B5. Resilience, Third Nature, and Transition

07-02 * 13:00 - SE TG Meeting (Bea)

What if there were an educational program that could ignite a sense of wonder in middle school students, bring science to life in unforgettable ways, and nurture a stewardship ethic? That is precisely what the Sturgeon in the Classroom program is doing. It is transforming curiosity into connection, and connection into care for the natural […]

Having humans nearby is a double-edged sword for rare, charismatic species.

On the one hand, humans are often the biggest threat, either indirectly by destroying habitat, or directly through poaching and wildlife trafficking. On the other side, the regular presence of people such as tourists and police can be the best defense against the depredations of other humans.

The gorillas of Cameroon’s Dipikar Island encapsulate both sides of this story. For years, poaching depleted their numbers, leaving the animals skittish and unwelcoming when humans approached. But new research shows that even gorillas battered by these human incursions can learn to accept well-behaved people, and the protection that comes with them.

The new work, published earlier this year in the African Journal of Ecology, shows that “gorillas have the capacity to distinguish between threatening people, such as poachers, and non-threatening people, such as researchers and tourists,” says lead author France Anougue, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in Montreal. Without the daily presence of such people “these populations will become exposed to harm very quickly.”

That doesn’t mean such tolerance came quickly or easily. Scientists working in other parts of Africa have found that gorillas can become accustomed to having people nearby in as little as 28 months. But that research happened in protected areas with populations that hadn’t endured intensive poaching. When scientists in Cameroon began their work with a group of 12 gorillas, it wasn’t clear the animals there would be so accepting.

The change took years. From 2011 to 2014, researchers backed by the conservation group the World Wildlife Fund, which has promoted gorilla-related tourism, tracked this gorilla band from a distance to understand their movements and habits. The extended gorilla family they followed included a single senior male—a so-called silver back, and depending on the year, 3 or 4 adult females, 1 or 2 subadults, 2 to 3 juveniles and 1 to 3 infants.

 

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Starting in 2015, scientists and local trackers started trying to get closer to the gorillas, and to monitor the animals’ reactions. The people would approach the gorilla group while clacking their tongues or snapping their fingers to draw attention. As soon as the animal’s noticed them, the people would mimic gorilla-eating behavior and acting in a “neutral” way, the scientists wrote.

In the first few years, the gorillas greeted the people with shows of aggression nearly 30% of the time. More than 30% of the time they responded with fearful behavior. They rarely showed curiosity or indifference.

But as the years went by and the research continued, those patterns gradually flipped. By 2022, 7 years after starting, the gorillas rarely showed fear or aggression when people were nearby. Rather, they showed curiosity more than 30% of the time and disinterest roughly the same amount.

“We also observed this tolerance in younger gorillas, suggesting that behaviour is learned from other members of the group,” says Anougue. “Gaining their trust was not easy.”

These increased encounters with benign humans, paired with stepped-up poaching patrols, were also accompanied by a decline in poaching activity. Signs of poaching such as gunshots, bullet casings and campsites fell roughly by half between 2015 and 2022. Still, it’s not clear to what degree this decline in poaching was the result of the researchers’ presence or the related increase in poaching patrols and local awareness of the conservation work.

For Anougue, the results show the behavioral resilience of gorillas, which can overcome past traumas and learn to tolerate nearby people. That, in turn, could help better both their chances of survival and the economic fortunes of nearby humans. “This research shows that protecting gorillas promotes biodiversity,” she said, “and local communities benefit from the economic spinoffs of increased ecotourism.”

Anougue, et. al. “Habituation as an Effective Conservation Tool for Western Gorillas in Areas With a History of Poaching.” African Journal of Ecology. April 28, 2026.

Photo: USAID Biodiversity & Forestry via Wikimedia

• Transit agencies usually hedge against rising fuel costs by keeping a year’s supply of diesel fuel on hand, so they’re not as affected by price variations as airlines. On the other hand, they also can’t raise prices at the drop of a hat. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Because 70 percent of freight is shipped by truck, high diesel costs affect almost every consumer. (Penn Today)
• Truckers don’t want to make last-mile deliveries, which is why they see New York City’s microhub program as a success. (Trucking Info)
• GM is getting into the business of building batteries for data centers. (Tech Crunch)
• After the new Bellevue line opened, Seattle now has the busiest light rail system in the country. (Secret Seattle)
• Houston created a Green Corridor to help soccer fans walk or bike around the city during the World Cup, and many people are hoping the changes stick. (Houston Public Media)
• A new Colorado law requires automakers to recycle electric vehicle batteries. (The Drive)
• Amtrak’s Borealis line between Chicago and St. Paul has drawn more than 400,000 passengers since it launched two years ago. (Minnesota Public Radio)
• Jarrett Walker drew a new bus route map for Des Moines that improves headways in the densest areas. (Human Transit)
• A safe streets advocate argues that Hawaii bikeshare Biki deserves more funding. (Civil Beat)
• Wyoming transit agencies are seeing massive cuts to their federal funding. (Buffalo Bulletin)
• The Hop is shifting to its “festival line” route for the summer. (Urban Milwaukee)
• Aspen is starting a fare-free transit pilot program. (Passenger Transport)
• An epic handshake is happening between unlikely partners in developers, transit advocates and environmentalists over a North Carolina bill banning parking minimums. (WHQR)
• Meet the guys responsible for painting the L.A. Metro. (The Source)
  
  

The autonomous vehicle industry drove onto the scene with resources no transportation industry had ever enjoyed before: billions in capital, the most-sophisticated engineering talent in the world, genuine public excitement, and a regulatory environment that laid down smooth asphalt. For a window of time, the dream of redesigning public transportation from the ground up was genuinely within reach.

But, for the most part, the industry has used it to build a better taxi.

Most public scrutiny around autonomous vehicles has centered on whether the technology works and its various mishaps and misdeeds. Did a Waymo just run a red light? Did Tesla Autopilot cause a crash? Are regulators keeping pace with what’s happening on the roads? This focus misses the larger problem. Technically, the vehicles work well enough, helping to prevent crashes and save lives.

