#laura bliss

[route22ny]

When America Fell in Love With Light Rail

In a time of austere federal funding, cheaper-than-a-subway urban mass transit seemed to make sense. Did the little trains of the 1980s pull their own weight?

Interesting look at the emergence of light rail systems in medium-sized US cities since the 1980s.  Certainly anything to get people out of their cars is loaded with benefits, but these systems have largely been unsuccessful doing that.  Does that mean they’ve failed?

Buffalo’s Metro Rail system, which opened in 1984, boasts another benefit to local commuters: It’s (partially) snow-proof. (John Normile/Getty Images)

[quotesfromall]

Elsewhere in the country, other local conditions exacerbate district divides. In Alabama, which has six district borders in the report’s top 50, many wealthier suburban school systems have chosen to secede from their county districts, worsening the economic segregation between them. Despite the fact that nearly half of the students enrolled in Arizona’s Balsz Elementary School District on the east side of Phoenix are English language learners, Balsz receives some 30 percent less in state and local funding than its wealthy neighbor Scottsdale Unified.

Laura Bliss, Where School District Borders Are Invisible Fences

[urbanplanningreads]

The Spine of San Francisco Is Now Car-Free by CityLab | All Articles

[principleofplenitude]

At Audiobrain’s Creamsicle-colored offices in Manhattan, I listened to some of Arbeeny’s recent work for Whirlpool. One machine, the Whirlpool Smart All-in-One Washer & Dryer, is designed to complete full loads in a single machine. Arbeeny was tasked with composing sounds that would amplify Whirlpool’s “Every Day, Care” campaign, a marketing scheme intended to evoke feelings of familial tenderness and acts of love (because nothing says love like laundry). To suggest an intimate touch, Arbeeny recorded fingertips drumming on denim. The washer’s start-up theme is a bubbly harp melody. Another product, the KitchenAid Smart Oven+, is geared toward “any cook looking to unlock their creativity”: When starting up it plays a trill of custom-made kalimba; the tick of its digitized timer is reminiscent of a clinking spoon.

“Why Washing Machines Are Learning to Play the Harp“ from The Atlantic

[urbanplanningreads]

Very Bad Bus Signs and How to Make Them Better by CityLab | All Articles

[urbanplanningreads]

A Big Master Plan for Google's Growing Smart City by CityLab | All Articles

[internetloot]

Screengrab from interactive Lynchings Map

(via Smithsonian Mag via City Lab via Monroe Work Today )

[blocodeespantamentos]

But cars are also socially and economically significant. To many of us, they are beloved, person-like companions. More than 70 percent of respondents to a recent AutoTrader survey were at least “somewhat” if not “very attached” to their cars, with 36 percent describing their vehicle as “an old friend.” In another study, nearly half of all drivers assigned a gender to their cars, and about one-third actually name them.

It's Just Not That Easy to Get Rid of Your Car