I was out and about by scooter a recent warm january saturday evening. Earlier in the week a few companies had been operating drilling equipment in the area. I’m not sure what they were doing, but they were scattered all about the neighborhood. The work was done, but traffic cones were also spread all around the neighborhood. Sitting on the curbs and such. TODO: add link to photo album of the before/after I’ve done a lot with cones before, of course. I’ve a refined process. technically compliant with any formal body that deems to consider itself authoritative. There were many, many more traffic cones in the vicinity than I used. I set the cones up on the way to a local climbing gym, did a board session, checked in on them on the way home. Every cone was exactly where I placed it. Shout out Silva construction, for sure, for the cones. So, the next morning, sunday morning, I was at cheesman, and from the park, one can see down maybe six blocks of 10th ave, and I could see that even the next day, the cones remained. TODO link to photos down 10th from cheesman? so I did the park thing, then walked from the park to corona, where I’d placed the cones the night before. I passed more cones, and dotted those into the road in spots that caused delination and a bit of attention to be attracted. Vast improvements for everyone. I decided to treat an adjacent junction with another bunch of cones, and thats what this video is of: It’s in a 4x timelapse. visible changes brought about Some phenomina is hard to even write about. It’s best seen with the video slider going back and forth, showing something about the path a car took on a turn or whatever. But it’s the internet, we all like lists, here’s a list: the changed width of the crossings. originally 30 feet wide on all four sides. post-treatment crossings reduced in size to half or less. reduced width means reduced time spent in the crossing. Much less space one has to be concerned about being inside of. Sharper delineations between the spaces. I reduced the area of the junction and increased the vehicle throughput, so these few cones improved the vehicles per square meter per minute calculation. Even if ‘only’ by taking it from say 60 square meters to 40 square meters. (i’m making up those figures, I cannot eyeball the dimensions. TODO: perform an actual vehicles/sq meter/minute calculation for the before/after), the efficiency would be proportionately improved. I note that it could be reduced in size quite a bit more than I reduced it in the video. before-size: 260 square meters. After-size: 1631 the sounds improved. It used to be that many vehicles were accelerating through the junction. It’s one block from a traffic light and super market exit and it looks super open and wide. With the cones, almost every vehicle coasted or at worst very gently accelerated through it. At one point in the video, one sees a vehicle on downing stopping to let passing pedestrians. my ideal junction treatment turns it into a ‘shared space’ (vs a car-dominated space) where the larger/motorized vehicles defer to smaller/non-motorized/leg-powered vehicles. (counting walking people as vehicles here) the experience for turning left and right off of downing is much improved improved turn radius for vehicles going right. Less taking the turn wide and carrying too much speed. Lots of dangerous situations created by those right turns. similar thing with left turns, especially because of the shadow. Bad visibility, really dangerous to carry too much speed into. The cones telegraph the correct turn, every single driver rallied and landed it. There’s a tremendous rear-ending danger in the original intersection design.2 If a car were turning right, for instance, and suddenly stopped, noticing a pedestrian in the space in front of it, and got rear ended, it could end up bouncing into the space the person was occupying anyway. this turning/rear-ending dynamic is common on junctions around denver/the greater united states. It’s made better when the trailing/potentially rear-ending vehicle knows that it cannot overtake and pass closely the vehicle ahead of it. These cones clearly telegraph that. many more things. manifesting Repair as a Service In this capitalistic hellscape we live in, I could imagine Repair as a Service, sorta like Software as a Service. (in some circles, SaaS is the stuff) if something were a service, that means it can be purchased, and this is america, so if something is available for purchase, that means it’s available at all. Currently, however, one cannot, to my knowledge, quite purchase a repaired junction, the same way one can purchase a repair to some commonly repaired physical items, like vehicles, houses, devices. In the spirit of write it now and the iterative nature of the internet, here’s two different options plausible ‘junction repair as a service’ solutions, and everything technically works so I can get this page live. the ‘let josh truthfully say at any point in the future “someone has hired me/is hiring me at this very moment to run a pop-up experiment right here”:’ option: 👉 purchase ‘Josh’s Junction Coning’ via Stripe. google pay/apple pay works A three-cheers-for-capitalism option. Includes above plausibility beard, and some recorded outputs and magical calculations: 👉 purchase ‘Josh’s Junction Repair Writeup’ via Stripe. google pay/apple pay accepted Additional Reading prior coning adventures the traffic bean calculating vehicle efficiency metrics Footnotes I popped this open on google earth. Not the clearest satellite images, this is my rough interpretation. Still, 260 meters to 163 meters is almost a 40% reduction in size. the junction was never ‘maxed out’ in terms of vehicles moving through it for a time frame, so a direct count of vehicles per minute doesn’t quite make sense, but the principal of it’s efficiency being unaffected even as the space required is reduced by over a third is, I think, clear enough. Here’s much more about this vehicles per square meter per minute value ↩ and of course ‘danger still persists’ with this treatment. ‘spot fixing’ a mobility network isn’t a thing. One fixes a route, for a vehicle class, at minimum ‘legs’ is a vehicle class, and ‘the other side of the street’ is a valid route, but most trips will include at least a few junctions in sequence. This treatment is best applied to junctions in sequence, a little of the video I have shows an adjacent junction a block away I fixed. I think three fixed junctions in a row is a nice thing, so doing two in a row is getting close. To appreciate three of these in a row starts with experiencing one. ↩