Practically, what has emerged is an industry trend that prioritizes hype instead of mobility equity.

Robotaxis remain operational in narrow geofenced corridors across a handful of major cities, serving riders who already have multiple ways to get around, not to mention Ubers, Lyfts, yellow cabs, etc. Yet 45 percent of the U.S. population has little to no access to adequate public transportation, a figure that has barely moved despite years of industry expansion and billions in cumulative investment. Rather than closing that gap, the AV industry has driven away from it.

The problem runs deeper than simple oversight or neglect. Autonomous vehicles actually exacerbate the problem as robotaxis generate “deadhead” miles at scale, with empty vehicles circling between rides and adding congestion to urban streets without moving a single additional person anywhere. In 2025, deadhead miles accounted for nearly half of Waymo’s total travel in San Francisco, according to California’s Public Utilities Commission. They didn’t contribute new mobility options to the city, only additional traffic competing with transit infrastructure already struggling to function.

Meanwhile, the communities most in need of new mobility options are watching their existing ones disappear. Transit agencies across the country are cutting routes and reducing service hours, not because demand has fallen, but because running low-density corridors, early-morning services, and last-mile connections to transit hubs simply costs too much to justify on current budgets. Routes on low-density corridors are always the first to go when finances tighten, and they are the ones that people with the fewest alternatives depend on most. Nevertheless, the AV industry, flush with capital and engineering capacity, has treated this as someone else’s problem.

Yet, this is precisely where autonomous vehicle economics should change the outcome. The financial case for cutting a transit route rests most heavily on staffing costs. Transportation providers continue to report a persistent bus driver shortage, with one in four transit workers worldwide expected to retire by 2035. Many systems are already operating at a fraction of their required driver capacity, forcing route cuts even where ridership demand exists. At the same time, drivers are expensive, and overnight shifts on low-ridership corridors produce unit economics that no transit agency can defend when facing a budget shortfall. Remove the staffing cost, and the calculus shifts substantially. Without drivers to pay or depots to man in the early hours of the day, a bus running at 5 a.m. on a sparse suburban corridor stops being a financial liability and becomes a service an agency can afford to sustain. Routes that transit operators couldn’t justify keeping become routes they can afford to launch.

The evidence that this works is already accumulating. Driverless shuttles are being deployed along Atlanta’s BeltLine, connecting MARTA rail stations, university campuses, and the Lee and White district on fixed short routes designed specifically to close first-and-last-mile gaps that have long frustrated commuters. In Europe, an EU-backed initiative has launched autonomous transit trials in Oslo and Geneva, focused on integrating demand-responsive driverless vehicles directly into existing public transport networks. What remains unresolved is whether the broader industry will drive down the road where the evidence already leads.

The next phase of AV deployment is being negotiated now, in conversations among technology companies, regulators, and transit authorities, assessing whether this technology has anything practical to offer their networks. Transit operators are resource-constrained and not inclined toward optimism. They need a concrete and near-term return-on-investment case, not a promise of transformation. Years of industry effort have gone into building that case for premium riders in high-density ZIP codes. Building it for the agencies that serve everyone else has barely begun.

Cities that move more people more efficiently generate more economic output and more equitable access to healthcare, education, and employment opportunities. A robotaxi serving upscale passengers in a handful of city blocks will not change those numbers at any meaningful scale. Autonomous vehicle technology is already built for public transit and already operating on public roads. The driver may have left the vehicle, but the industry still has to decide what purpose that vehicle will serve.

Urban planners can now pinpoint exactly where in a city increased housing density will make the biggest difference on shortening car commutes. That’s the promise of a new study in which researchers used urban big data and AI to hone densification strategies for six cities around the world.

It’s pretty well established that the best way to get city dwellers to drive less is to change characteristics of the built environment such as city shape, size, and density, rather than simply hectoring them to reduce their carbon emissions. But past studies have been unable to establish causal relationships between specific aspects of urban form and car travel. They also miss the smaller picture—neighborhood-level differences—and the bigger one—how these patterns differ across various regions of the world.

The new study puts all these pieces together for the first time, the researchers say.  They gathered 10 million data points on morning car commute distances from six metropolises worldwide: Berlin, Boston, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Rio de Janeiro, and Bogotá.

Using a machine learning algorithm, the researchers analyzed how different aspects of urban form —the distance to jobs and the city center, population density, income, and the pattern and interconnectedness of streets—influence the length of car commutes in different neighborhoods in each city.

Because all of the data points are from people traveling to work by car, the study can’t say anything about what makes people abandon their cars entirely and commute to work by bike, on foot, or via public transit. But it does provide hints about how to reduce the length of trips that are made by car.

 

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Across cities, the distance to jobs and the city center matters more than population density or street connectivity in determining the length of car commutes. But where and how strongly these effects occur varies from city to city, revealing new urban planning strategies. What’s more, metropolises themselves aren’t monoliths: some policies are helpful in particular parts of a city, but not city-wide.

“The importance of high access implies that new housing should be located as close to the center as possible, highlighting the relevance of compact development,” the researchers write. “While this strategy is relevant for all cities, it requires context-specific adaptation.”

In urban regions with a single, defined core such as Berlin and Boston, the best place to increase housing density is in a ring around the center where there’s room for infill development but the city center is still easily accessible. In the case of Boston, for example, this zone occurs about 10-21 kilometers from the city center.

Meanwhile, in cities with multiple centers like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, the best strategy is to build more housing in areas with high concentration of jobs.

In each city, the researchers identified specific areas where lack of density is a bigger factor than distance to the center in increasing car commutes. Those are the places where strategic densification will make the biggest difference, the researchers argue.

Using a similar methodology to analyze other modes of transport and trips throughout the day, not just during the morning commute, would build a fuller picture of opportunities to reduce carbon emissions from urban transport, the researchers say.

