Mixed Messages: Is Car Design Making Streets Less Safe?

Designing streets to encourage safe behavior is a powerful tool for creating lasting prosperity. But when cars are designed to encourage unsafe behavior, it threatens to undo that progress.

Owens, Top StoryTiffany Owens ReedJuly 23, 2024safe and productive streets, Street Design, cars, safety, speeding

Too Much Trust in Technology Is Dangerous for Drivers (and Everyone Around Them)

For the first time, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted tests on 14 widely available versions of self-driving technology. Here’s what they found.

News, Top StoryBen AbramsonMarch 15, 2024safe and productive streets, self driving cars, safety, car dependency, cars

Make Safe Streets a Culture War and We All Lose

Demonizing the 91% of Americans who drive by putting them into the category of "asshole humans” is a bad and ultimately losing strategy for creating safer streets.

Marohn, Top Story, TrendingCharles MarohnMarch 11, 2024car culture, car crash, cars, transportation, safe and productive streets

The Stakes in the SUV “Arms Race” Go Way Beyond Safety

People tend, understandably, to think they’ll be safer in an SUV—but what happens to our cities if everyone is driving a bigger vehicle?

Emma Durand-Wood, Top StoryEmma Durand-WoodMarch 7, 2024car culture, cars, car crash, auto-oriented, car dependency

Things vs. Devices: How Technologies Like Cars Shape Us

Are cars really helpful tools or disruptive devices? Here’s some guidance from ethicist Albert Borgmann on the distinction.

Owens, Top StoryTiffany Owens ReedSeptember 26, 2023cars, car dependency, technology

3 Takeaways From Ivan Illich’s Critique of Cars

The critique of car dependence is nothing new for Strong Towns readers—but here’s one that may make you think a little more deeply about the tradeoffs and illusions baked into North America’s transportation industry.

Owens, Top StoryTiffany Owens ReedAugust 8, 2023cars, car dependency, auto-oriented, transit

Pedestrian Safety: There’s No Technical Fix

Engineers would have us believe that we’re just one shiny new technology away from making streets safer for people walking.

3 Trade-Offs Parents Make Living in Suburbs Vs. Cities

We’ve created a society in which families have to choose between either spread-out, single-family living or dense urban living—and each side of this (artificial) binary can come with upsides and downsides.

Lifted Pickup Trucks: An Invitation to Rethink Normal

LPTs have become an easy villain for street safety advocates, but are they really what we should be focusing on when examining our transportation options vis-à-vis our vision of a flourishing community?

Community Rallies to Save a Car-Free Street

After 2.5 years of success, officials in Peekskill, NY, are threatening to open this community gathering place back up to motorized traffic—but locals aren’t taking this threat lying down.

Where’s My Flying Car? Who Cares?

New technologies can solve problems—or make them worse. In the chase for technofixes like flying cars, it's important to know when to pump the brakes.

Great Wee Roads: What Driving in Scotland Taught Me About Driving in America

Take a trip with our Community Builder, John Pattison, as he discovers why the design of Scottish roads makes them safe—and downright pleasant—to drive on, even for a foreigner!

Top StoryJohn PattisonNovember 1, 2022transportation, roads, design, Street Design, cars, traffic engineering, safe and productive streets, europe

You Don’t “NEED” More Space

We often speak to the “good old days” as a measure of the U.S. at its best…but in 1950, the average American home was 983 square feet, as opposed to the 2,300 square feet of today.

Top StoryArian HorbovetzSeptember 6, 2022housing, housing cost, cars, car culture, urbanism, capitalism

"The Street Project" Is a Great Warmup for a Street Fight

This film makes a human rights case for safer streets, while showing the historic roots of safe streets advocacy in the U.S. and the power of tactical urbanism.

When It Comes to Child Safety, We Deserve Better Than Car Seats

With a baby on the way, I’ve been lectured multiple times about safe car seats, and heard nothing about how to minimize the most dangerous activity people do with their children: drive.

Top StoryRachel QuednauAugust 8, 2022children, car culture, car dependency, cars, auto-oriented, car crash, walkability, transportation, safety

One of the Most Dangerous Assumptions We Have Made

Car crashes aren’t the result of mere human error or recklessness, they’re the result of design. Beth Osborne of Transportation for America digs into this in our latest podcast episode.