Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
“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
How do you define an age-friendly city? Share in the comment section below.More on Archinect:Nation's first combined housing complex for LGBT youth and seniors coming to HollywoodLoneliness is on the rise throughout the world's citiesMidwest developer planning shared residence for seniors and... View full entry
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
More on Archinect:Google's self-driving car hits bus and causes its first crashThe Ehang passenger drone might be another way people will get around town somedayU.S. says computers qualify as drivers in Google's autonomous vehicles; won't even have to go to the DMVThe U.S. just got $4 billion to... View full entry
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
More about urban mobility:So Cal has dumped a lot of money into transit projects, but there's been little pay-off so farThe Ehang passenger drone might be another way people will get around town somedayIs America actually shifting away from its car obsession? Not entirely.Think driverless cars... View full entry
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
Self-driving cars, self-driving bikes, the Hyperloop slowly becoming a reality, what's next for urban mobility? Self-driving passenger drones, of course. Smart-drone enterprise Ehang unveiled a single-seat, battery-powered Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) called the Ehang 184 at the... View full entry
[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
Previous bike-lane news on Archinect:Copenhagen Tops List of the 20 Most Bike-Friendly CitiesAs bicycle ownership in North Korea rises, Pyongyang introduces bike lanesLA Gets its First Parking-Protected Bike LanesBike Lanes Don’t Cause Traffic Jams If You’re Smart About Where You Build... View full entry
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
Following his recent review of the 405 Freeway expansion through the Sepulveda Pass, Christopher Hawthorne sums up why the time is ripe for Angelenos to refresh their perspectives on the city's freeways.More on Archinect:Archinect's critical round-up: the week's best architectural critiques so... View full entry
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
Writer Stephen Moss talks to urban planners and transportation authorities around Europe to get a glimpse into how cities worldwide continue to wean themselves off car dependency and explore new forms of mobility, all while city density increases. View full entry
In June, the “Innovation in Mobility Public Policy Summit,” sponsored by the Association for Commuter Transportation, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, Mobility Lab, Transit Center, and Shared-Use Mobility Center, brought together a range of participants to discuss these themes in Washington, DC. — urbanomnibus.net
At the summit, elected officials, transportation entrepreneurs, academics, and developers engaged with a number of questions including, “What are new ways of solving urban mobility problems? How can we better design systems to address the needs of the public? Who should be engaged to make this... View full entry
Three expert candidates who hope to participate in the Audi Urban Future Award 2014 have presented three different ideas that explore this year's theme: how far data can be used as a planning tool for urban mobility in the future. As part of the Audi Urban Future Initiative, the biennial award searches for visionary ideas in urban mobility. — bustler.net
The public will pick their favorite idea by Speed Pitch Voting online before the winner is announced on Jan. 6 by Audi CEO Professor Rupert Stadler -- right before the opening of the International CES in Las Vegas from Jan. 7-10. You can check out this year's Award trailer and each candidate's... View full entry
“The people who design the cars and the people who design the roads never talk to each other,” according to Kati Rubinyi. With a background in architecture, urban planning, and fine arts, Rubinyi wants to enrich mobility planning by bringing everyone involved to the same table. Her book, The Car in 2035: Mobility Planning for the Near Future, includes essays from the different viewpoints of planners, policymakers, architects, and car designers [...]. — buildabetterburb.org
Why does the layout of cities matter so much in mobility?
Harvard's Raj Chetty says he and the other authors of the study were struck by the amount of variation in mobility across areas.
— marketplace.org
Perhaps you have noticed that commercial architecture lining roads in Maryland and Virginia looks more or less the same and not much different from strip malls and boxy stores lining roads in Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio or Oregon. [...] Why do housing developments and retail shopping facilities look so much alike, given how much Americans value individuality, freedom of expression and independence? — washingtonpost.com