Source: Wagner F. et al. “Refining urban typologies: causal insights into urban form, car commuting, and related CO2 emissions.” Environmental Research Letters 2026.

Image: Getty Images for Unsplash+.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it will no longer enforce a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination in federal funding. (KQED)
• President Trump loves to tear up bike lanes in Washington, D.C. because they supposedly inconvenience drivers, but he’s perfectly fine with snarling traffic for months to build a monument to himself. (Politico)
• Transit projects should be treated like any other type of infrastructure. (Next Metro)
• The cost for the Minneapolis Blue Line rose again to $3.6 billion as it nears completion. (KSTP)
• Denver could be facing a 20 percent transit budget cut. (Denver Post; paywall)
• It’s bad enough that Houston forces cyclists and pedestrians to use tunnels, but lately those tunnels have gotten flooded. (ABC 13)
• The St. Louis Metro is deploying a new integrated fare and gate system to improve fare recovery and make riders feel safer. (Metro Magazine)
• Washington state passed a law distinguishing between e-bikes and motorcycles (Government Technology) as many other cities and states struggle to do the same.
• The Urbanist says Seattle should be spending its bike-lane money faster.
• Milwaukee held its first Vision Zero summit. (On Milwaukee)
• San Francisco cyclists are fed up with Waymos blocking bike lanes. (Chronicle; paywall)
• The Trump administration might be cracking down on immigration and talking about annexing Canada, but train travel across the border from Seattle has never been easier. (KOMO)
• Barcelona may make a controversial decision to get rid of its private bikeshares in favor of expanding the public option. (Road.cc)
• Seoooooul Train: The Korean capitol is building six new urban rail lines. (Chosun Biz)

We’re well into the 21st century, but pedestrians in the United States are being killed like it’s still 1982.

According to a new analysis of nationwide traffic deaths, 7,080 pedestrians died on American roads in 2024. That number is 6 percent lower than 2022’s figure, but still a 72-percent increase since 2009, and almost the exact same number of pedestrian deaths as 42 years ago.

This staggering figure, which heralds our country’s years-long devolution in road safety, is part of the annual Dangerous by Design report released last week by the advocates at Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition. The report uses the most recent year of federal data available, puts it in five-year windows for context, and crunches the numbers to reveal the metro areas and states with the deadliest roads per capita for pedestrians.

It’s ugly down there. New Mexico was the deadliest state in the country for pedestrians from 2020 through 2024, with a fatality rate of 4.42 pedestrians per 100,000 people.

According to the report, 57 percent of all roadway fatalities in 2024 occurred on state-owned roads, and state DOTs wield significant power in both creating (or blocking) live-saving policies. 

Despite this power, meaningful state-level progress is almost non-existent.

“Of the 20 most-deadly states, 19 showed no signs of improvement or became even more dangerous,” the report notes. “Only five states that improved in the 2024 report have continued to improve and build upon that progress in this report, and only eight states in total have improved since the last report when comparing five-year periods.”

Delaware was the most-improved state, lowering pedestrian fatalities by 0.41 percent over that five-year period, but it still remains the 10th most-deadly state in the country. 

Memphis was the deadliest metro area for pedestrians in the country in that five-year period, with a fatality rate of 5.5 pedestrians per 100,000 people, according to the report. One local news TV segment from earlier this month encapsulated the city’s problem, both with its headline (“More than a dozen Memphis pedestrians hit by cars in just over a week”) and with its anti-pedestrian framing.

“It’s more about being observed, paying attention when you’re crossing the street, not being distracted by cell phone usage or whatever the case may be,” a local sheriff tells the camera, apparently addressing a likely-to-be-struck pedestrian.

Earlier this spring, the Trump administration, citing the slight decline in pedestrian fatalities last year, declared victory: “Under President Trump and Sec. [Sean] Duffy, American roads are safer,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Jonathan Morrison crowed in a press release in April — while ignoring the fact that we have returned to the Reagan era when it comes to killing pedestrians with vehicles.

Advocates want real and sustained safety improvements, not press releases.

“Our leaders are celebrating small improvements from historic deaths as some major victory, while thousands of people continue to be hit and killed while walking every year,” Beth Osborne, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, said in a written response to the NHTSA. “If we were any other country, this would be treated as a national crisis. Instead, our leaders are quick to accept these deaths as a necessary aspect of our transportation system.”

The federal government has a warped perception of traffic fatalities partly because of how NHTSA measures traffic fatalities, which is per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This odd metric, which is mostly unique to the United States, obscures the epidemic. Deaths remain high, but as Americans drive more, the death rate falls. (Another terrifying statistic: Americans drove 3.279 trillion (!) vehicle-miles in 2024, an increase of 1 percent from the year before).

The rest of the world, including Smart Growth America, measures death rates per capita — and using this metric, the U.S. continues to head in the wrong direction compared to other developed nations. In 2024, we had 11.7 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people, compared to 8.73 in the 34 “peer nations” that managed to achieve over a 10-year span of addressing traffic safety, according to the report. If the U.S. had managed that same level of improvement, the report asserts, more than 63,000 lives would have been saved between 2014 and 2024. 

Pedestrian fatalities continue to disproportionately fall along lines of class and race — American Indian and Alaskan Natives had a fatality rate of 7.9 per 100,000 people, nearly quadruple the overall rate of 2.15, according to the report. Black Americans had a rate of 3.67, Hispanic or Latino Americans were at 1.9, and whites were at 1.6. Low-income Americans are more likely to die in crashes.

Historically, traffic fatalities have decreased in the U.S. following huge pushes in national policy — like mandating seatbelts in new vehicles in 1968, or setting a national speed limit of 55 mph in 1974. But the Trump administration has little appetite for the safety measures that are being adopted in Europe — like forcing all new vehicles to be installed with GPS speed governors, or imposing higher taxes and parking fees on heavier, more dangerous trucks and SUVs. Pedestrian plazas and bike lanes are still somehow controversial, even in places like New York City.

