We Think We Love to Drive. But Do We Really?

Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

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. Each 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.

Fire codes against safe streets: Fire codes in cities around the country are getting in the way of safer streets as Fire Departments try to enforce wide streets and fire access for their huge vehicles. Recently in Berkley California several long time festivals were cancelled or significantly altered after the city decided to follow fire codes set in place two decades before after a renewed interest in standards by city leadership. And recent changes in roundabout design to accommodate trucks have led to less safe streets as well. (Darrell Owens | The Discourse Lounge)

We think we love driving but we don’t: People think they love to drive, but a psychologist says perhaps that’s not really the case and that people fear the loss of control over a desire for ease. And while the author ties this to the supposed future of autonomous vehicles, the idea could match mental barriers to transit use as well. (Jason N. Linder | Psychology Today)

Boston stacks affordable housing with libraries: The City of Boston will use three library rebuilds to also construct affordable housing. The move to build mixed use buildings also mirrors a trend across the country that sees public spaces like libraries as valued community assets that should be sited next to others. They also represent genuine third spaces that don’t require payment for goods or services. (Troy Aidan Sambajon | Christian Science Monitor)

Streamlining transit projects: Senators Kelly, Warnock, Lee, and Curtis have shared the first draft of a Streamline Transit Projects Act that if enacted would allow state and local qualified agencies do the environmental reviews and approve categorical exclusions for transit projects similar to how state DOTs self certify highway projects without federal involvement. (Cami Mondeaux | Deseret News)

Toronto plans for more bike lanes by narrowing car lanes: The City of Toronto has plans for 20km more bike lanes, pushing back on Premiere Ford’s wishes to rip them out to appease car drivers. To get around any prohibitions and limits, the city will reduce car lane widths in order to give bikes more space, technically within the mandate that the number of vehicle lanes not be reduced. (Michael Talbot | CityNews Toronto)

Quote of the Day

Wherever humans go, there is trash” Lesch said. “Animals love our trash. It’s an easy source of food. All they have to do is endure our presence, not be aggressive, and then they can feast on anything we throw away.

-Dr. Raffaela Lesch, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock discussing in The Guardian how urban racoons are now on a path to domestication.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Olivia Plotnick, Founder of Wai Social in Shanghai China. We discuss her summer trip to over 30 different Chinese cities to experience different retail, the impacts of high speed rail, and the social e-commerce ecosystem.