This all makes what is happening now all the more remarkable. Last summer, Ford Motor Company announced it had bought the building, with plans to invest $740million to transform it into a world-leading research centre for ‘future mobility’. The very industry that signed the station’s death warrant in the first place is now set on resuscitating it as a beacon of sustainable transport. — The RIBA Journal

Whether you live in San Francisco or New York, [Seiichi] Miyake has shaped the streets that we walk on.

That’s because Miyake invented the tactile squares installed near the edge of subway platforms and street crosswalks. Originally called Tenji blocks and sometimes referred to as braille blocks, the bright yellow tiles have bumps that help visually impaired people navigate potentially dangerous public spaces. — Curbed

The value of all this for engineering is currently hypothetical. But what if transport engineers were to improvise design solutions and get instant feedback about how they would work from their own embodied experience? What if they could model designs at full scale in the way choreographers experiment with groups of dancers? What if they designed for emotional as well as functional effects? — The Conversation

Car and Driver caught up with Foxx in Pittsburgh. The DOT chief, previously mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, reflected on the promise of autonomous and connected cars, the recent Smart City Challenge, the massive increase in traffic deaths, the potential of the shared vehicles unfolding right outside the window, and more. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for grammar and brevity. — blog.caranddriver.com

“I believe it’s important for all ages to interact on a day to day basis. It...hopefully removes the labelling of people as ‘elderly’ or ‘past it’ and the self-fulfilling behaviours that are often generated by this.”

“Cities need cross-generational activities...People living alone of whatever age can become isolated, lonely and then mental health problems can develop.”

“Teach young people that we are not going to move over, nor do we have to.” — The Guardian

Since summer 2015, [Alex] Rodrigues and his team [at Varden Labs] have been tinkering with autonomous golf carts on university campuses...On the one hand, campus transit agencies, and particularly university ones, are uniquely posed to experiment with pricier autonomous vehicles...But these shuttles will also need maintenance...Plus, driverless shuttles will be the diving bell for a tricky, tricky question: how important are bus drivers? — CityLab

In 1980, for instance, fewer than 12 percent of American workers commuted for 45 minutes or more one way, according to the Census.

The Census didn't even bother separating out 60- and 90-minute commuters in 1980, since it was relatively rare. But they began tracking these mega-commuters in 1990. That year, 1.6 percent of workers commuted 90 minutes or more one way. In 2014, 2.62 percent of workers were commuting this long, an increase of 64 percent over the prevalence in 1990. — Washington Post

The idea behind the Chinese-built 184 is that users will simply get in, power it up, select their destination using a 12-inch touchscreen tablet display, then press the 'take-off' button. The drone's automated flight systems will take over from there, managing tasks such as communication with air traffic control and other aircraft, obstacle avoidance, and of course navigation... — gizmag

[Duncan Gay, self-described as 'the biggest bike-lane skeptic', and the] NSW government [are] about to get rid of a much-loved and much-used AU$5M protected cycleway in Sydney’s city centre...Gay’s move seems to go against the flow, with cycling increasingly feted as a potential congestion and pollution game changer in major cities around the world...But he is not alone. — The Guardian

The truth is that Los Angeles, once a pioneer in defining the freeway’s place in urban life, has fallen behind other cities. From Dallas to Paris to Seoul, the most innovative ideas about freeways and how they can be redesigned are coming from places far from Southern California. It’s time for L.A. to catch up... — Los Angeles Times

Gilles Vesco calls it the 'new mobility'. It’s a vision of cities in which residents no longer rely on their cars but on public transport, shared cars and bikes and, above all, on real-time data on their smartphones...'Multi-modal' and 'interconnectivity' are now the words on every urban planner’s lips...This model of denser, less car-dependent cities is becoming the accepted wisdom across the developed world. — The Guardian