Introduction I’ve long liked to accrue certain lists of things I like within certain categories. to list appreciable books invites a similar list for movies and movie-like things. It feels strange to list all of these movies like this, in some ways, especially the first two documentaries, juxtaposed against some of the other recommendations I have around here. Some of these shows I found or watched on Netflix, or Jeff Bezos’ internet. Some I searched the pirate bay, and found them there. Example: https://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=homebodies+1974&cat=0. I’m using Folx as my torrent manager most recently, and NordVPN. Two documentaries I just finished an incredible documentary. One of the more substantial I’ve ever seen. By a distinctively-named Joshua Oppenheimer. Full warning, it’s about recent acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, a coordinated campaign of mass killing, in Indonesia. The Act of Killing The first is about recent, recent events in Indonesia. The Act of Killing, 2012, IMDB. It’s worth skimming the wikipedia page Useful additional contextual reading could be the book The Jakarta Method, and How to Hide An Empire 1 The Look of Silence Oppenheimer did another documentary, after that one, with a similar theme. The Look of Silence, 2014 Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentaries repeatedly land in unexpected ways. he shows interviews of the people who carried out the killing campaigns in Indonesia, and movies they direct about what they did. They speak very openly, and approvingly, of their own actions. The last ten minutes of The Look of Silence were distinctive. 2 Scooter-themed Of course I will find something arbitrarily more interesting than otherwise if it involves a Vespa-style scooter, in any way. I like scooters, of course. I once looked through a few lists of movies having scooters in them, and have since watched at least a few from the list. That’s how I encountered some of the following. Super Cub Super Cub is about that super classic motorcycle-style vehicle that is very similar to a scooter. It’s a peaceful show (sorta gives Studio Ghibli at times) about a kid who gets a moped and the unfolding of adventures around it. I found it on Crunchyroll. Here’s a youtube video about the series. The Interpreter From the same list (‘all movies that feature scooters in any way’), I encountered The Interpreter, 2005, and quite liked it. It ended up having satisfying and subversive messages throughout, in my opinion. I have a page of notes I took, as I watched it, I might add here or in it’s own post. The protagonist’s mode of transportation is a scooter, which is how it got on the list of movies I considered watching. I ended up liking the movie a lot more than I expected! The person’s use of the scooter is unrealistic in only one way - at one point there is a vehicular chase, and the people in the car are able to keep up with the person on the scooter. I kept wishing the scooter user would pass through a gap too narrow for the car and ‘solved’ the problem that way, instead of failing to utilize it’s primary beneficial attribute. I liked many other parts of the movie, too. Amalie wikipedia 2001 French-language romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet absolutely delightful in 100 ways. One of the best I’ve ever seen. Totally unexpected. I was moved, watching it. The description only touches on a portion of what is delightful about it. It’s about love, indeed. Robert-Moses-themed movies I still maintain Robert Moses as a delightful conceptual compression for ‘why are things the way they are’ (I.E, why do the greater united states not have any functioning inter/intra-city rail system? why are highways virtually always approved with dollars and permissions and signed contracts and rights of way, seemingly of their own volition? Why is the american urban transit system devoid of the people that built the tram systems of the 1920s?) Robert moses ran those kinds of people out of the industry. Not only did he employ thousands of engineers, and would fire anyone who advocated for rail transit solutions, but he would instruct the people he issued contracts to, to not hire those people either. The theme here is movies directly featuring Moses and/or his slum clearance/urban renewal/ethnic cleansing-via-displacement programs. Often enough reading about it feels very academic, talking about him as an urban planner. He’s so worth discussing because his effect on the world was not academic at all. I discuss Robert Moses quite a bit more here Motherless Brooklyn, 2019, Edward Norton Motherless Brooklyn, 2019 film written, directed, produced by edward norton a bunch of well known actors, including the person playing robert moses himself. I wish I could cut the scene that is lifted directly from the power broker. Robert Moses (called Moses Randolph, in this movie) is in a very distinctive way bullying the mayor into giving him another board seat, for instance. It’s all about Robert Moses, and the way he was destroying a neighborhood and community in pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing. Told in a film-noir murder-mystery style. I’ve not (yet) read the book it’s based on (the book titled motherless brooklyn, but I have read the other book it’s obviously based on, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York City) “I Won’t Go” a 1960s-era 25 minute comedy show, titled “I Won’t Go”, available on youtube from the 1960s, depicting