Archives for category: Infrastructure
.
By JW Griffiths
Shot entirely on the Nokia N8 mobile phone. Winner of the Nokia Shorts competition 2011.
Agbogbloshie is a suburb of Accra, Ghana known as a destination for legal and illegal exportation and environmental dumping of electronic waste (e-waste) from industrialized nations. Often referred to as a “digital dumping ground”, millions of tons of e-waste are processed each year in Agbogbloshie
Processing electronic waste presents a serious health threat to workers at Agbogbloshie. The fumes released from the burning of the plastics and metals used in electronics are composed of highly toxic chemicals and carcinogens. Workers often inhale lead, cadmium,dioxins, furans, phthalates and brominated flame retardants.
Exposure to these fumes is especially hazardous to children, as these toxins are known to inhibit the development of the reproductive system, the nervous system and the brain.
By TRAFIK
Trafik brands themselves as Global Fixed Gear Culture, which makes this more of a how-to-lifestyle-music video than anything original or clever; nonetheless, some redeeming visual quality is salvaged through variations on urban infrastructure.
Via The Economist
Shifting up a gear: Cycling in cities
Thin air, thick smog and bad drivers make Mexico City hard going for cyclists. But a new fleet of 1,200 smart red “Ecobici” pay-as-you-go rental bikes, at 85 docking stations, marks the most ambitious recent addition to a global trend of municipally endorsed cycling. Since February 7,000 people have signed up, and between them they have taken more than 200,000 trips.
A low-tech scheme started in the French town of La Rochelle in 1974. Copenhagen launched the first big automated project in 1995. German cities, including Berlin, have tried versions paid for by mobile phone. But the most successful is the “Vélib” in Paris, with 20,000 bikes available for users with swipe-cards. In London the transport authority and Barclays Bank will launch a 6,000-bike programme on July 30th. Users can pay at one of the 400 docking stations, or use a key with a chip.
The vulnerability for most schemes is theft. Thousands of the Parisian bikes disappeared in the scheme’s early stages, turning up as far afield as Romania and Morocco. Portable locks have proved a weak point: the mandatory use of docking stations is more secure. “We were expecting people to steal them, but that hasn’t happened,” says Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico City’s mayor. Only one of the 1,200 bikes in the scheme has gone missing to date.
The paradox of urban cycling is that bad traffic is both deterrent and incentive. When demonstrations or traffic-signal failures bring Mexico’s streets to gridlock, businessmen can be seen strapping their briefcases onto Ecobicis.
Cyclists in places like London and Mexico City yearn for proper cycle lanes, of the kind commonplace in countries such as Germany. A second-best solution is the right to ride (gently) through parks and on pavements without being fined. On that score at least Mexico’s traffic police, the scourge of motorists, are charm itself.
For now, the hope is that new bike-hire schemes help raise cyclists’ numbers enough to change motorists’ behaviour—and thus erode the perception of danger that keeps people off their bikes.
Via Streetsblog, by Clarence Eckerson, Jr.
While Streetfilms was in Copenhagen for the Velo-City 2010 conference, of course we wanted to showcase its biking greatness. But we were also looking to take a different perspective then all the myriad other videos out there. Since there were an abundance of advocates, planners, and city transportation officials attending from the U.S. and Canada, we thought it’d be awesome to get their reactions to the city’s built environment and compare to bicycling conditions in their own cities.
If you’ve never seen footage of the Copenhagen people riding bikes during rush hour – get ready – it’s quite a site, as nearly 38% of all transportation trips in Copenhagen are done by bike. With plenty of safe, bicycle infrastructure (including hundreds of miles of physically separated cycletracks) its no wonder that you see all kinds of people on bikes everywhere. 55% of all riders are female, and you see kids as young as 3 or 4 riding with packs of adults.
