Pedestrians face the greatest risk of automobile collisions when crossing a street: the longer a crossing, the higher their exposure is to oncoming cars. Despite the relevance of crossing distance, few studies have considered its variance within or across entire cities. Given that, we probed pedestrian crossing distance at the municipal scale, leveraging both OpenStreetMap and satellite imagery to quantify crossing distances at roughly 49,000 formal crossings (those parts of the roadway designated for pedestrians to cross), both marked and unmarked, at intersections and at midblock.

We measured formal pedestrian crossings throughout a dense European city (Paris [France]), a dense American city (San Francisco [CA]), and a less-dense, more car-centric American city (Irvine [CA]). This granular approach—covering roughly 49,000 total crossings—identified inter- and intraurban spatial patterns in the distribution of pedestrian crossing distance, including clusters of long crossings that likely deter walking and increase its risk. By overlaying recent pedestrian–vehicle collisions on these novel data sets we found that longer crossing distance correlated with increased likelihood of collisions, raising the salience of traffic-calming interventions.

Read more: Moran, Marcel E., and Debra F. Laefer. “Multiscale Analysis of Pedestrian Crossing Distance.” Journal of the American Planning Association (2024): 1-15.

Crosswalks and pedestrian safety: What you need to know from recent research. [Journalist Resource]

The relationship between cycle track width and the lateral position of cyclists, and implications for the required cycle track width. [Journal of Safety Research] “Given a cyclists’ lateral position while meeting, common variations between cyclists’ steering behavior, and vehicle width and circumstances, a cycle track width of 250 cm is needed for safe meeting maneuvers.”

“Electric Vehicles”: Arthur Berman, Simon Michaux & Pedro Prieto. [The Great Simplification] “Are current EV initiatives taking a science-based systems approach towards this massive economic, environmental, and cultural shift or are they rooted in energy blindness?”

Retro Style Velomobiles (video). [Glowing Ray] “Velocar was the name given to velomobiles made in the 1930s and 1940s by Mochet et Cie of Puteaux, France and colloquially to the company’s recumbent bicycles.”

Belgian art collective Time Circus built their first prototype of a giant Land Ship that will travel through Europe. Like a modern-day galley, the land ship will be propelled by the muscle power of the participating travelers. The journey is understood as a 21st century pilgrimage and will take an estimated 10 years.

The Journey

Along the journey, people can board the land ship and travel along for as long as they want to. Longer stops will be made in Marseille (France), Novisad (Serbia), Timisoara (Romania) and Elefsina (Greece).

In 2018, land ship terminals will be built in these cities. Like bus stops, these will show how long it takes before the vehicle arrives. The start of the journey is planned for 2020.

The Ship

When we talked to one of the makers earlier this month in Antwerp, he said it was not yet clear whether the final vehicle would be a single monstrous land ship of 50 metres long, or a caravan of ‘small’ ones the size of the first prototype, which is 13 metres long.

He said they were also contemplating the use of draft animals or sails — reminiscent of the ancient Chinese wheelbarrow. The vehicle or vehicles will be equipped with sleeping accommodation for at least 50 people.

Confronting Bureaucracy

Either way, the trip will be challenging, not only because of the physical effort involved, but also because of many other obstacles, from bridges over telephone lines to rules and regulations. Time Circus wants to “obtain freedom of movement by gently opposing regulations with inventiveness and the use of the grey areas of the law, confronting the bureaucracy in a playful and witty way.”

The slowness of the journey gives ample space for meetings and interaction along the road. The main message of the project is to demonstrate that “unexpected forces can develop through cooperation”. It also wants to “encourage the imaginative forces in the world, introducing alternatives that lie dormant”.

More info: Time Circus. There’s also a video (in Dutch).

Some people would rather have wings but we don’t, we have feet. We were born to walk. Scientists say that walking gave us our brain capacity, walking turned us into the human beings we are. Walking made it possible for us to have the desire to fly and to come up with ways to turn our dreams into reality.

Walking made us fly. We can go anywhere. Still the easier it becomes to move through this world, the more disconnected we seem to get from it. We have to land again. Get close to the things. Be part of the world. Walking teaches us where we are, who we are. A slow speed makes our brain work fast. Makes us see more. Be more. And best of all: walking makes time disappear.”

Read more: A Soft Armour by Monique Besten. Previously: Our Right to be Oustide.