Pathologically Polymathic (Blog)

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Last update: 18 May 2025 (RSS, twitter, Facebook)

a study of responses to the East Oxford Low Traffic Neighbourhoods Brookes [PDF]

"since the LTN was installed, people were adapting car journeys if they could, or using their cars less and walking and cycling more for short journeys. ... overall, moderate levels of support for the East Oxford LTN."

against "dual provision" cycling infrastructure Oxford Blog

Flanders is taking cycling seriously ECF

"Between 2014 and 2023, its cycling modal share increased from 12.5% to 19%... The Flemish government’s 2024 coalition agreement outlines a target of reaching a 30% cycling mode share by 2040."

When the Sahara Was Green: How Our Greatest Desert Came to Be [my review]

why archers didn't volley fire Unmitigated Pedantry

"we have no evidence for archer volley fire because they didn’t do it and they didn’t do it because it doesn’t solve a problem that exists with bows (whose rate of shot is fast enough not to require volley tactics) but it does cause all sorts of new problems (exhausting your archers)"

Bergen's new bike tunnel is a fantastic public space, not just a route Not Just Bikes

a robust natural experiment suggests the shingles vaccine reduces dementia risk by 20% Stanford Medicine

Voices from Gaza B'Tselem

"For two months now, Israel has been blocking the entry of food and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, deliberately starving over two million people, including more than one million children."

a Birmingham bus trip The Bee

"Birmingham was cruel to my parents: it contained rich resources that they struggled daily to access, for the simple reason that the city was not built with their needs and means in mind."

the role of women in the 2025 Australian election ABC

are the 93 or 94 penises in the Bayeaux tapestry? History Extra

the learning behind Ukrainian deep drone strikes Ukrainska Pravda

background on Imamoglu's arrest and events in Turkey Kültürkampf

Musk and Trump are reviving bits of the 1930s "Technocracy" movement Conversation

e-scooter hire schemes improve cycling safety: a natural experiment Bristol Injury Prevention

a policy miracle: New York's congestion pricing Better Cities

Yetemegnu was born around 1916 in Gondar, Ethiopia, was married at age eight to a high-ranking clergyman, and lived for nearly a century, through huge political upheavals and social change A Wife's Tale [my review]

a metafictional excavation of Armenian literary history A Book, Untitled [my review]

what does a book cost? the finances of a small publisher Galley Beggary

some observations about Tokyo: notes on the world's most successful failing society Persuasion

"How a compact metro area of 37 million people manages to feel this relaxed isn't really a mystery: the city declared war on cars, and then won that war."

ring-road severance to cycling in Oxford: Barton Park Oxford Blog

Vienna goes big on heat pumps and a heating network Bloomberg

Stoke-on-Trent's schools have been wrecked by 25 years of Private Finance Initiative BBC

a great obituary for Donald Shoup, scourge of free parking Works in Progress

"The way we manage parking is of profound importance to nearly every aspect of our lives. It's also something local planners have a lot of control over."

76% of Munich trips are now by sustainable transport, with car modal share down from 34% to 24% Vision Mobility

Arizona's car-free 'Culdesac" neighbourhood has been a success dwell

how the Dutch use real-time detection to prioritise cycling at signal junctions Mobycon

69% of Britons support better enforcement against excessively noisy vehicles ITS

synergies between push and pull measures to change transport behaviours: some evidence from Sydney University of Sydney

"Each policy by itself generally has a lower relative elasticity compared to when it is combined with another policy."

a quarter of London's main cycleways have "socially unsafe" sections Standard

UK cities are increasing GDP while reducing traffic John Siraut

why northern England is poor Tom Forth

"the concrete action of establishing the UK’s first AI Growth Zone in Oxfordshire (the South) [trumps] the promise of such growth zones benefitting post-industrial towns (the North) and coastal Scotland"

it was Swiss women who stopped the highway expansion project Urban Cycling Institute

"61% of women opposed the expansion, compared to only 44% of men"

Scottish study suggests a £15/day congestion charge (discounted to £7.50 for those on low incomes) would be needed for Oxford to achieve the county's 2030 car reduction target transport.gov.scot

electric cars now last as long as petrol and diesel cars - and their reliability is improving more rapidly New Scientist

infrastructure costs: how Britain compares with peers BCG

fifty years ago: the first red cycling path in the Netherlands Karen Romme

Claes Tingvall and Sweden's shift to Vision Zero BBC

"officials were no longer allowed to design roads for idealised drivers who never became distracted or exceeded the speed limit. They had to make roads for real people who made mistakes."

Utrecht is making all roads without separate cycling infrastructure 30km/hr (18mph) Utrecht

an update on what's happening in the Russia-Ukraine war Stefan Korshak

Notes

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