Hi guys! I have been keeping busy traveling around giving talks and interviews about my new book, Right of Way. I made this map half to keep myself organized, but it is also a good way to follow along with what I have going on. Between last fall, when I started doing this (in person) and this fall, I have (virtually) spoken in or have a scheduled presentation in 12 cities. And that’s just for webinars that have a local group sponsoring.  Below is a full list of the press I have been doing. It is keeping me quite busy, especially as I try to manage remote kindergarten at the same time.  I really enjoy talking about this stuff though. I think/hope that comes through in my talks. One of my hopes when I wrote this book was to get a round of media attention that could cause people to step back and think about this issue in a more holistic kind of way. So it’s exciting to have this opportunity.  Here’s a list of some of the other media appearances I have done (with hotlinks): Print/Online Features Curbed USA Today Fast Company Streetsblog The Land Scene Warren Tribune (Youngstown)

It’s been six days since I got hit by a car and today was the first day I was able to walk my dog.  Getting hit by a car and being able to walk your dog six days later is pretty lucky, in the scheme of things. And that’s how I feel. Also a little depressed.  I had a pretty bad sickness — just a cold or flu or something — I was just recovering from when I got hit. So I ended up spending half of two weeks in bed which can get to you.  Someone asked me if I was going to write about getting hit by a car, since for the last few years I have been writing about other people getting hit by cars while walking and now I’ve joined the club. I was hit by an SUV no less. It’s honestly something that has always worried me, but in my worst nightmare my kids were there and luckily in this case they weren’t.  I always felt was semi likely that something like this would happen to me at some point I guess. I have been biking, etc. on streets in Ohio for a good 20

We’ve only been in business for about a year and a half at this point, but one of our early focuses has been helping assist campaigns aimed at changing federal, state and local laws to improve traffic safety.  After a recent win this week, I was feeling a little bit proud of what we’ve been a part of and I thought rounding them up would be fun. We’ve been part of some pretty successful and groundbreaking campaigns in just a short time. So in order, a little bit about the campaigns we’ve contributed to: Zero Traffic Deaths Our first campaign, right after we launched, was helping with communications on the #ZeroTrafficDeaths campaign led by a consortium of groups. The aim was to get the federal government to commit to a goal of zero traffic deaths by 2050. I was only involved with this campaign at the early stages. However, it is very exciting to see about a year after the campaign began, Pete Buttigieg made the commitment — which is an important paradigm shift in federal policy and puts us more in line with international peers and best practices (and increasingly progressive U.S. states as well). Crash Victim Rights and

Some pretty cool stuff! A little update on what’s going on over at old 3MPH HQ in the great city of Cleveland.  Our second year of business got off to a slow start thanks to corona related school closures and then a bout of pretty serious winter weather.  But now we’re back in the office things are starting to get busy again. We’re working on a couple really exciting things I wanted to share in part because they have the potential I think to really advance traffic safety and sustainability mobility in important ways, on opposite ends of the country.  Healthy Streets LA There is a very exciting campaign underway in Los Angeles, which we all know as a famously congested/car-centric city.  A group called Streets for All is trying to hold the city’s feet to the fire when it comes to implementing its groundbreaking Mobility Plan 2035, which calls for overhauling 1,500 miles of streets to make them safer and more people friendly.  Some of these important safety projects have run aground from NIMBY opposition and political stonewalling. So this initiative — Healthy Streets for All — led by citizens, has launched a petition effort to gather 68,000 signatures

Sidewalks make good sites for engagement, we think.  I follow some entrepreneurs that have big celebrations on their one year anniversary. But the truth for me is I don’t know the exact date I started this business. I had planned to launch this business before the pandemic hit — in March 2020 (LOL!). And then I found myself with no childcare due to cancelled school and so I put it off for a while.  Then in the late fall, around December, is when I would say I really started. The first thing we did was plan and host the Moving Ohio Forward Conference, a statewide sustainable transportation conference, which was held online in Mid-January.  I wasn’t tremendously confident at the beginning that my idea for starting a consultancy would work. And then when the pandemic upended everything, my confidence was even a little more fragile. But as I look back at the first year, I feel really proud and grateful — and lucky. There were so many times when things slowed down a little and I started to worry, and then something perfect it seemed would always fall right into place.  After the conference, which was our big launch event,