The $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2021 also contained next to nothing to fund the kind of safety-minded, traffic-calming design changes that ultimately force drivers to slow down and pay attention. The authors of the report point out that the bill was supposed to force the US DOT to adopt a “Safe System approach” to new road projects, but that the NHTSA’s own “Safe System” dashboard seems to be, uh, broken. 

Make this safe.

There’s not much evidence to suggest that our federal lawmakers fully grasp the issue. In a letter sent to Senate Republican earlier this month, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey put “Make Transportation Safer” near the top of his list of what he and his Democratic colleagues see as priorities for this year’s surface transportation bill.

Markey correctly notes that we are in the midst of a “safety crisis,” and adds that the vehicular death rate in the U.S. is “four times higher than that in Britain or Germany.” But in the same breath, he claims that the IIJA made “important progress” in advancing safety initiatives, and that somehow, “the next surface transportation bill has the potential to move the nation meaningfully closer to zero road deaths.” (Tellingly, Markey’s first request, above safety, to these MAGA-pilled politicals, is “Protect Infrastructure Grants from Political Interference.”)

A spokesperson for the NHTSA has not responded to Streetsblog’s request for comment on the report.

Dmytro Stechenko was not just a stand-up guy, but had a personal morality that he simply did not violate. He didn’t litter. He didn’t jaywalk. He wouldn’t so much as sit in an accessible seat on a subway, even if no one was around.

So it’s the cruelest irony that the Ukraine-born cyclist was killed on the Queensboro Bridge on May 28 in a collision with the rider of an illegal scooter who reportedly made a risky passing maneuver, the victim’s best friend told Streetsblog.

Dmytro Stechenko with his cat Luni.

“It just feels super unfair that somebody who would never break the law, even a tiny one, would be killed in such a [way],” said Alex Pawlowski, the best friend of 35-year-old cyclist, reflecting on Stechenko’s way of life and connecting it to the need for Mayor Mamdani to not wait for another death to crack down on illegal high-powered electric two-wheelers and improve existing bike infrastructure.

“I want the politicians to know that we don’t have to wait for the next death to happen in order to create the impetus to change,” he said.

Pawlowski and Stechenko met 16 years ago at the National Technical University of Ukraine in Kyiv, where both men studied computer science. The two were reunited after both moved to the United States and would often ride endurance laps in Central Park, a fitness hobby the pair picked up in their 30s.

In fact, the friends were together the morning before the May 28 crash, when scooter operator Francis Delvalle, 39, crashed his illegal electric scooter into Stechenko, killing them both.

The first time Pawlowski rode on the Queensboro Bridge, in fact, was the day of his friend’s death, after a mutual friend called him about the crash. Pawlowski said he always avoided the East River bridges because he felt they were too narrow and unsafe. Now he just wants to make sure no one else has to lose a friend in the same way.

“We always know that something is unsafe, but we rationalize it [because] nothing has happened yet,” he said. “But it will eventually happen. And when it happens, it takes away somebody’s brother, husband, someone’s friend, their best friend of 16 years. It’s not like better street design is some kind of mystery. We have a lot of experience in urbanism, there are people who can help. We just have to take their advice and actually implement those changes.”

In fact, the Queensboro Bridge recently received major safety improvements. Last year, after inexplicable delays and years of advocacy about the danger, the Department of Transportation finally opened up one lane of the bridge’s so-called “South Outer Roadway” to pedestrians so that cyclists and other legal electric two-wheelers no longer had to dodge walkers on the narrow path.

But DOT’s efforts to protect roadways with evidence-based redesigns must endure a gauntlet of theatric community board meetings and navigate a broken political system that allows powerful New Yorkers and influential businesses to delay, dilute and cancel those redesigns.

Even when DOT overcomes these hurdles, however, it still takes too long to implement redesigns. Indeed, the road markings on the Queensboro Bridge have not yet been updated, creating a confusing situation for those using the bridge path.

“To be fair, the Queensboro Bridge, the markings were confusing,” said Pawlowski. “When I was riding there for the first time on that day, I was also a bit confused, because it was showing that I have to go the opposite direction that I was going.” He pointed out that while cyclists and pedestrians now each have their own lane, car drivers still enjoy seven lanes of traffic on the bridge.

Stechenko moved to New York around 2016, and was working as a software engineer at Meta when he died. Pawlowski followed him to the city in 2021. Cycling provided a way for the two to stay connected. “It was nice that he started cycling with me because it’s cool to have somebody to share your hobby with,” Pawlowski said. “Especially an old friend.”

When Pawlowski reached the crash scene on the morning of May 28, he was struck by the severe damage to his friend’s bike, especially compared to Delvalle’s illegal scooter. “This thing was not even damaged,” he said. “I was looking at the scooter and it just seemed completely pristine.” The only exception was a tiny aluminum clamp that allowed the scooter to fold in half.

By contrast, Stechenko’s carbon-fiber road bike was cracked in half. The bike was “outclassed” by the heavy scooter, Pawlowski said.

The illegal scooter and the bike in the aftermath of the crash that killed two men on the Queensboro Bridge bike path.

This type of damage may not have been possible if both men were riding street-legal devices. After the crash, Streetsblog identified the scooter as a Blade GT II by the Chinese brand Teverun. Thanks to its 4900W motor, the vehicle can reach 53 mph in under four seconds. While the city requires electric bikes to top out at 750W, the law is less clear for scooters. But the city still bans scooters that are capable of exceeding 20 mph.

It’s unclear how fast Delvalle was going, but the debris caused by the crash and the fact that both men died while wearing protective helmets clearly suggests a high-speed collision. Pawlowski blamed the sheer power and torque of the device under Delvalle’s feet.

“We live in a dopamine-fueled environment,” he said. “People are seeking dopamine from anything, just like phones, and I think that type of instant acceleration is another source that can, over time, distort your sense of risk.”