a 1950s-era event - the destruction of housing in order to make way for a piece of a highway, an approach to the George Washington Bridge. I cannot help but think of the land of Palestine, and the many different forms of settler colonialism/occupation pushed into that area. The kinds of justifications used for this sort of action, all around the world. the many similar themes (bulldozers, the different authorities and permits and men with guns) about an entire municipality and police force evicting an old lady from her house, and her various ways of trying to remain in her own house. Episode ends with her pointing out to everyone where her house used to be, under what was then turned into an approach road for one of Robert Moses’ bridges. Homebodies, 1974 satirical comedy horror Homebodies, 1974 satirical comedy horror film The film centers on a group of elderly residents in a Cincinnati tenement building who resort to murder when their building is condemned in the wake of urban redevelopment. (wikipedia) It is, in short, a close up and personal, look at what it was like for the residents of a single building, as they were being made to be without housing. Please note how similar the scenes in that movie are, and the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the palestinian people. The buildings, the torn up streets. It’s a lovely film. To find it online, something like this might work. Or Jeff Bezos’s internet, i believe. Lots of bulldozers, urban renewal, wrecking balls, destruction of neighborhoods for highways and luxury apartments. This movie is entirely centered in robert moses’ world. So many poignant scenes. A cool depiction of a certain use of power, defensive power, perhaps. No particular theme Maybe anime? Delicious in Dungeon Delicious in Dungeon A delightful show, prominently featuring cooking, food prep, foraging, creative problem solving, and lots of other nice things. It keeps delivering delight. Suzume Suzume is a delightful film in 100 different ways. I’ve seen it at least three or four times, probably will watch it at least three or four more times. The Way of the House Husband wikipedia, also delightful. Synopsis: Tatsu, an infamous and feared yakuza boss nicknamed “the Immortal Dragon”, retires from crime to become a househusband so that he can support Miku, his kyariaūman wife. The episodic series depicts a variety of comedic scenarios, typically wherein Tatsu’s banal domestic work as a househusband is juxtaposed against his intimidating personality and appearance, and his frequent run-ins with former yakuza associates and rivals. It’s delightful, at least the first season or two. I feel like I remember some of the later episodes of the latest season sometimes trailing off, but overall an incredible and delightful show. Subversive in delightful ways! Charlie Wilson’s War The story of a person named Charlie, and the war he wanted and got. Charlie Wilson’s War on IMDB. Based on the book by the same title. Similar theme be said to emerge with Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. I believe a movie or a show was released, based on the book, but I’ve not seen it. Anything by Chalmers Johnson is thematically similar, like Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire America’s/american attitude towards the rest of the world is similar to ‘its/their’ attitude towards native people (genocide, displacement, reservation-ization, not unlike Palestine) and the enslaved people that found themselves existing within ‘its’ borders, among “them”. War, death, enslavement. What a disaster to have unfolded on this continent. I wish it had never been like this. Additional Reading Recommended Reading (and watching) A Love Letter to Studio Ghibli Footnotes I view all acts of mass killings as some enactment of supremacy. I dislike the concept of refinements in the USA of some sorts of supremacy as ‘white supremacy’. The phrase ‘white’ cedes too much to the supremacists. Supremacists of all flavors commit acts of dehumanization, of all flavors, against all/most/enough people they encounter, and themselves, of course. I’ve always been interested in how and why (and THAT) things go wrong. Have you yet crossed paths with the Hutu massacre of the people of Tutsi heritage/ethnicity/class? The 1991 genocide in rwanda? in a small number of days, many people were murdered, often-enough by machete. It’s close enough to the distinctively american tradition of night riding. ↩ I’d first written horrifying, in a slow, unfolding way. The subject, who murdered a lot of people and then made a documentary about it, determined that because he played a role in a movie, being pretend-tortured and pretend killed, he had appreciation for the experiences of his victims, and thus was forgiven for his actions!!! Maybe I’m wrong. You watch it and tell me if you get something else. ↩

still sorta drafty, but also its entirely possible the point is easily apprehended, and I’m way over-explaining Introduction Elsewhere, I’ve been referring to a ‘vehicles per square meter per minute’ calculation, when talking about junctions on mobility networks. The first place was this substack piece, A Pattern of Repair: The Traffic Bean, then more recently this traffic bean concept applied specifically to 17th & Monaco piece. I’ve noticed wishing for better ways to calculate some of the stunning differences in efficiency of certain road junctions. I’ve put this together partially by cutting the relevant pieces of other posts, and aggregating it here. In some circles, it’s necessary or helpful to be able to put on a very engineering-coded hat. Remove all other components of a conversation, and make some possibly judgy comparisons between things. If one was doing that, one could imagine a metric for evaluating junction efficiency, for comparing different junctions, or junction designs against each other and themselves. It allows someone to say something like: configuration A gave 1 vehicle per 20 square meters per minute throughput. Configuration B gave 3 vehicles per 20 square meters per