Premise: Motonormativity (aka “car brain”) is the result of adapting, as humans so capably do, to auto-dominated physical, financial, social, and political environments. Thoughts?

Neuroinclusive design principles: Provide sensory-friendly spaces (acoustic/lighting control), clear, intuitive layout design, and diverse, adaptable, and quiet areas to manage stimulation. Sounds like car-free spaces.

Been thinking how anti-hope propaganda (e.g., your op-ed is useless, that protest was worthless—as though visible and collective actions never help build momentum) is little more than “I’m so clever and world-wide” signaling.

Having thought a good long while about how to incite measurable mode shift, I’m at last coming to terms with the notion that driving—in the vast majority of places in the U.S.—is an entirely rational behavior given the nature of our material, financial, political and social environments.

Not tonight.

Hear me out: fruit trees (orchards, guilds, idm) in public parks. Let’s get this going. Look at Cleveland Heights. Food need not be scarce. thelandcle.org/stories/5-ye...

Providing what quality social science does best: confirm what we’ve intuited all along. Build 🚲 infra and they will 🚲 share.google/s3T59zGKwfpw...

What our not-too-distant ancestors propped up (left) vs what we prop up today (right) 🧐

Truth

Tracks to this day.

What is happening to Carolina? 🏀

Two weeks today will be in Kingston at Queens University talking a little Reframing Our Roads. Open to the public if you are in the area.

Only in America can we unironically galvanize the masses by “weaponizing” compliance with a pro-social law. Also, slowing down helps everyone—even large SUV drivers!—from avoiding death and injury on top of identifying feds. Win win.

Would this guy limit himself to only ever enjoying “man cereal?” Course not. He’s secure with who and what he is.

Houston, Kansas City, Bentonville, San Jose, Detroit, MI; and San Francisco may not appear to have much in common However, they all are committed to the same sou: permanently reducing or removing car traffic on some of their streets www.fastcompany.com/91460867/new... Carrboro (NC), take note

Relish the day this is no longer a common view from a local brewery in Carrboro or anywhere. Happy 2026!

Oh my.

Hard to deny the mellifluousness of Pittsburghese around the holidays.

Would like to see this global plastics production line next to the global VMT (or car production) line.

How many academic research center closures at UNC will cover his salary? Two? Three?

Almost makes the cold worth it

We’d be wise to appreciate Margaret Heffernan’s keen insight on ‘manufactured inevitability’: “Anyone claiming to know the future…is just trying to own it.” www.bbc.com/audio/play/m...

Highly recommended

New study by Mousely and colleagues illustrates how for most, “adolescence” persists until age 32. Consider what adolescents are permitted to do in the U.S., often decades before we might consider them biological adults. 🤔 www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/202...

I suspect many of our northern friends and colleagues understand this simple truth: snow, in less auto-dominated places would be a delight, magic to the young and old alike. Instead, all we hear about is how this natural and otherwise wondrous occurrence foils car travel.

As @sgoodyear.bsky.social so eloquently conveys, dependence on a functioning car to satisfy the needs of life is the antithesis of ‘freedom.’

Fact. People perceive, appreciate, and use quality bike/ped/transit infrastructure.

It’s late 2025, our earth is melting, mental and public ill-health are endemic, life’s unaffordable for most…and transportation consultancies are hiring highway engineers. smdh

In 1920 Buffalo’s International Railway Company, then managed by the Mitten Management Company of Philadelphia, raised streetcar fare from five cents to seven cents. Many Buffalonians resented the increase and blamed the management company. ...

Auspicious start to the day 🌈 in Carrboro, NC

This #WDoR2025, families are sharing their stories of loved ones lost to traffic violence. Their voices are the most powerful call for leaders to remember, support, and ACT – so everyone can move safely, no matter how they get around. @familiesforsafestreets.org @roadtozero.bsky.social

Sincerely wish this instead read: “They’re a 1000 convivial pocket parks in Downtown.”

It's #ElectionDay! Let's revisit insights from @ianwalker.bsky.social and Marco Te Brömmelstroet "it is possible public support for changes to road systems becomes ‘hidden’ because people tend incorrectly to assume that their (majority) desire for change represents an unpopular minority view. 1/2

The end of daylight saving is 2nd only to New Years for the density of totally reasonable promises we make to ourselves

“These harms are Cacophony (noise), Carbon emissions, Casualties from collisions, Community severance, Concern and social isolation, Congestion, Contamination (of air and ground), Conurbation design, and Couch potatoes.” 🙏

Highly recommend @thewaroncars.bsky.social's book Life After Cars.

A decade in - the #VisionZero movement is changing how we think, talk, and build for safety. Check out our Top 10 Signs of Progress and what they mean for the next decade of #VisionZero: visionzeronetwork.org/top-10-signs...

Not only is it somehow legal, it’s subsidized, deregulated, even celebrated!

“If someone was walking along the streets spraying poisonous fumes into people’s faces, they’d be arrested and probably locked up. But if you spray those fumes into people’s faces using a car, it’s somehow legal.” -Tyre Extinguishers rep in @thewaroncars.bsky.social ‘Life After Cars’ book.

Great interview on @chrislhayes.bsky.social podcast with the authors of this book: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

Cars are often “structural killers”—they kill directly (via crashes + pollution) and indirectly (via facilitating drive by shootings or drug ODs in the wake of car crash injury). Yet cars are frequently compared to “direct killers” like guns and opioids. 100% unfair.

It’s arrived! (with a car-free driveway since ‘17 providing the backdrop).

The fact that local public schools are funded via property taxes, which determines each school’s resources, which determines ed outcomes, which determines economic outcomes, gives credence to notion that one’s zip code determines one’s fate. And somehow we’re okay with this?

Hardly hear a whisper about this travesty

How would you feel if your loved one died in traffic and your local news decided to immediately follow up the tragedy with a traffic report?

No Kings Carrboro / Chapel Hill NC

"My two favorite things: libraries + bicycles. They both move people forward without wasting anything." —Peter Golkin I take a look at transit, bicycles, and books in this HIGH SPEED dispatch. (In keeping with the public spirit, paywall removed!) www.highspeed.blog/the-little-s...

Something about the ability to comfortably travel at inhuman speeds strips us of our humanity.

Safe, comfortable sharing of public space relies upon a solid social contract. Yet when the owner of a popular local business consistently violates the contract, safe and comfortable travel for people unprotected by roll cages becomes precarious. How might we shore up this social contract?

We seriously need to discuss this more: Report: A Third of Americans Can’t Rely On Cars — And 16 Million Have No Access At All - usa.streetsblog.org/2025/10/02/r...