He continued: “The idea that you can overtake anything, it’s just there, this acceleration, which goes to the wattage rating of the motor. If the motor was less than 750 watts, it would not be capable of that much acceleration. But if it’s multiple kilowatts of power, it’s instant torque.”

It is currently illegal to operate this type of scooter on city streets and bike paths, but it is not illegal to buy one. That means online retailers can continue to market and sell thousands of street-illegal e-scooters and e-bikes to New Yorkers. Local brick-and-mortar stores dedicated to these illegal vehicles have popped up, too.

Pawlowski wants the city to enforce existing laws and take a clue from Europe, where many cities equip law enforcement personnel with specialized devices known as dynamometers that measure the power of electric scooters and bikes in order to determine which are legal — and which are not.

“We have to start enforcing [the regulations],” said Pawlowski. “Something like in the EU where they take the scooters and they test the top speed. Something like that needs to happen. New York is a busy city, people are rushing everywhere so probably that somewhat partially explains it, but I think it’s unreasonable to expect culture to change. That’s why we don’t live in a utopia — you have to make bad behaviors difficult to do.”

State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Long Island City) represents the neighborhood where Stechenko lived and the bridge on which he died. She told Streetsblog that she is drafting legislation to close this loophole and prevent future deaths like Stechenko’s, which she described as “devastating.”

“It’s clear we need reform around the sale of these dangerous products,” she said in a statement. “When these products are advertised it needs to be clear they are not street safe and there needs to be transparency on the risks of using them. I am actively working on legislation at the state level that would keep dangerous devices off of our streets and address enforcement at the point of sale.”

City Hall did not respond to a request for comment on Pawlowski’s call to action.

Public transit advocates installed homemade benches at bus stops across the United States. Now, they’re calling for you to do the same.

Community-built bench projects are nothing new; neighbors in Chattanooga, Kansas City, Portland and beyond have led independent initiatives since at least 2016. In the past two years, campaigns have gotten larger — and inspired do-gooding copycats.

Advocates from Reconnect Rochester installed their first “bus stop cubes” more than a decade ago. The upstate New York group’s toolkit expanded quickly, now including benches adapted from streetside concrete tree barriers. Regardless of the design, Reconnect Rochester’s benches provide far more than a place to sit. They support a broader mission to improve public transit, enabling a “more pleasant, appealing, and accessible” experience for all riders, according to the organization.

Reconnect Rochester publishes a guide to request a seat, inviting neighbors, small businesses, and neighborhood organizations to participate. All that is required is that installations are ADA-compliant, supported by property owners adjacent to the bench, and maintain a state of good condition.

The San Francisco Bay Area Bench Collective began in December 2023, when Berkeley-based transportation advocates Darrell Owens and Mingwei Samuels installed a homemade bench for Owens’s elderly neighbor, who was forced to sit at the curb of his bus stop following a surgery. They’ve grown into the Bay Area Bench Collective, a volunteer group responsible for more than 120 benches across the San Francisco Bay Area.

RideKC bus on Main Street in Kansas City in 2018.

When the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority began replacing bus stop benches with leaning benches in 2025, local Sunrise Movement organizers took action into their own hands. The organization gathered around 200 volunteers to build over 25 benches in a single day for delivery across the city.

Kansas City, Missouri climate advocates claim that roughly three in four bus stops in the city lack any seating. It’s a particularly grave concern in the summer months, where daily temperatures are in the high 80s and low 90s. To tackle the lack of access, the Kansas City Sunrise Movement began installing homemade benches in 2024.

The organizing demonstrated “that the will is there to show up for one another,” Sunrise Movement volunteer Raymond Forstater told the local news station KCTV.

Still, the organization says that the city has removed benches, across the city, both volunteer and city-owned. Sunrise fought back immediately, assembling around 200 volunteers for a full day of organizing, resulting in more than 25 new benches installed across Kansas City.

Recommended Advocates Install Bus Benches in San Francisco Roger Rudick June 9, 2025

These organizations want you to copy them. Reconnect Rochester’s guide provides a comprehensive list of considerations for ideal bench placement – avoiding complications that can get seating removed.

The Bay Area Bench Collective’s website not only includes a form to request or adopt a bench, but a detailed guide on how to actually build one, including a full CAD file. That group uses a modified version of the Duderstadt bench design, which is called “the best, most functional bench design ever created.” The Chattanooga Urbanist Society in Tennessee publishes a similar step-by-step manual.

Activists in Buffalo have taken to installing these makeshift bus benches. The richest country in the world should be able to afford bus benches and shelters.

Bench builders emphasize that community-led seating campaigns don’t have to be costly. Samuels of the Bay Area Bench Coalition says that the first bench cost him $80, and Reconnect Rochester estimates a cube costs half that. Both are well below the cost of a city-installed bench, which run $3,000 each in New York City (which, if you ask our friends at Streetsblog NYC is a whole ‘nother matter).

Beyond providing the framework for easy, affordable bench builds, advocates are combatting the all-too-common bench theft by their city. Richmond, Calif., created a permit program for neighbor-built benches at public bus stops.

As transit agencies nationwide grapple with budget deficits and pulled funding, the future of basic amenities, like benches, is uncertain. Rather than accepting cuts at face-value, bus riders can lead on the growing wealth of resources to improve accessibility.

“We all deserve a public transit system that works for everyone,” Kansas City’s Forstater said. “That means having a place to sit and wait.”

In this special World Cup edition of SGV Connect, Damien Newton talks with Foothill Transit Communications Director Felicia Friesema about how transit agencies across Los Angeles County are preparing for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Friesema explains Foothill Transit’s role in supporting Metro’s operations at SoFi Stadium, including lending buses for shuttle service between Union Station and the stadium. She encourages San Gabriel Valley residents to use the Silver Streak and other transit connections to reach World Cup matches, noting that transit will play a critical role in moving tens of thousands of spectators.

The conversation also explores the behind-the-scenes planning required for a global event, with Friesema describing months of coordination, training, and security preparation involving Metro, Foothill Transit, and other agencies. The discussion then shifts to broader transit topics, including rising gas prices, ridership growth, long-term budgeting challenges, and Foothill Transit’s proposed changes to commuter express service.

