What is Fueling Car Bloat?

Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Mapping tools could change where you live: In the last decade, more mapping technologies have come out that make the discussion of accessibility easier to have. One of the most recent additions is the tool Close. Diana Lind talks with Nat Henry about Close, an interactive travel time map that allows people to focus on the destinations that matter to them specifically, rather than abstract ideas of transit or pedestrian access. (Diana Lind | New Urban Order)

Ancient ways of cooling streets: Researchers in Seville Spain are taking cues from an ancient Persian system of underground aqueducts called qanats to cool city spaces. By feeding water underground, the system cools areas above ground several degrees in the hottest months of the summer through a series of vents. The project is expected to be completed by summer and provide a space for local university students and people who work nearby. (Jesse Chase-Lubitz | Al Jazeera)

Radical rebirth of King’s Cross: Over the last 25 years, the industrial lands north of King’s Cross and St. Pancras stations in London have been redeveloped. 67 acres of land have been turned into 50 new buildings with space for 30,000 office workers and 1,700 homes of which 40% are affordable. But architecture critic Rowan Moore believes there’s still some personality missing from the space. (Rowan Moore | The Guardian) PS there’s a great before and after picture in this article that would make a great image for the post.

The policies that made cars so big: Cars and trucks in the United States have been on an upward growth trajectory as SUVs and trucks have come to make up 80% of vehicles sold. Some people prefer large vehicles, but government policies such as CAFE standards being loosened for larger vehicles, the assumption that all electric vehicles now are equally non polluting, and blocking smaller vehicles from being imported have led to bigger and bigger vehicles. (David Zipper | Vox)

The puzzle of climate change and housing: After the great recession the feds cracked down on toxic high risk mortgages that led to the collapse of the housing market. Today mortgages are more regulated on the buyers end but many are still toxic due to new and future impacts of climate change that aren’t part of the calculation of mortgage risk. As insurance rates rise because of this risk, it might be time for regulators to stop giving out mortgages in areas that are likely to be impacted by climate in the future. (Susan Crawford | Moving Day)

Quote of the Week

It certainly doesn’t get us to being able to double service in the Denver area, which is what we really need. But this is a really exciting first step that’s critical to meeting all of our state and regional goals related to climate, air, quality, access, safety, you name it. This is a key part of it.

–Molly McKinley, policy director for the Denver Streets Partnership in Colorado Public Radio discussing the state transit funding deal made with oil and gas companies.

This week on the podcast we’re joined by Gabe Klein, Executive Director of the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation. We chat about the Joint Office’s white paper focused on best practices and solutions for electric vehicle charging. You can find a full transcript here.

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