Brilliant!

Streets are better with trees! sustainablect.org/fileadmin/me...

Great quote from @modacitylife.com in a Guardian article: “More cars means less space to walk, cycle, push a pram or use a mobility aid safely. It means the stress of navigating noisier and more congested streets. Ultimately it means less diversity in street activity.”

Rightio: characteristics of motor car dominance time. Nominate one. I’ll start: When vehicle traffic is being excluded from a road/place/street, signs are erected saying “road closed”, rather than “road closed to vehicle traffic” (and open for all other users!)

Your Andy Singer classic for today, from some years ago, seems particularly relevant today.

I was, by some margin, the oldest user of these slides yesterday.

Some classic city books contain timeless wisdom, like Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City:

Here’s the blunt reality — reasonably-sized electric vehicles need to be the future of cars, but cars can’t be the future of urban mobility. Fewer cars. Less driving. More inviting mobility choices. Better communities and cities. These are the 4 pillars of the REAL urban transportation solution.

This is a key point: when “green” vehicles are perceived as better for the climate emergency, this positive effect is being more than cancelled out by the trend to bigger vehicles and them being driving more.

Follow @urbantruth.bsky.social to become part of the urban myth busters movement!

“A lot of us are trapped in one-hour cities right now. The alternative — having a lot more things close by, and a lot more time in our day — isn’t the conspiracy. It’s the cure.”

Checking out some first class street for people design! 😊

HT Pascal Fuhr on LinkedIn:

Brisbane City’s “making our mark” garnered ideas for its Olympic legacy, which you could submit & vote for. Top of the heap was The Green Grid advocated by a coalition of professional associations. As President of Queensland Walks, I’m delighted. Let’s make Brisbane our most walkable city!

These double decker trams in Hong Kong pass close together!

Today’s Hong Konging involved walking, the star ferry, the double decker trams and the MTR.

Hong Kong Central is a spider web of grade separated pedestrian connections.

Correct use of sign

I saw someone here say this and now can’t find it, so with apologies to them for paraphrasing from memory: Let me get this right: a person riding a bike costing say $2K is an elite while someone driving a huge truck worth $80k is hard done by in the world. How’d I go?

Someone drives their car onto a footpath, killing one person walking and seriously injuring another. There, fixed the headline for them. www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/state/v...

Same in Australia - increasing fatalities of people walking or biking are mainly down to road designed to privilege cars, then car “bloating” via huge SUVs, distracted drivers… and suburbanising poverty… www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Even on a rainy day, one of my favourite views of Brisbane.

Sooner the better I reckon! “generational handover is coming… When that moment arrives, politics may begin to look less like ideological trench warfare & more like practical problem-solving again.” www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026...

Nothing to do and all day to do it in. That’s my sort of day!

The New Daily on how Australia has mismanaged its use of fossil fuels over the last decade and the opposition continues to act contrarily:

Two Melbourne classics: a Brunetti cafe in front of Council House 2, the pioneering sustainable building.

I have long been a fan of Andy Singer’s incisive cartoons. This one helps skewer the false narrative that car driving isn’t subsided and therefore should be privileged over public transport. What a crock of cockamamie tomfoolery that is.

Whole the phrase regime change isnin the air, lets talk about where it mihht best happen: www.crikey.com.au/2026/04/01/r...

Lessons for countries with abundant sunshine and wind. Like, maybe, Australia!

Reclaiming the city: a step by step guide to the six key wins. (Based on the work of George Hazel & Robin Tyne, via Remco Deelstra on LinkedIn.)

People don’t seem to realise what a great city Brisbane is until they come here and experience it. My son was just telling me of a business colleague who was up from Sydney and blown away by how great it is!

Brisbane in autumn. Sensational day for a loop around its distinctive river ride. And coffee afterwards of course.

I left Twitter soon after it was sold and am very happy I did so.

The false narrative that you can’t have density and trees, deconstructed.

Let’s hear it for parks under bridges! This is Captain Burke Park under Brisbane’s Story Bridge.

Popped into the city for 50c on the bus to start a new mentoring gig. Then a quick coffee at one of my former regular third places, before the bus home. This is living!

On the importance of third places: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

Today’s Daily Peanut: She stands alert at my local cafe on the lookout for dogs to bark and yip at.

Brisbane has some great creekside walks, like this one along Enoggera Creek.

Apart for it being illegal to park across the footpath, this is so inconsiderate to completely block the foot path, particularly when there is a parking space right out front.

Was at Cabarita Beach in northern NSW on the weekend. The locals trying to claim it for their use only through this message on the rocks have been overtaken by visitors (who don’t spell very well!).

The tyranny of stroads: streets turned into arterial roads. These gems of Brisbane history are surrounded by stroads, and you have to be determined to get there on foot.

Today’s Daily Peanut, wherein she is not at all sure about this thing on the beach:

Time at the beach: green and blue nature is good for the soul!

Another urban truth! Speed is always a factor.

Thought of the day from IMM Labs on FB:

Even on a rainy day, one of my favourite views of Brisbane.

I love rainy days in the city!

Meanwhile, along the Rhône in Lyon, cars are out, people are in:

Urban creeks, green corridors in our suburbs. Went for a walk on a local one this arvo.