Newton and Friesema also discuss recent improvements to the regional fare system, including contactless credit card payments, the impact of the A Line extension into the eastern San Gabriel Valley, and the surprising success of Foothill Transit’s temporary “Line 6-7” shuttle connecting the La Verne A Line station with Fairplex during the Los Angeles County Fair.

Throughout the conversation, Friesema emphasizes the importance of flexibility, regional coordination, and adapting transit service to changing travel patterns across Southern California.

A full transcript of the podcast can be found below.

Streetsblog’s San Gabriel Valley coverage is supported by Foothill Transit, offering car-free travel throughout the San Gabriel Valley with connections to the A Line Stations across the Foothills and Commuter Express lines traveling into the heart of downtown L.A. To plan your trip, visit Foothill Transit. “Foothill Transit. Going Good Places.” Sign-up for our SGV Connect Newsletter, coming to your inbox on Fridays!

Damien Newton: As mentioned in the intro, I’m here with Felicia Friesema of Foothill Transit. This is our unofficial, quasi-official World Cup edition of the SGV Connect podcast and Streetsblog coverage.

This podcast is going up on Friday, the day of the first World Cup game in Los Angeles: the United States versus Paraguay.

There’s been a lot of press about how people are getting to the stadium, the cost of parking, and all of those sorts of issues. But we wanted to highlight that it is easy and possible to take transit to the games, no matter where you’re coming from.

As we’ve mentioned before, I live in West Los Angeles. On Monday, we’re planning to go to a parking lot in Santa Monica and take the bus directly to the game—a game that I still only give about a 50 percent chance of actually happening.

But we’re not talking about Santa Monica today. We’re talking about the San Gabriel Valley.

So again, I’m here with Felicia. Why don’t we talk a little bit about service from the San Gabriel Valley to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood? How is that all going to work? What’s the expectation, and what are we hoping to see?

Felicia Friesema: Well, I think it’s really important that people understand how critical transit is going to be for making these matches work.

When you start seeing Caltrans signs on the freeway encouraging people to take transit to the matches at SoFi, it tells you how important transit is to making the whole experience happen. FIFA has some very strict rules about tailgating—as in, you’re not allowed to do it—so it takes away some of the benefits of driving to the stadium that some people enjoy.

Foothill Transit is lending 10 buses to Metro to help operate the shuttle trips originating from Union Station and heading to SoFi Stadium.

The best way to get from the San Gabriel Valley to Union Station and then take those shuttles is to ride the Silver Streak. It runs very regularly—every 15 minutes during the week and every half hour on weekends. It’s a pretty reliable service. You can visit foothilltransit.org and get all your trips itinerized.

I don’t know if that’s a word. Did I just make up a word?

Damien Newton: I don’t know. All words are made up.

Felicia Friesema: I’m only the communications director, you know.

Damien Newton: Doesn’t Thor say that in one of the Marvel movies? Someone tells him he made up a word and he responds, “All words are made up.”

Felicia Friesema: Right. One thing I do want to note, though: for the shuttles going into SoFi, there won’t be fare collection on the buses themselves.

Spectators can pay in one of two ways. They can purchase parking online in advance, which includes shuttle service, or they can pay on site using mobile fare-payment validators that will be stationed near the shuttle boarding queues.

Passengers will pay before they board the bus. It’s a little different from how we’re normally doing things, but it’s something people should be aware of.

Damien Newton: We’ve seen Metro do this for other major events, and even private shuttle operations. When you’re trying to move 30,000 people by bus for a special event, sometimes there are different procedures for boarding and exiting. It’s good for people to know ahead of time so they can plan accordingly.

Do you know of other Foothill Transit employees who are planning to attend the games? Is this something people have talked about at the staff level? Like, “I’m going to the game and here’s how I’m getting there.”

Felicia Friesema: Honestly, the biggest thing is that we all have our favorite teams, right? But most of our participation is making sure the service happens without a hitch.

Our role is making sure service is delivered safely and securely, and that coordination with Metro is clear, concise, and effective. It’s more about enabling other people to have a great experience. We’ll mostly be listening from the sidelines while making sure everyone else can get there.

Damien Newton: One thing I’ve always wondered about these major events, where your agency has such an important support role, is whether there’s an extra level of excitement in the planning process—or whether it’s more intense because there are so many additional details to work through.

Felicia Friesema: FIFA—and subsequently the Olympics—are really their own category when it comes to this kind of planning.

We’ve been meeting with Metro weekly for months to work through the logistics of serving the matches. The level of preparation, planning, security awareness, and training for operators, dispatchers, and security staff is well beyond what would normally happen for something like Rose Bowl shuttle service.

We have the Rose Bowl service down to a science. We know exactly how it works. But the World Cup requires a much more detailed operational plan.

I don’t know that I’d call it anxiety, but it’s definitely more intense.

Damien Newton: That was probably the wrong word.

Felicia Friesema: Yeah.

Damien Newton: I should have made a word up.

Felicia Friesema: Exactly. It’s more intense. When you have an event as visible and heavily attended as the World Cup, everything operates at a different level.

Not that we don’t pay attention to those things for local events—we absolutely do—but this is bigger in every way. More people, more excitement, more moving parts.

The good thing is that Metro has done a phenomenal job laying the groundwork for all of us to succeed. We’re really grateful for that.

