olympics [Vancouver] has accommodated growth pressures on a small fraction of the city’s land, while avoiding the political unpleasantness of significant rezonings in built-out neighbourhoods, whether on the West Side, the East Side or even the West End.

Under this Grand Bargain, new housing is concentrated on busy streets, or on old industrial sites, while little to no change is permitted in neighborhoods of detached homes

I knew star forts were a thing. I never realised how big a thing they were. Fascinating.

Most of us take cities for granted. We stroll through winding streets and charming grids assuming they emerged naturally — shaped by markets, neighbours, architects, maybe a poet or two. But here’s the plot twist: for most of history, the people designing cities weren’t architects at all. They were military engineers.

I was surprised to learn the scale of their influence.

This film uncovers the unexpected, global story of how armies, empires, and state bureaucrats shaped the streets we walk on. From Hippodamus in ancient Greece to Roman marching camps; from star forts in Renaissance Italy to Vauban’s geometric super-fortresses; from Spanish colonial grids to British cantonments; from Haussmann’s anti-revolution boulevards to the Cold War suburban dispersal — military logic has been quietly directing urban life for thousands of years.

It’s the hidden operating system of global urbanism: streets as troop corridors, plazas as mustering grounds, boulevards as insurgency-prevention tools, grids as surveillance devices, suburbs as blast-radius management. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Featuring historical maps, satellite images, global case studies, and a narrative that drags these military ghosts into the daylight, this film reframes everything you thought you knew about cities. If you care about design, history, power, and why your street looks the way it does… this one’s for you.

A really nice quick piece on induced demand for parking, and the solution. (i.e. Stop doing it!)

This guy's pretty funny. And I endorse the message:

Cycling in London has changed my life in more ways than I could have imagined. I really hope you like this one. It's been a passion project of mine to show just how incredible cycling in London really is. I really hope you get a chance to get out there and cycle sometime soon.