Archive for June 18th, 2009

Am I dating myself by quoting that old lyric fragment from Downtown Science?

But it describes my itinerary next week, as I’ll be at the P.R.I. World Congress in Rotterdam and the Day of Architecture, in Utrecht. It’s my first time in the latter city, and I may have a spare moment or two if anyone has any recommendations.

The latter event by the way will be held at an intriguing (and very traffic-appropriate) building, just off the A2 motorway, called “The Wave,” as depicted below.

I enjoyed this passage from David Metz’ book The Limits to Travel:

All in all, the available evidence supports the idea that man has evolved to travel long distances by both walking and running. As man developed technologies, these could be exploited to travel farther and faster. Thus the origins of much of the history and geography of mankind that we learnt in school, not least the willingness of people to migrate from where they were born to other cities or strange new countries in search of a better life. This has had implications for our own evolution. Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London (UCL), has pointed out that if one’s ancestors came from the same village they may well have been related, but this is much less likely if they were born hundreds of miles apart. In 19th-century Oxfordshire, the average distance between birthplaces of marriage partners was less than ten miles. Now it is more than 50, and in the US it is several hundred. A consequence of this increasing mobility is that the world’s populations are beginning to merge genetically. Steve Jones suggests that the most important event in recent human evolution has been the invention of the bicycle.

Do I detect a new field of evolutionary transport biology?

This “canyon” is found along the bike path near Regent’s Canal in London. And you thought sidewalk chalk art was just for tourists. No word on any reduction in actual injuries, or any rise in perceptual ones.

(Thanks Tim)

I’m fascinated by all the curious would-be traffic safety devices lingering in dusty patent offices around the world, a collection of better brake lights, more evocative horns, elaborate safety harnesses, etc., that have never made it onto the road (for better or worse).

I came across the one above, recently, via Modern Mechanix. It’s evidently meant as a way to make passing other vehicles on two-lane roads a safer proposition.

But a few problems come to mind:

1.) As with all new signals, there is the problem that many drivers don’t use the existing signals they have.

2.) What if a driver is distracted or doesn’t care to respond to your request for passing clearance?

3.) Are we really to trust the driver ahead to tell us if it’s safe to pass?

4.) Does the driver ahead want to be held liable if it turned out it wasn’t safe to pass?