• The BUILD America 250 Act not only drastically cuts funding for transit and passenger rail compared to the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, it includes no guaranteed funding for new transit projects, according to Yonah Freemark. (Urban Institute)
• Gary Nelson unpacks the bill, arguing that it’s just another chapter in the century-long destruction of transit and passenger rail networks in favor of highways.
• Autonomous vehicles were originally envisioned in the 1960s as a type of public transit with the convenience of cars, but Silicon Valley has turned them into for-profit robotaxis siphoning riders from transit. (Popular Science)
• Uber now keeps more than half the fares paid by passengers in some cities. A decade ago, drivers received about 80 to 85 percent. (Business Insider)
• The Northeast Corridor has the only 49 miles of true high-speed tracks in the U.S., and Amtrak is running slow diesel trains on the them. (The Transit Guy)
• The New York Times asks whether parking should be free. The answer, as is usually the case when a headline poses a question, is no.
• A House committee approved $875 million funding for Olympics-related transit projects in Los Angeles. (L.A. Times)
• Light rail, not wider highways, is the answer to Austin’s traffic problems, an American-Statesman columnist writes.
• Sound Transit insists that the Ballard Link light rail project in Seattle is not dead. (The Urbanist)
• Charleston continues to pursue the mutually exclusive goals of safe streets and fast driving, despite being the 12th most dangerous city for pedestrians in the U.S. (City Paper)
• A new Arizona State app allows users to choose the shadiest, cooling walking route through Phoenix.
• The Maine group Portland Bike Party won a new bike lane sweeper in a contest. (News Center Maine)
• The Kansas City streetcar got high marks from World Cup visitors (KCTV). The Dutch team, of course, rented 17 e-bikes to get around town (Kansas City Star).

Heat warning tools have become more sophisticated, yet public attention is still focused on record temperatures rather than the social conditions that turn heat into illness or even death. Why social risk, not temperature alone, should be at the center of how we report on extreme heat.

So much talk about the importance of ‘care’ in agroecology, but what does it mean? Anouk Dijkman’s ‘Matrix of Care’ offers a clear way to see how domestic, community and more‑than‑human care practices connect, and why they matter for agroecological change.

In this presentation for The Climate Dialogue Group, Richard Heinberg shares his insights into why a world of climate disruption and energy volatility demands a shift from maximizing growth to strengthening community resilience.

The new mayor of one of New Jersey’s biggest cities will cut through the usual plodding public process by installing 100 quick-build street safety improvements to make scores of intersections safer before the first year of his term is even over.

Jersey City Mayor James Solomon, who was elected last year in part due to the support of the livable streets movement, announced the speedy safety improvements earlier this week as part of an update to the city’s seven-year-old commitment to Vision Zero.

“Every family in Jersey City deserves to travel our streets without fear, whether they’re walking their kids to school, riding a bike, or just crossing the street,” said Solomon. “This is how we deliver on that promise. We know that when we design our streets for safety, we protect everyone, and we are not going to stop until zero deaths on Jersey City’s roadways is not just a goal, but a reality.”

The safety improvements include curb extensions at 30-plus intersections, nine crossings with rectangular rapid flashing beacons, 30-plus all-way stops, and traffic signal improvements like leading pedestrian intervals. These basic, relatively cheap traffic calming and pedestrian-focused changes are proven to increase street safety and reduce pedestrian injuries.

Here’s a woman and a child crossing with stroller at the intersection of Bergen Ave and Kensington Ave.

These will be welcome changes for most as 57 percent of Jersey City residents commute to work via transit, walking, or cycling. There are an average of nine traffic deaths and 40 serious injuries per year in Jersey City, a city of 300,000 — a fatality rate that the makes Jersey City one of the safest cities. For comparison, Memphis has an annual fatal crash rate of nearly 24 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation.

Solomon also announced that the city would focus additional safety improvements in a so-called High-Injury Network comprised of 28 road segments and 43 intersections that crash data indicate remain unsafe. The improvements will include lighting, possible speed limit changes, and curb management throughout the city.

Big shoes to fill

Solomon has a tough act to follow in former Mayor Steve Fulop who, with the help of then-Director of the Department of Infrastructure Barkha Patel, made significant street safety improvements. Cycling in Jersey City tripled as a commuting mode between 2019 and 2024 and the protected bike lane network grew from zero to 25 miles. 

Patel’s role — which cut across agencies like transportation, parks, police, and sanitation — allowed her to avoid bureaucratic silos that often stymie street safety work. The newly appointed city officials understand the importance of continuing the mission.

A NJ Transit bus at a newly installed all-way stop.

“No fatality or serious injury from traffic violence in Jersey City is acceptable — zero is the only acceptable number,” said Jersey City’s new Infrastructure Director Andrew Kaplan. 

“The updated Action Plan sharpens our focus on the locations where serious crashes still occur so every dollar and design decision prevents the next one. With the launch of our 2026 quick-build program, we’re targeting the safety improvements that will most effectively reduce crashes and save lives.”

North Jersey leads

Hoboken, Jersey City’s neighbor to the north, is the poster child for a city that’s successfully dedicated itself to reaching reducing traffic violence. 

With a population just under 60,000, the “Mile Square City” implemented progressive street safety measures like daylighting at intersections along with bus and bike lane cameras to reach that goal. Hoboken has now gone a remarkable nine years without a traffic death.

Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour joined Solomon at the press conference, also announcing a recommitment to the city’s Vision Zero goal to eliminate traffic deaths and injuries by 2030. Jabbour signed her first executive order in March that recommitted the city to Vision Zero — and expanded it to be a partnership across municipal borders to include collaborating with Jersey City. 

Nearly 50 U.S cities have adopted Vision Zero since 2014, but few have done the hard work needed to significantly improve street safety. But the evidence shows that where cities are investing, Vision Zero is working.

Hey, World Cup fans, welcome to North America — now, good luck getting to the stadiums.

That’s City Nerd Ray Delahanty’s take in this informative — and, frankly, really sad — video about how, how you say, different it is to go to a sportball game in the United States compared to Europe, where stadiums tend to be in walking or transit distance of the center city.

Americans, of course, mostly drive out to the suburbs for a ballgame — but the World Cup will be drawing tourists from all over the globe … and cars tend not to fit in suitcases. Hence, a continent-wide transportation disaster. (Oh, and please don’t walk or bike from Midtown Manhattan to the MetLife Stadium in the Jersey Meadowlands, as multiple New York outlets have warned, even though it’s just a couple of miles as the crow flies.)

