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Archive for August 6th, 2009

One-Way or Two-Way?

Via Roadguy comes this interesting and nuanced discussion of a planned conversion in Minneapolis from one-way to two-way streets, on what seems like former residential boulevards (Park and Portland) that were turned into de facto highways in the incipient motor age.

I could have written an entire chapter in Traffic about the one-way/two-way debates (like LCD and plasma, they each have their particular attributes), but of more immediate concern to me here is the idea that every conversion I’ve heard of recently is from one-way to two-way. I wonder if the tide of planning orthodoxy has fully shifted, or are there any big two-way to one-way conversions going on as I write?

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Posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 10:21 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
8 Comments. Click here to leave a comment.

It’s Just ‘the Road’

I was intrigued by this comment from travel guru Rick Steves, part of a passel of advice to Americans on how to drive in the U.K.:

Outside of the big cities and the motorways (freeways), British and Irish roads tend to be narrow. Adjust your perceptions of personal space. It’s not “my side of the road” or “your side of the road.” It’s just “the road” — and it’s shared as a cooperative adventure. In towns, you may have to cross over the center line just to get past parked cars. Sometimes both directions of traffic can pass parked cars simultaneously, but frequently you’ll have to take turns — follow the locals’ lead and drive defensively. On rural roads, locals are usually courteous, pulling over against a hedgerow and blinking their headlights for you to pass while they wait. Return the favor when you are closer to a wide spot in the road than they are.

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Posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 9:12 am by: Tom Vanderbilt
4 Comments. 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:

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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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