Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Cars

“Adam Ruins Everything” Explains the Origins of “Jaywalking”

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 14, 2015 | 25 Comments

Think the origins of “jaywalking” in 1920s car industry propaganda are too esoteric for a mainstream audience? Watch this clip from truTV’s “Adam Ruins Everything” that adapts research from Peter Norton’s Fighting Traffic, a history of how motordom conquered American streets in the early 20th century. It’s a good sign when productions backed by the entertainment industry start devoting attention to topics like this. […]

Choose Your Own Utopia: What Will We Make of Driverless Cars?

By Tony Dutzik | Oct 2, 2015 | 88 Comments

Cross-posted from the Frontier Group. A century ago, a new transportation technology burst onto the scene that threatened to disrupt everything: the car. Thinkers of the day, along with boosters of the new technology, dreamed grand dreams of the utopia it would bring. General Motors’ Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair (shown in the amazing […]

Pedestrian Protection Doesn’t Come Standard in Volvo’s “City Safety” System

By Angie Schmitt | May 26, 2015 | 6 Comments

Warning: This video contains a disturbing moment of violence. Via Kashmir Hill at Fusion, this video from a Dominican blog shows the scary results of a self-parking Volvo demonstration gone wrong. (No one was seriously hurt.) The car was equipped with Volvo’s “city safety” system, which apparently lulled the crowd around it into dropping their guard. But as Hill reports, the […]

No, Millennials Aren’t Buying More Cars Than Gen X

By Joe Cortright | Apr 22, 2015 | 18 Comments

Cross-posted from City Observatory. Will somebody teach the Atlantic and Bloomberg how to do long division? Today, we take down more breathless contrarian reporting about how Millennials are just as suburban and car-obsessed as previous generations. Following several stories drawing questionable inferences from flawed migration data claiming that Millennials are disproportionately choosing the suburbs (they’re not) […]

Across the U.S., Poor Job Access Compels Even People Without Cars to Drive

By Adie Tomer and Joseph Kane | Oct 24, 2014 | 2 Comments

Cross-posted from Brookings’ The Avenue blog. This article is the second in a short series examining new Census data on transportation trends. While more Americans are relying on alternative modes to get to work every day, cars still define most of our commutes. Over time, these high driving rates not only reflect a built environment that continues to promote […]

Someone Has Built the Ultimate 1950s Fantasy Vehicle All Over Again

By Tanya Snyder | Oct 22, 2014 | 17 Comments

UPDATE in fourth paragraph about takeoff and landing space. This photo pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the absurdity of the flying car. I wouldn’t even bring it up except a flying car salesman was the man of the hour at an otherwise (mostly, er, somewhat) serious daylong forum on transportation […]

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