minute, and was preferable in many other ways, so we’re going with configuration B. or: the current junction moves .5 vehicles per 10 square meters per minute It allows two different junctions, of different sizes, to be compared. If one junction moves 30 cars per minute, and a different design moves 45 cars per minute, which one is better? If the 2nd junction is twice the square meters of the first one, it’s less efficient per square meter, even though it moves more vehicles. How To Calculate Vehicles per Square Meter per Minute every junction moves vehicles, and can move a certain number of vehicles through it, in a certain time, and that junction has a certain shape/area. First, determine the size of the junction I think this is the easy part. Crack open Google Earth, and draw boxes around junctions. I’ve got a bunch of examples of other junctions here: https://zoningverydifferentthanours.substack.com/p/traffic-congestion-as-solvable-part-510 There’s a few different ways a junction could be shaped. Everything is full of tradeoffs! Consider reading that piece (or the entire series) as context for this junction efficiency metric. It lets one say: such-and-such junction is 290 square feet/26 sq meters, and such-and-such number of cars moved through it in five minutes. (3-5 minutes is probably the minimum time you’d want to do counts on a junction to get a per-minute time. One probably doesn’t need to count for a full hour to get an accurate time) If a junction was 600 square meters, and in a 5 minute time at rough hour counted it as moving 150 cars, we could calculate it’s ‘vehicles per square meter per minute’ value. in this case, it would be: v/m²/min = 150 vehicles / 600 sq meters × 5 minutes = 150 / 3000 = 0.05 thus, it could be expressed as: .05 vehicles per sq meter per minute or could be expressed in square meters per minute per vehicle: 1 vehicle per 20 m² per minute Who knows yet what the actual values are we might see for a junction. The expression seems reasonable enough, aids in reasoning about different junctions or plans. I think it might make more intuitive sense once we start looking at certain junctions. Calculating vehicles per square meter per minute of the 17th & Monaco junction What do you think the value might be for the junction in question, in terms of vehicles per square meter per minute? How many square meters do you think the junction is? These are the two questions I posed in the above drone video. Without actually doing the counts or looking yet at google earth, my predictions are: the junction size is probably about 40 meters in both directions/on two sides, which is 1600 square meters as far as throughput: The vehicles in 5 minutes is probably ~150. Thus, 150 vehicles / 1600 square meters / 5 minutes would be how many vehicles per square meter per minute? ≈ 0.01875 vehicles per square meter per minute gonna round that to .02, which is two percent of a vehicle per square meter per minute! Or flipped: 1 vehicle per ~53.3 m² per minute rounding it to 1 vehicle per 54 square meters per minute. Or 1 vehicle per 580 square feet per minute I contend that 1 vehicle per square meter per minute (1 vehicle per 10 square feet per minute) is a better reasonable expectation for an efficient, performant junction. I’ll accept getting half-way there as a mid-point. :) this 1 of a vehicle per square meter per minute goal would be like two orders of magnitude higher than it currently is. that’s a ludicrous improvement, i say impossible in the USA, but i’ll settle for half of that improvement. 1 half of a vehicle per square meter per minute, or 1 vehicle per two square meters per minute. This is, I think, realistic. A typical sedan is 90 square feet. 1 square meter is 11 feet. so, a normal vehicle is about 10 square meters. or 10% per square meter per minute. This isn’t the first intersection I’ve done this evaluation for, I’m developing an ability to estimate, the last time I did the math on Colfax & Franklin, the final figure was atrocious. Like 2% of a vehicle per meter per minute. :( I’m going to watch the video again and count the total vehicles for a five minute period. The video is running at a 3x timelapse, in a continuous fashion, so every vehicle can be counted. It was taken at the peak of a morning rush hour. On my scooter I’m unimpeded by traffic, so it’s effortless for me to pop out to somewhere, even when traffic is maxed out. five minutes is 300 seconds, and since the video is a 3x time lapse, that means I’m going to count the total number of vehicles that pass through the marked polygon in 100 ‘video seconds’: Before we start counting, lets determine exactly how large the junction is: Lets see the square foot value for both of those polygons. We’ll do the math all the way through for both, of course. Above is the view of this junction in google earth. Next I’ll use the measuring tool to open a polygon drawing menu. The image below is what this looks like: So the ‘larger’ polygon is 1691 square meters. Lets look at the smaller option: Simple enough, the smaller polygon is 1230 square meters. I’ll pause here for now, but the next step will be to measure the vehicles entering that shape. I’ll use the video I mentioned before, starting from when the intersection comes into view at the 15 second mark and continuing to the 115 second/1:55 mark, which is an equivalent of 5 minutes of real-time car counting. How I do the counts Feel free to check my math or methodology. I’m sorta counting by light cycle. Pausing and replaying sections as needed, counting all the vehicles in that particular part of the light cycle. 13 cars in initial light cycle, as the junction pans into view 38 cars on the southbound leg 9 cars on the northbound leg, ‘second blob’ after the start of the counting. 