CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK

Archive for May 18th, 2009

The Missouri Compromise

Missouri is weighing a bill that would ban drivers under 21 years of age from texting while driving (while Illinois works through all the possible implications of its own all-ages bill). The bill’s sponsor didn’t want the age restriction, and to be honest I’m not sure where that came from — it’s hardly an age-specific issue.

(thanks Alex)

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Posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 4:35 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
2 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

Traffic Safety Film of the Week

Again, not an official safety film, but here’s a “greatest hits” of collisions between a tram (in Houston, I believe) and a series of cars. Most of these seem to clearly involve negligent or outright illegal acts by drivers, but the video serves as a very effective kind of warning: It is in fact quite possible to not see something as large as the train that stretches behind you in the rear-view mirror. The mishaps could be any combination of mirror blind-spot, an expectancy issue (odd given the bollards or raised bumps), or simply not bothering to look before making a turn.

(Horn honk to Dan)

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Posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 3:58 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
6 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

Copenhagen on the Willamette

Over at Hard Drive, Joseph Rose reports on growing congestion in Portland — on the bike lanes.

There are now so many people riding bicycles in Portland that we have bike traffic jams on the city’s bridges. And statistics suggest that the handlebar-to-handlebar congestion is growing faster than the bumper-to-bumper variety.

Since the mid-1990s, for example, vehicle traffic — motorized and pedaled — on the Hawthorne has increased 20 percent. But the volume of auto traffic has increased only a little more than 1 percent. Bus traffic, meanwhile, has held steady.

Cyclists — now about 7,400 a day — account for almost the entire surge.

This despite a less-than-stellar facility:

Of course, if you want to walk or bike across the Hawthorne, it’s not the most zenlike experience. You’re confined to a 10-foot-wide sidewalk.

On the right, a rail keeps you from steering into the drink. On the left, nothing but lucidity and smart riding keeps cyclists from falling a foot onto the metal-grated motor lane.

But it seems engineers’ hands are tied:

But the reality is that the county can’t do much else on the 98-year-old Hawthorne.

In 1999, it spent $2 million to widen the sidewalks from 6 to 10 feet, which required extending steel supports under the bridge and installing lighter panels in the lift span.

Any wider, engineers say, and the bridge will start to buckle. Also, there would be no room for TriMet buses. There isn’t even room to add railings.

The county has created passing lanes for bikes approaching the east end. It has added markings to help separate cyclists and pedestrians. But several ideas have been deemed unmanageable.

Bike improvements planned on other bridges should ease the bike jams.

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Posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm by: Tom Vanderbilt
1 Comment. Click here to leave a comment.
Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

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U.S. Paperback UK Paperback
Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

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