One week left to tell the minns gov that their epping bridge widening is a dumb waste of money that belongs in the 1990s: https://caportal.com.au/tfnsw/epping-bridge-project
I asked a liberal pamphleteer in epping about it and he enthusiastically told me that it was their idea first and I told him it's not to late to reconsider!
There are also a lot of cyclists, like more people cycling around during the day than in Sydney, despite hardly any delivery cyclists.
Could be flatness, or a summer only phenomenon, could be because the public transport is inferior, could be lack of helmet laws, could even be that the grid street network is highly navigable? Easy to remember which streets have bike lanes (and they aren't afraid of putting them on 'main' streets) and to work out which streets will be quiet local streets.
First day in Toronto! Trying not to be too disturbed by the number of bloated vehicles 🤐
On the plus side I really like this bike lane design. Level so you can easily get off and boost the local economy, but with trees and street furniture between bikes and the footpath to provide a bit of separation.
"We fly lots, and we say that we shouldn't,” says Jonas De Vos, a transport geographer at University College London (UCL) and the first author of the latest study. “We are hypocrites.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02965-7
The standard wisdom is that academic careers, especially early, are harmed when academics don't jet around the world for in-person meetings. This article suggests that the importance of this travel is overstated, while the carbon cost is clear.
Paris day was baby’s first train trip - yet another advantage of the train over the car is feeding him. Time saving and no sadness 👌
Redid my website: https://josephineroper.com/ feedback welcome.
The maps which were the main purpose are still a work in progress but happy with the rest for now. Had fun doing it 'from scratch' where I'd used a website building tool before.
Also just got 'minor corrections' back for my thesis so will need to change it from 'PhD candidate' soon!
Been very quiet here as hanging out with my new baby. Taking lots of walks around the French village where we’re living with our in-laws (only another month thankfully).
It's picturesque but reminds me how we are, generally, doing a better job with basic walking infrastructure in Australia!
Although traffic volumes are low, speed limits here are 50k in the village and 90k outside, and most drivers are trying to speed most of the time. So it's hard to relax while walking without footpaths.
This morning in Paris, busy bike lane outside my great-aunt’s place 😍🚴
I really like these bike lanes that are level with the footpath. Don’t quite get why we’re so intent on building awkward little channels in Sydney. The cyclists weren’t encroaching on the footpath even when they were backed up, just queuing politely (though it seemed like the more impatient types use the road here instead).
New Newsletter Newsletter Postscript
Read more: https://walksydney.substack.com/p/newsletter-postscript
📢 New paper: A participatory mapping approach to capturing perceived walkability
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2024.104133
🖌️ Perceived walkability in Sydney collected by 'spraypainting', because who needs polygons?
🚶 Compared results to a previously published walkability index
🗺️ Method, with comments, can capture rich knowledge about walkable areas and streets, and reveal gaps in walkability models
Last paper out from my PhD, very happy to see it in print.
#geospatial #urbanism #walkability
My university's sustainability report contains several acknowledgements that the post-COVID return to high levels of business travel is a problem, but absolutely 0 plans to do anything about it. Inspiring stuff.
Because thinking about Broadway: every time I use the underpass at Railway Square I feel like some sort of distance contraction is at play.
Arrows for non-Sydney people to show where the ramp leading up to Railway Square is located in the tunnel, and roughly where it emerges.
I find my brain can't quite reconcile how short the tunnel seems vs how wide the road.
I think it shows how the brain (correctly) perceives the 8 lanes of traffic like a dangerous gulf to avoid crossing at all costs.
The first pre-release of GeoPandas 1.0 is out! 🎉
Please help us test the alpha version to catch all the nasty bugs that may be there. You can install it from PyPI using `pip install geopandas --pre -U`. To get an idea about the changes, you can check the changelog - https://github.com/geopandas/geopandas/releases/tag/v1.0.0-alpha1 or a blogpost by @martinfleis - https://martinfleischmann.net/geopandas-1.0-is-coming.-what-will-change/. All the API changes are (hopefully) included and further pre-releases shall not change any behavior. It is time to test now!
"The moves must appear in the right order or sequence to become a dance. If you start with your hands down to your hips instead of out in front of you, you ARE dancing, but it’s NOT the Macarena.
So it is with the Macarena as it is with writing the discussion section of your thesis"
- thank you @thesiswhisperer, this bit of lightness is exactly what I needed right now!
Impressive commitment from someone so young. Shame this kind of thing doesn't make the mainstream news. https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/01/27/innes-fitzgerald-runner-greta-thunberg-australia/
PhD student at UNSW City Futures Research Centre. Committee member of WalkSydney (https://walksydney.org/). Interested in access, walkability, sustainable transport in general, open source urban analytics. Transport cyclist, climber, plant based.