11 more on the next cycle going east 9 vehicles on the westbound cycle 13 more vehicles on the east-bound cycle, some turning south on monaco, some going west on 17th, some ending up north-bound monaco. I’m at the 59 second mark on the video, that’s about half-way through the five clock minute sample. We’ve got 93 cars that I’ve counted going through the intersection at this point. I’m absolutely going to count twice. I’ve also paused to serve myself some food. Dinner’s ready. […] 32 more cars on the next southbound monaco light cycle 14 cars on the same northbound monaco light cycle (approx 59 seconds to 1:23 in the video) 9 more cars on the westbound cycle 8 cars on the matching eastbound cycle ooh, the video pans away for a few seconds, so need to pause the vehicle counting pans back into sight at 1:39, there was 5 seconds of missed light cycle time (15 real-time seconds. I’ll extend the ‘end point’ that we time to by 5 seconds. We’re now going to the two minute mark) 27 cars in the south bound monaco cycle, that’s visible 11 cars north bound almost at time 2 more eastbound 17th 7 more westbound. We’re at time, lets count it up: 110 more vehicles, in this second half of counting. There was 93 in the first half, so 203 vehicles passed through this junction in that five minute time span. “about 203” is true, might be 195, could I have over-counted? Or 208, maybe I under-counted. And maybe under some certain situations, like a bit more traffic from one direction, more cars would have gone through the junction because there WAS some time it was green and no one was using it. oh, what a sidebar, the amount of time a junction direction is usable but empty, or the time there are people waiting to use the junction, AND the junction is completely empty, as a percentage of the time it’s in operation. The junction was completely empty while there were vehicles waiting to enter 28% of the time or something like that. So, like we’re discussing, how many vehicles in 5 minutes? 203 vehicles in five minutes Let’s plug these values into the formula: 203 vehicles | 5 minutes | 1690 square meters 0.0240 vehicles per square meter per minute Or flipped: 1 vehicle per 41 m² per minute 41 square meters is about the size of: A small studio apartment (6.4 m x 6.4 m) Half of a tennis court A single parking space (with buffer) plus some sidewalk Half of a tennis court to move a single vehicle in a minute? Seems ‘obviously inefficient’ to me. The way to make it more efficient, at first pass, would be to simply find a smaller area for the junctino. A square piece of asphalt controlled by lights does the job, sort of, but so too would a much smaller, circular junction with access/departure points for all directions of travel as needed. earlier I said, I contend that 1 vehicle per square meter per minute is a reasonable accomplishment. How might we get closer? The first pass would be to improve the number of vehicles that can use the junction, in a few ways, and reduce by a significant percentage the amount of space directly allocated to the junction. If we could get 30% more vehicles through it, and it was half the size, we’d have accomplished technically a stunning increase in efficiency. A first pass would be to reduce the junction size. Ironically, to reduce the size (and allow the continuous flow type design) would probably also increase the number of vehicles that can fit through the junction, but the number doesn’t have to budge for this to still be a gain in efficiency. If the junction was smaller, and the volume of vehicles stayed the same, the efficiency would obviously go up, relative to the reduction in junction size. For instance, compare the following: 203 vehicles | 5 minutes | 1690 square meters 203 vehicles | 5 minutes | 550 square meters 203 / 5 * 1690? 203 / 5 * 550 203 / 8450 = 0.024 203 / 2750 = 0.054  40.6 vehicles/minute 1690 sq meters = 0.02 vehicles per square meter per minute 40.6 vehicles/minute 550 sq meters = 0.072 vehicles per square meter per minute That second value would be 3x the efficiency: 0.23704142 animation of what 3x efficiency could look 3x the efficiency could be achieved purely by making the junction much smaller - 500 square meters vs 1600 square meters. Here’s a way this could be visualized. Do you see a the way that this exhibits better efficiency? This is only one possible way the difference can be viewed, obviously. This isn’t how junctions work exactly, but it perfectly shows one of the dimensions of efficiency improvements. Intersection Efficiency Comparison If you had limited space and needed junctions in three different places, and nothing else about the space could be used for anything BUT moving these vehicles, which would you want more of? Both intersections process 203 vehicles in 5 minutes const canvas = document.getElementById('efficiencyCanvas'); const ctx = canvas.getContext('2d'); const zones = [ { x: 50, y: 100, w: 300, h: 200, area: 1690, color: '#d0eaff', label: 'Large Zone (1690 m²)' }, { x: 450, y: 100, w: 150, h: 200, area: 550, color: '#ffd6d6', label: 'Small Zone (550 m²)' }, ]; const totalVehicles = 203; const duration = 5 * 60 * 1000; // 5 minutes in ms const vehicleRadius = 4; const vehicleSpeed = 0.5; // pixels per frame let vehicles = []; function spawnVehicle(zone) { return { zone, x: zone.x, y: zone.y + Math.random() * zone.h, dx: vehicleSpeed, color: 'black', }; } function drawZone(zone) { ctx.fillStyle = zone.color; ctx.fillRect(zone.x, zone.y, zone.w, zone.h); ctx.strokeStyle = 'black'; ctx.strokeRect(zone.x, zone.y, zone.w, zone.h); ctx.fillStyle = 'black'; ctx.font = '14px sans-serif'; ctx.fillText(zone.label, zone.x + 10, zone.y - 10); } function drawVehicle(v) { ctx.beginPath(); ctx.arc(v.x, v.y, vehicleRadius, 0, Math.PI * 2); ctx.fillStyle = v.color; ctx.fill(); } function update() { ctx.