Let the Nerd break it down for you:

• Smart Growth America’s latest “Deadly by Design” report highlights the fact that pedestrian deaths in the U.S. are still up 72 percent since 2009, despite the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declaring that “American roads are safer.” Drivers killed more than 39,000 people in the U.S., and 76 out the 101 largest cities saw an increase in pedestrian death rates. (Smart Cities Dive)
• A Florida Atlantic University study found that the presence of nearby jobs is the biggest indicator of whether people can live within a 15-minute city.
• Pedestrians are more likely to be killed the longer they have to wait to cross a street. (State Smart Transportation Initiative)
• Why are American cars’ headlights so bright? (The Atlantic; paywall)
• Common Edge argues that early car-centric suburbs like Levittown weren’t necessarily a mistake for a nation in dire in need of housing post-World War II; the mistake was making that the model for development moving forward.
• Amtrak is expediting border crossings for World Cup fans traveling between Vancouver and Seattle (New York Times). Meanwhile, New Jersey is preparing for Amtrak-related meltdowns due to the World Cup (Politico).
• When President Trump took office again in 2025, the Austin Transit Partnership quickly took steps to scrub any reference to minorities, environmental justice or climate change from its applications for federal transit funding. (Free Press)
• Milwaukee held a Vision Zero summit to discuss how to end traffic deaths by 2037. (Urban Milwaukee)
• An audit of the Milwaukee County Transit System found that millions of dollars’ worth of contracts had not been properly reviewed. (Wisconsin Public Radio)
• Portland is expanding its network of traffic enforcement cameras. (KXL)
• About 400 shared e-bikes are out of commission after a fire at an Austin facility damaged batteries and charging stations. (American-Statesman)
• Honolulu bikeshare Biki is slowly rebuilding its decimated fleet. (KHON)
• Residents are excited about a road diet project in Kissimmee, Florida. (Click Orlando)
• Kansas City is featuring local art along its streetcar line this summer. (Star)

One of my former political ecology teachers, Robert Biel, has had this incredible ability to use political theories to connect the deeply theoretical with the banal everyday, the micro with the macro, and the natural with the social sciences. He would use simple threads to link geopolitics with music and ecology with architecture. One day […]

This week, we have a controversial episode featuring the ultimate roads scholar, Florida Atlantic University Professor Eric Dumbaugh, slaughtering some of the sacred cows of the livable streets movement. To Dumbaugh, the issue isn’t merely redesigning roads for safety, but making sure that planners don’t put all the big box stores on arterials.

We at Streetsblog USA aren’t sure we’re convinced, but we always like to hear from important people in the traffic space.

And, as always, let’s review all the ways you can enjoy this spirited content:

• Click here for a full transcript, albeit with some AI typos.
• Click the player below to listen.
• Or check out the lightly edited excerpt below the player.

Here’s the edited transcript:

Jeff Wood: Well, you’ve got a new paper out, Land Use and Road Safety: Understanding the Persistence of Vulnerable Road User Deaths and Injuries in the United States. I’m wondering if you can give us a little bit of the basics of what you found and why you were looking in this specific direction.

Eric Dumbaugh: So I’ve been examining street design issues now for 25 years, and there’s a uniquely U.S. view that street design is the solution to all things. But when it comes to arterials, European designs are indistinguishable from what we use in the United States. The lane widths, the design features are exactly the same. The difference is what we put along our streets, right?

Everyone who goes to Western Europe on vacation comes back and says, “Oh, this is really rather lovely. We should have our streets designed like this.” But those are essentially pre-automobile streets, the streets that were built from the Renaissance through the early industrial era. After the Second World War, they didn’t build American-style, they did not build the stuff we built. They essentially rebuilt the urban fabric that they had, and they haven’t had a lot of population growth since then.

So when we start looking at street design solutions from Europe, we need to understand that we’re looking at a built environment context where the automobile is adapted into a pre-automobile form.

The United States is totally different. Nearly all of our growth has happened since the Second World War — and all of that growth was built on an entirely different design model that came of age in the 1910s and 1920s that was centered around integrating automobile into the urban fabric.

So the safety problem on the streets happens because we have different sorts of users entering them. So is the issue really street design? Is it speed? Or is there something else going on here?

And what I found is that after you control for land use, things like speed and geometric design don’t really matter that much. What’s going on is we’re putting these land uses on either side of the street and it’s activating different activities there.

We’ve all seen the graphic where, you know, your chance of dying in a 40-mile-per-hour crash is like 90 percent. But to me, the question is, why is somebody walking there? They’re not walking there in Sweden because there’s nothing to walk to. All of those land uses are prohibited along their arterials. You can’t build that stuff there.

In the United States, our development model is we build the residential community as a cell, and then we export all of the other uses outside, to the arterials.

And that’s generating the hazard, because once you put them there, you start drawing the activities to them. You draw the pedestrians to them, you draw the cyclists to them, you draw the cars in and out of the driveways.

Now, often here in the United States, we have debate: “cars versus vulnerable users.” The safety problem for these users is exactly the same, and it’s the confluence of activities at these points. So the question then becomes: Why are we putting these uses in these environments, right? And what do we do about that to retrofit it going forward?

I have a graphic in the article that I think does a good job of illustrating this:

The traffic engineer was never tasked with city design The traffic engineer was tasked with moving traffic. That was part of the configuration that came about in the 1920s and ’30s. They go out and they build perfectly fine roads, rural roads, ex-urban roads that are indistinguishable from the European counterparts. The difference is our planners, our local economic development people, they get real excited about bringing in growth, and they’re experiencing growth, and they channel it over these roads.

So roads that are perfectly fine in an undeveloped context become developed. Think of them as a latent hazard, right? The speed is hazardous, but it’s only hazard if it’s activated. And when you put these land uses on there, when your local planner colors their land-use map red and says, “We’re gonna allow this development along here,” they’re activating that error.