Lesley Beatty

two books: "If you want to win, you've got to fight' by Carter Lavin and 'Walkable City' by Jeff Speck.

The last night of Hannukah really delivered -- looking forward to reading both of these books over the holidays! @carterlavin.bsky.social @jeffspeck.bsky.social

Rustling around in TeamSnap again. Must be the Fall soccer season coming up 😀

Car Line Number System - Possip If your school has a car line and you want to re-think its efficiency, we have a car line number system lined up for you!

this problem is so bad that there are now whole new systems/technologies springing up to manage the issue of quickly matching kids to cars, eg: possip.com/car-line-num...

that's great! In my experience the master plans go well. But when you get into the actual street designs is where the battles happen. I wish you much luck!

yes! I really do think we can make progress.

Obviously people other than kids bike. But because most adults who bike choose to do so, we seem to be okay with offloading the risk of being hit by a car to them -- after all, if they wanted to be safe, they could just drive.

And in blue areas (cities + suburbs) parenting is now very intensive with the expectation being that kids will be shuttled (door to door) between school and enrichment activities.

One big reason, imo, is that kids no longer walk and bike to school and we no longer seem to feel responsible for an environment that will allow them to do that safely.

This dynamic (like most issues) is helped considerably by the fact that only the most supportive (cycling advocates) and most opposed follow along with these issues regularly.

So, it's not just status quo, it's that it's a ridiculously hard battle to get these plans through city councils and protect them from being removed once they're built.

People will come out of the woodwork to protect parking spots and their right to drive unimpeded on any city street.

Hi! Fellow Californian. In my experience, bike lanes, speed bumps and other controls designed to slow down cars and get people on bikes are some of the most controversial, hard fought topics a city will face.

Nobody’s insurance rates are safe from climate change » Yale Climate Connections Even if you haven’t suffered direct damage, you’re paying for increasingly extreme weather.

Thanks to climate change, we're barreling towards an insurance crisis, as I wrote for @climateconnections.bsky.social today. It's not just California and Florida – nobody's insurance rates are safe 🧵(1/13)

The mass firing of both new hires and recently promoted senior staff within #NOAA, including mission-critical and life-saving roles at the National Weather Service (#NWS), is profoundly alarming.
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I actually asked for (and received) 5 copies as a Christmas present so that I can hand them out to people who need this information 😆 But, seriously, it should be everywhere so I'm glad for this podcast. Can we make it into a Netflix series? Reality TV show?

Killed by a Traffic Engineer is so helpful, tysm. All those non response answers I've received from my very nice city traffic engineers about why we can't actually make our roads safe enough for kids to walk or bike to school totally make sense now! A revelation.

When asked about the invention of the sharrow, Denver engineer James Mackay, its creator, said:

"I was always under pressure to do less."

Register: Climate Change and Human Mobility Briefing Series - California Council on Science & Technology (CCST) This event convenes experts across climate change, economics, politics, and migration to address why, how, and where people are moving.

This was the kickoff of a new series about climate change and human mobility sponsored by @uofcalifornia.bsky.social The panel was impressive + there are 3 more sessions upcoming! Highly recommend: ccst.us/register-cli...

So, we’ve got to get on that, and states/private philanthropy are going to have to lead because the federal government won’t accept these kinds of projects.

While the science of climate change is understood (more C02 = more warming), adaptation-relevant science, which would model the impacts of climate change on where we live, is not.

@weatherwest.bsky.social says we need to be honest with ourselves that there is going to be more warming, and that adaptation is going to be necessary. But what will we need to do, specifically?

I've been told that the little green paint squares create a force field that stops cars from turning right into/in front of anyone using the bike lane. I'm also admiring what looks like a very skinny bike lane on the southbound side.

Stick with it! Advocating for safe spaces for walking and biking is prioritizing people -- both our lives and our communities. Not to mention the climate impacts--transit being the biggest single source of carbon pollution in the U.S.