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height); zones.forEach(drawZone); vehicles.forEach(v => { v.x += v.dx; drawVehicle(v); }); vehicles = vehicles.filter(v => v.x { const rate = totalVehicles / duration; if (Math.random() My desire with the traffic bean isn’t even necessarily to move more cars through - it’s to reduce certain forms of pollution, difficulty, distress, waste, excesses. I think of the potential harm to everyone of a crashing car as a form of pollution. Conversation with the people who live in that house indicate that everyone has become extremely aware of all sounds/implications of passing vehicles. One notes intrusive thoughts when one hears the sound of a whining, high-speed engine, wondering if it’ll take the turn or crash into a building. click here to read about how this plan handles the wide range of potential inbound speeds Different ways the efficiency could be expressed ≈ 0.081 vehicles per square meter per minute Or flipped: 1 vehicle per ~12 m² per minute Part of the reason the traffic bean would be so much more effective than a light-controlled junction is there is no need for the junction to ever be completely empty, while there is anyone queued up to use it. So, a traffic bean allows anyone to go if there is room for them to proceed, no waiting around for a light to change. The space needed would be JUST a single lane in a large enough circle/bean shape to wrap around the center island, which would be be ‘hollow’, the inner space being returned to non-car uses. It being hollow like this would allow the junction size to be considered even smaller. Instead of a fully enclosed volume of space being allocated to the junction, JUST a unified connecting travel path the width of a medium-sized car lane running in a circle. The inside and outside would be unavailable to cars, so the junction square footage could be so much smaller. There’s some image mock-ups below. I’m thinking lots of space could be carved out, on the inside and outside of the ‘bean’ thing, which is how I’m getting to such a low square meter value: 260 vehicles 5 minutes 400 square meters An audacious goal Lets see if a workable junction of that size could be achieved. Can we replace this 1600 sq meter junction with a 400 sq meter junction that moves even more cars per minute? If so, it would give us: 0.13 vehicles per square meter per minute Or flipped: 1 vehicle per ~7.7 m² per minute Which might be good enough for now. That gets us the 10x improvement I want. It’s such a ludicrous improvement, that even if it came with zero other benefits, it would be worth trying, but in reality this traffic bean thing comes with TONS of other benefits. An order-of-magnitude-improvement on efficiency, larger potential throughput, and reductions in all forms of emissions (noise, tailpipe, tire rubber microplastic, brake dust). (this is the result of the slow, non-rushed procession of vehicles through the junction, please refer to the poynton videos I have elsewhere on the page) Achieving a 400 square meter junction to get this junction, we’d want something bean shaped, with the inner shape hollowed out, like a doughnut. This frees up lots of square meters. The following shape is 147 sq meters: So, this inside space can be subtracted from the outer space. Lets jot down a shape that could work for the outside. It needs to be only a single lane wide, with entry/exit points wherever needed. How would you feel about this shape? its 360 sq meters, which of course includes the 147 sq meters we’re gonna count as ‘for the people’ and not as space for cars: its 360 sq meters. so, less the inner area that doesn’t need to be counted, 360 sq meters (outside shape) - 147 square meters (inside shape) = 213 square meters I had proposed that this junction could be 400 square meters, and we’ve used only a little more than half. I don’t think it will take 200 square meters to provide the access points for vehicles. the main shape could be clear now, I think, thus ‘the vibe of what I speak’. Lots of the remaining space would need to be ‘shaped down’ with traffic cones, until the right shape was found. Here’s a very crude example: The red inner lines are 11 feet long, which is certainly not a wide lane, but isn’t super narrow, either. The dimensions here are pretty comfortable, even for commercial vehicles, I think. A normal sedan is almost 6 feet wide (and 14 feet long) A cement truck is 9.5 feet wide, including the mirrors, or 8.5 feet not including mirrors. The above was my super wonky first mockup. Can you see what I’m aiming for, even as it’s obviously not the exact right shape? The junction has sorta widely-separated inputs and outputs, so this is a sorta extreme example of the paths that would be ‘carved out’ of the existing junction space. Additional Reading the traffic bean my first pass at this calculation, looking at a junction near my house “Traffic Congestion” as Solvable, Part 4: Junction Repair: Decrease Dangerous Complexity by Increasing Safe Complexity Traffic Congestion as Solvable, Part 3: Intro to Path Shaping Footnotes

Sometimes I’ve told people “I ride with Asian scooter norms.” or “I ride with Taiwanese and Balinese scooter norms”. Here’s what I mean by this statement. a ‘norm’ is ‘something common, accepted, sometimes codified in law, but certainly accepted as ‘right’ or ‘acceptable’ or ‘ethical’. There’s a distinctive vibe on scooters in Bali, and since I’ve spent a bunch of time there (partially because of their lovely scooter norms!) I brought with me lots of habits and skills from Bali, and some of the scooter-specific social/technological innovations common in Taiwan. Since I ride in the USA in ways affected by what’s common in Bali. I also do some ‘mental imports’ of norms from Taiwan in some specific ways. Interesting scooter movement patterns noticed in Taiwan Lets discuss some norms common to Taiwan, first. I once had a 24 hour layover there, and it wasn’t my first time in the city, so I already knew I was looking forward to exploring it. The first time I’d been to Taiwan, I’d only a few times ridden a 50cc scooter in Greece on a few days long climbing trip. I didn’t particularly enjoy the experience, it sorta soured me on scooters, overall. The vehicle was loud and rattly and barely got even just me up hills, let alone me and a passenger and gear. Years later, I learned, in an experiential way, that a 125cc scooter can be a very different experience, much improved. I then ended up with a 170cc scooter, and loved it, I still have it, have ridden it everywhere. So, this time in Taipei, I