The whole time I’ve lived in Cleveland (more than 10 years), people have been talking about the construction of an urban trail system. The Towpath Trail was the big one, which runs along the historic path of the Erie Canal all the way down to Akron. I never paid much attention to the discussions honestly. It just seemed so far off. Like it would never happen.  Now, just in the last two years — pop, the whole thing has happened. But not just that. There are two additional segments that branch out and happen to run sort of right by where I live and — conveniently for me — my son’s school. Every week, they are cutting the ribbon on a brand new section of trail. I was riding one of them yesterday and I was just blown away. A. The execution is beautiful B. It opens up whole parts of the city to me that has previously been hidden. The Towpath in particular runs along our industrial valley, with breathtaking views of both downtown, the riverfront and our steel mill. C. Having the opportunity to ride on a trail almost daily is a huge quality of life and health

CA Statehouse via Alex Proimos, Creative Commons Yesterday, our founder, Angie Schmitt, was invited by the California Bicycle Coalition to testify before the California State Assembly’s Transportation Committee about a new bill that would decriminalize jaywalking. Below is a transcript of the testimony, which was limited to two minutes: “I am here today to support AB1238 from Assemblymember Phil Ting. Over the last 10 years we’ve seen a 50 percent increase in pedestrian deaths in the United States. One in six happen in California. Those that are killed are more likely to be Black, Hispanic, elderly, disabled, low income or some combination of thereof. The cultural impulse has been to dismiss these deaths or injuries, when they occur, as being the result of one individual who acted stupidly or made a bad choice. But in urban planning we recognize this is a systemic issue — and fault lies with the wider system which is hostile to those on foot or wheelchair. When we map these deaths, they occur in very clear patterns, along wide multi-lane suburban arterials, primarily, where traffic speeds are high and where crosswalks may be a half-mile apart. Pedestrians contend not just with a hostile built environment,

We have a new administration in Washington and U.S. DOT has been staffed up with some really exciting and progressive leaders from the industry.  We have a huge opportunity right now to reshape U.S. transportation in a way that will benefit the environment, will benefit safety and will benefit equity for generations to come.  3MPH is very excited to be working with two national clients on important federal policy campaigns. For those who have attended book lectures over the past year — these are a real opportunity for regular folks to get engaged in the kind of lasting reforms that I called for in my book Right of Way.  First up: #ZeroTrafficDeaths We are working with the Road to Zero Coalition, Vision Zero Network, and Families for Safe Streets on a campaign calling on the Biden Administration to make a commitment to zero traffic deaths by 2050. We’re publishing editorials across a wide range of outlets, from the Washington Post, to the Fresno Bee, to here’s something I wrote about how zero traffic deaths is possible for Planetizen. How you can help: You can sign our letter as an individual or an organization and share it with your networks. We

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently hosting “Pedestrian Safety Month.” I am happy to see this issue getting more attention. The agency has also received some criticism from groups like Transportation for America, for using language that shifts blame back to pedestrians. (They made the above graphic to raise their concerns.) This is something I talk about in my book. We call it victim blaming, or pedestrian shaming or windshield bias. Even among traffic safety officials there’s a resistance to acknowledging the power imbalance between drivers and pedestrians, the asymmetry of risk and the context in which pedestrians operate (which is often a hellscape).  It’s a little thing, but we need traffic safety officials like NHTSA, and the Governor’s Highway Safety Association and the state departments of transportation — the agencies charged with safety messaging — to use strong language and set clear expectations for drivers. And they refuse. If they won’t, who will?  Here are some messages — Tweet sized messages — I would like to see them embrace, just as an example. I don’t think they would be that controversial. But would at least help define appropriate behavior around pedestrians for drivers. Because anyone who has

It wasn’t my intention when I started writing my upcoming book (Right of Way, Island Press) to start a consultancy. I approached writing the book like a journalist, which is what I was at the time and what I did for the previous 14 years, both at Streetsblog, and before that at newspapers in my home state of Ohio. (With a two year break for getting a planning degree). At some point when I was conducting the research for the book though — raptly reading a book about traffic safety — I started feeling like what I was learning was pulling me in a new direction. Traffic safety effects so many people profoundly in the U.S. but that is scandalously under resourced, and under explored.  I started to think how I could help advance some of the concepts I’d been writing more directly. And I started thinking about how I could finance that kind of work. One thing this particular book (Neil Arason’s No Accident) offered as a remedy was pedestrian safety audits. He noted in the book, for example, some studies have shown they have a 10-to-one return on investment (other studies have placed the ratio even higher). I