How to win by losing!

How seven cities are inventing the future of transportation

This is the Upperclass City Twit of  the Year Show. 

More, with Monty Python video!

Fortunately, Portlandia did win by losing, in this rare one off. 

Columbus Wins $90 Million Burden | The Antiplanner

​"Portland

THE PROBLEM
There are big parts of Portland that are nothing like the Portland of Portlandia, the pedestrian-and-bike friendly, transit-oriented, green-leaning city held up by local officials as “the proto-typer for the nation.” Beyond the city’s center and away from the fingers of transit jutting outward, some areas have no rail, no sidewalks, and dangerous roads. These areas are often where poorer families and immigrants live. And citywide, soaring plans to slash emissions need a tech boost to become reality.

BY THE NUMBERS
People are much more likely to be killed on city roads east of 82nd Avenue than elsewhere in Portland, the city says. Portland is seeking zero emissions from its city fleet.

THE IDEA
Tap road-safety and electric-vehicle technologies and feed residents data to shift their behavior.

HOW?
Robot cars or delivery vans, or other vehicles wirelessly linked to roadways, could slow traffic behind them at dangerous times and places. They’d be sort of like a drafting car in a NASCAR race, the city says. A navigation and payment app would tie together transit, ride-sharing, walking and other ways people get around, with info piped back to customers on the calories burned or the greenhouse gases saved – or dumped into the atmosphere. Allow electric vehicles to plug in to the streetlight and parking meter network, and explore wireless charging and possible new lanes for juicing up while rolling.

“The traffic violence here, and we don’t use that term lightly, is significant. We actually had more people die on our streets than we had murdered last year.” – Maurice Henderson, assistant transportation director."

Clowns! These people are simply clowns.

The real traffic violence in Portland is that these nincompoops do everything in their power to continually slow traffic to a crawl. At the occasional public hearing, the Portland Traffic Planners will mistakenly blurt out that they are attempting to maximize congestion believing that the greater the congestion, the more likely the citizens are to ride transit. Unfortunately the empirical data shows that from the 1970s pre light rail period to the present the proportion of both total transit users, and transit commuters in the metro area, has fallen. 

Apparently it is a surprise to the traffic planners that when a trip is lengthened by congestion from 20 minutes to 40 minutes by car, and 35 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes by transit people will be even more inclined to use the car!? 

 I love that the problem is that some parts of the city have not yet been infected by the professional level stupid that is so well represented in the television show Portlandia. "Beyond the city’s center and away from the fingers of transit jutting outward, some areas have no rail, no sidewalks, and dangerous roads. These areas are often where poorer families and immigrants live. And citywide, soaring plans to slash emissions need a tech boost to become reality." 

The city's solution? "Tap road-safety and electric-vehicle technologies and feed residents data to shift their behavior." Whatever that means. The solution is to build sidewalks, better, safer roads, and help the poor obtain access to personal vehicles. 

Notice how the city does not actually want to spend money on the roads, they want to force self drive vehicles to create congestion on roads the city deems dangerous. Does any sane adult believe that congestion makes the people caught in it calmer, safer, and more reasonable? It doesn't. This will just create road rage, and  push more vehicles off of arterials and on to residential streets utilizing "shortcuts" around the congestion. This increases the danger. Does anyone have any idea how ". . . info piped back to customers on the calories burned or the greenhouse gases saved – or dumped into the atmosphere . . ." will help meet these goals? 

Since methane is an even more dangerous greenhouse gas than C02, maybe we should install flatulence meters in peoples pants!

Portlandia is ever and always the city far out ahead in the Upperclass City Twit of the Year Show.