Joe Moran: "I think we've been here before, skirting the issue of road pricing and using the notion we are 'falling behind' to push privatisation." A longer view.

Kaid Benfield, quoting Presidential archives: "[Eisenhower] went on to say that the matter of running Interstate routes through the congested parts of the cities was entirely against his original concept and wishes; that he never anticipated that the program would turn out this way . . . and that he was certainly not aware of any concept of using the program to build up an extensive intra-city route network as part of the program he sponsored."

"That prized garage space or curbside spot you’ve been yearning for may be costing you—and the city—in ways you never realized. A journey into the world of parking, where meter maids are under siege, everybody’s on the take, and the tickets keep on coming." A great article explaining some of the reasons why city planning there has led to Los Angeles being quite so car-centric.

"A total of 36,371 people were killed on Britain's roads between 1999 and 2010."

Tom Vanderbilt on a new kind of intersection that's being used a lot for new roads in the US, where drivers apparently have a morbid fear of having to either stop, or wait for more than a single phase change. Still, it's interesting.

On the cyclist protests at Blackfriars Bridge. "Ben Plowden, TfL's director of better routes and places, said the changes were designed to cope with a huge increase in pedestrians using the pavements around Blackfriars station, as a result of extra trains and the closure of pedestrian subways." As a student of (the often threatened) highwalks, their subterranean counterparts seem to be equally (and admittedly for good reason) out of fashion, but that does lead to the surface being even more contested.

"For 53 hours, workers will shut a portion of “the 405”. The stretch is not long—ten miles northbound and four miles southbound—but it is strategic." "A European might ask why people don’t bicycle instead, or take a bus or train." Oh, those silly Europeans!

"The safest places to drive in the USA are Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts. Among the most dangerous: Montana, Wyoming, Louisiana and Mississippi. Those conclusions are based on federal data of traffic fatalities per 100,000 population and per 100 million miles driven."

An interesting piece on cycling in cities that aren't designd for it (it's written for NYC but I expect it applies to most British cities (like London), as well as, say, SF. "Cyclists get no respect as road users. Instead, tragically, they’re treated like pedestrians." It's also self-reinforcing: "Bikes can and should behave much more like cars than pedestrians." "[Cyclists are] still in the human-powered mindset of pedestrians, who feel pretty much completely unconstrained by rules."

"Validated traffic count data. Counts taken at road sites across GB, each lasting 12 hours on a weekday between March and October outside of school holiday periods. The counts take place on one day of the year so are not representative of the typical flow throughout the year." Coo. (As mentioned at OpenTech.)

BBC News pimping their TV shows again, but what a show: this is a video of some of the best bits of Britain from the Air, which will feature visualitions of such things as air traffic, London taxis, ships in the Channel and telephone exchanges.