Diagonal diverters, half closures, entrance barriers, median barriers, semi-diverters; traffic calming techniques come in all shapes and sizes. They can help create more livable communities. As demonstrated in this short animation, once the diverters are in place, traffic decreases on the side street. Cars on the side street must turn left, but cyclists can continue straight. This makes the side street safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

Related traffic calming animations:
Chicane
Raised Crosswalks

Originally a late 60s, Japanese animation import, Speed Racer has been juiced for 2008 with color, noise, the latest in special effects gadgetry, and, ultimately, tediousness. A poster proclaims “Speed Has No Limits” but apparently neither does boredom as it clocks in at 135 minutes, and seems woefully longer.

Ever so briefly: Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is the upstart phenom of the race circuit. After he turns down an enticing contract offer from a sponsor with questionable motives, he teams up with his one-time rival, the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox, easily the best thing to watch here) to expose the practices of the corporations that rule the circuit.

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Job Posting - Freelancers, Streetfilms

Melbourne is simply wonderful. You can get lost in the nooks and crannies that permeate the city. As you walk you feel like free-flowing air with no impediments to your enjoyment. For a city with nearly 4 million people, the streets feel much like the hustle and bustle of New York City but without omnipresent danger and stress cars cause.

There is an invaluable lesson here. In the early 90s, Melbourne was hardly a haven for pedestrian life until Jan Gehl was invited there to undertake a study and publish recommendations on street improvements and public space. Ten years after the survey’s findings, Melbourne was a remarkably different place thanks to sidewalk widenings, copious tree plantings, a burgeoning cafe culture, and various types of car restrictions on some streets. Public space and art abound. And all of this is an economic boom for business.

This Streetfilm is vitally important in another way: Melbourne is a new world city, it has a modern grid much like a typical American metropolis. Naysayers who do not believe a city can be radically transformed say that the already narrow streets of many European cities make it easier to have good pedestrian environments there. Melbourne proves that isn’t necessarily so.

Read up on Ethan Kent’s 2007 Streetsblog report which helped spur this trip.

Murphy: “…people say, Yeah I care about the sidewalks and all of that kind of stuff, but they’re not down at City Hall beating on the door and doing all the campaigning you would hope there to be.”

I always endeavored doing another, but as with most sequels you need a new wrinkle. This time we thought we’d give Hal some company and invited former Recycle a Bicycle mechanic Kerri Martin (and founder of The Bike Church in Asbury Park, NJ) to weigh in with her expertise.

Again, bikes on the streets of SoHo provide lots of fodder for laughs and lessons to learn.We didn’t plan to but we walked the same loop and even used the same one-hour time frame. The results? The grades were a little better than five years ago. Sure, still some bad locking out there, but many more people are now sporting multiple locks and better strategies! Good news, maybe we made a difference after all…