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Beijing Woman Dies Because Ambulance Stuck in Traffic 1

Beijing Woman Dies Because Ambulance Stuck in Traffic
Beijing Traffic – Photo by Safia Osman Unlike in North America, when the siren from an ambulance is wailing, drivers in China do not move over to let the ambulance past. Ambulances literally sit in traffic with everybody else – with their sirens on and lights flashing. I had witnessed this countless times while living ...

Russia’s 200KM, 3-day Traffic Jam

Russia’s 200KM, 3-day Traffic Jam
Photo from video provided by 3news.co.nz In Russia, a 200KM mega traffic jam has stranded drivers for several days. The backlog on this highway that runs between Moscow and St. Petersberg was intensified by heavy snow last week. From Time.com: “A 125-mile long queue of vehicles spanned the roadway, which connects Moscow and St. Petersburg. ...

Cause of Road Congestion: Too Many Cars 15

Cause of Road Congestion: Too Many Cars
Infographic from a large US auto insurance company I never cease to be amused by otherwise intelligent people coming up with lists of the causes of traffic congestion, but whom always seem to miss the most obvious cause of traffic congestion: too many bloody cars. In Beijing, by the end of 2010 there were almost ...

My 32 Minutes 17

My 32 Minutes
The Greater Toronto CivicAction – a Toronto-based advocacy organization – has launched a campaign to bring attention to the issue of growing traffic congestion and lack of transit funding in the Greater Toronto area. The campaign is called the “32 Campaign” and asks what you would do with an extra 32 minutes each day. Instead ...

Traffic Congestion & Optimal Efficiency 17

Traffic Congestion & Optimal Efficiency
Beijing traffic – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country Beijing’s traffic congestion nightmare is perhaps best attributed to the much hailed Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s “socialist market economy” – which opened China up to foreign investment and brought significant wealth to the people of China over the past 30 years. Xiaoping ...

Traffic Calming A Waste Of Money? 34

Traffic Calming A Waste Of Money?
Toronto Traffic Calming Photo by Matthew Blackett / Spacing The Canada Safety Council, a self proclaimed “independent, knowledge-based, charitable organization dedicated to the cause of safety” published an article chastising traffic calming measures, calling them “a sheer waste of taxpayers’ money”. Somehow I doubt the person who wrote the article rides a bicycle on our ...

China’s Mega 100KM Traffic Jam 17

Beijing traffic jam photo courtesy of Proggie (this is not the 100KM traffic jam) For several decades, the Chinese managed to transport millions and millions of people efficiently around their cities – primarily by bicycle. There are reportedly 450 million bicycles in China, and the bicycle has served as a great tool historically. Now, enter ...

Skymeter to End All-You-Can-Eat Buffet? 6

  Photo courtesy of Atwater Village Newbie Skymeter has developed technology that can change the world as we know it. Does this small Toronto-based start-up have what it takes to penetrate a potentially mass market for congestion tolling? Here in North America our transportation system is broken. People who seldom use our roads are subsidizing ...