had the motorcycle endorsement, and a new/updated international drivers license, and I had plenty of experience on my scooter in the USA, I’d ridden my 170cc scooter to Canada and back from Denver. I’d brought my gloves, my mask, ear plugs, various things to make the riding comfortable, as I planned on making regular use of rental scooters. the place I stayed was next door to a scooter rental place, it was cheap, and I love riding scooters around, and found everything about it interesting. For instance, it’s nearly impossible to rent a scooter, or even a motorcycle, in the USA. bummer. here’s a link to a map that shows my exact trip around for the day. Some of the line is the fast train from the airport.. Here’s an image of what opens on the map, if you click the above link: Taiwan has exceptional scooter norms, and most of the people moving around are on scooters. Most of the space is still given to/taken up by the small number of people in very large cars, but, unlike the norms of the greater united states, the cities were never quite torn up (‘urban renewal’) with car colonialization quite the same. Taiwan’s mobility network is still over-affected by American road norms, of course. The Scooter Box A common feature in some junctions, especially junctions of a certain size, is a box painted on the ground ahead of where the cars and large vehicles stop, where all the scooter riders collect. Click this link to open a google street view image of a junction in Taipei. See the scooters in the painted scooter box? There is a scooter logo painted inside the box, it’s a ubiquitous feature of the environment. It makes things better for everyone in so many ways. Scooters filter to this box through stopped traffic, and then they can go in a blob when they light changes. (which changes a second early for scooters vs. regular cars) I treat american intersections similarly, the (usually empty) crosswalk space functions for me as ‘the scooter box’. If there are people in the crosswalk, I’ll still go to the front, I’ll just stay out of the crosswalk until it’s empty. The ‘box turn’ strategy for making certain left turns To go left on certain roads, in Taiwan, one first goes right. Or proceeds around the junction with the shape of a box, but different than the above ‘scooter box’. Regardless, I use the concept when crossing American junctions, especially anything that seems like an arterial. Left turns on arterials, in particular, are very difficult/dangerous, or at least can be, and this box turn is a reliable problem solving strategy. Here’s a bunch of youtube videos explaining this concept: taiwan left turn, youtube. This video is particularly nice, the embed starts at the 43 second mark: Here’s my written explanation: for certain junctions of certain geometries/dynamics, to go left, one first goes right. the junction is usually marked with a sign, which means ‘it is not expected that you collect on the left to go left, but on the right’. As one enters the junction, one pulls their scooter to a sometimes painted box, at the front-most part of the column of traffic waiting to proceed straight. When the light changes for them, they go straight, so do you, and it’s as if you’d gone left through the junction. Another way of phrasing it: where there is no access to a a protected left turn, to prevent otherwise having to wait in a risky spot, darting through gaps in traffic (something so common with american intersections). one pulls to the front of the line of traffic waiting at the light to proceed straight. When it’s their turn, you go with them. It’s very unenjoyable to feel ‘pinned’ between fast traffic driving straight at you, as you’re waiting for a gap in one or two lanes, to go left, while having fast traffic passing by on the right side, continuing, because they are not going left. this is all solved by the traffic bean, by the way. Making every junction sorta roundabout-ish, with the right curve geometries to get a first-in-first out vehicle flow. The junctions can be made smaller, and can serve more vehicles at a smoother, more interleaved rate. my fantasy is to be able to say ‘coming soon to a junction near you’, plausibly. 1 Here’s what that alternative, a quick right turn to obtain a left turn, looks like: Painted on the ground, ahead of even the aforementioned scooter box, even closer to the junction, there is another square, it’s the collection point for scooters wanting to make a left turn. Thus, one first makes a right turn and stop at the very front of the traffic waiting for the light to change (in this box painted on the ground). Then, they wait the rest of the light cycle, out of the flow of traffic When the light changes and turns green for them, they now get to go through the junction with all the other scooter riders, just as protected as could be. I use this strategy to make left turns sometimes on my scooter in the states. There’s lots of signage for this in Taiwan, and after experiencing the first one, it was easy, peaceful, safe. I found riding my scooter around Taipei to be quite peaceful and safe. The Pre-green Because all scooters collect at the scooter box, they have better views to the cross streets, and are smaller and do best moving as clumps anyway. The light counts down, and in some different ways will turn green for scooters before it turns green for cars. (in the videos from the box turn/left turn section, a few different green light countdowns are visible) I call it ‘taking the pre-green’, and is something I do in America, often enough. Some junctions will turn green for pedestrians crossing a second or two before turning green for cars. I’ll treat the pedestrian walk as a green light for me on my scooter, if I want. I never assume that cross traffic is stopping because of a light, by the way, I watch vehicles pointed at me/where I want to be very carefully. but wait there is more So, I’ll take the honest pre-green, too. It still looks red in some ways, in some directions, and I’ve met some timer in my head and I go. I know when the light is going to change, especially because I’m so far to the front of the intersection I can easily see the light for the other direction of traffic. I know when it goes yellow, red, and I can stare straight down the line of traffic. Some of the junctions I’ve gone through thousands of times. I can tell (and indeed always note) if there is a vehicle, and if there is a vehicle, I note if the speed is changing or the same, what it is, where, and so much more. intricacies of where the driver’s head is pointed (even if it’s not relevant to me), or I might note whatever path they’re taking across whatever stretch of asphalt they’re on. If they seem attentive or not. Anyway, if there is no car especially, I’ll ‘take the pre-green’ and will advance through the junction before the light turns green for the larger vehicles, as is common in Taiwan. I have a well-calibrated and sensitive process I use to go through junctions, safely. I have itchy brake fingers, I rarely rush. When I’m alone and on familiar paths, and it’s early in the morning perhaps, like 6:30a, I sometimes ride with a different energy than if I have a passenger, or a load of groceries, or it’s at night or it’s rush hour instead. Honestly, I’d rather not be perceived, so to anyone who’s ever seen me on my scooter and felt personally affronted (this has happened at least a few times), to you I’d say: Honestly, I wish I wasn’t there, then, for you to have to have seen me either. And if I were there, I wish you didn’t even notice me. Better luck next time, to both of us. Can I tell you a little about robert moses? He’s sorta why the roads are the way they are, and the way that ‘enforcement’ works on them the way that it does. So, from Taipei I bring the concept of the bike box to the USA. As well as the ‘left turn via bike box’ strategy. This contributes to my own safety, as a few common ways of getting injured on a vehicle like a scooter is getting rear ended by someone not seeing you, as they’re stopping. I never stop behind a stopped car, and rarely in front of moving cars, I’m thus ineligible for this sort of accident. Masking Norms It’s odd to me in the USA that wearing masks when on/near roads isn’t more common. It’s ubiquitous in Asia, and I now wear a mask 100% of the time I’m on my scooter. It’s like earplugs, to me. Ubiquitous, I store at least one mask in my scooter seat at all times, next to my rain layer. Here’s a long thing about my head/lung/skin protection norms. Balinese innovations around scooter movements Bali is a pretty mountainous place, so lots of the cleverness of Bali’s mobility network is in the narrow, winding paths. Entire parking garages can be fit in a space smaller than two american parking spaces. This section could be 30 points long. Maybe it’ll grow with time. I have lots of video footage from Bali, I’ll add it here eventually. The ‘green for scooters first’ light cycle Often enough on the occasional light-mediated road junctions in Bali, one notices that the red lights blink red/white a few times before before they turn green. Sometimes similar to things visible in Taiwan, sometimes different. When the light starts blinking red/white (sorta a 3-2-1 countdown to the green light), the scooters can go, then when the light turns green, the large vehicles can go. in the USA, when I am on my scooter, I might treat intersections as if they’re equipped with the same feature. Because I am so close to the front of the intersection (see prior point, choosing to hang out in the bike-box/cross-walk) I can easily see long distances in both directions, and I always know exactly when the light will change, thus can choose to give myself pre-emptive green. 2 Making excellent usage of small spaces, parking edition Bali sees endless creativity with what can be packed on a scooter, where scooters can be ridden/fit, like gates and doors and ramps, and how they can be parked. (sorta anywhere) Scooters are small, can be easily moved, even if just a few inches, when parked and locked. Any event or venue or store or compound had functionally infinite parking, on site, mere steps from the destination. As parking would fill up, either parking attendents or newly arriving-by-scooter-visitors would jostle the parked scooters around a bit to park them more densely, and then would park their own vehicle. It was common to leave scooters without the locked steering column, and then the moving them around was even easier. Very convenient with parades. People walking ahead of the parade or street festival would just move around/clump together the parked vehicles, moving them as little as a few inches, once or twice as far as 20 feet up the curb. Similar to in Thailand if double-parking, or parking someone in, it’s convention to leave the vehicle in neutral so it can be rolled out of the way. These are all nice norms! If someone is making scooters orderly and trying to pack them densely, hundreds of scooters can be fit, easily, in a space that could be walked across in just a few steps. Thus, lots of parking was on the other side of a narrow gate, or a narrow path, and to pass through these small spaces was to feel very aware of having been transported from one place to another. Balinese doors and gates deserves its own blog post. I park my scooter at my house inside of a gated, locked, courtyard area. Under a roof, protected from rain and snow and sun, and with a cover on it. It’s nearly invisible in several ways, and it is the most convenient parking spot on site. I always have the best parking, because my eye is well-refined, at finding creative parking spots. Scooters flowing around I’m now used to evaluating american road networks as I evaluated Bali’s road networks - if cars are stopped, one goes around them, in a peaceful way. It’s easy and normal to give deference to whatever user of the space can be identified as most vulnerable. Pedestrians get priority over everyone, then scooters, then cars. In bali, paint is rarely placed on roads. road markings don’t often exist. Either center lines, shoulders, and much more. And where they do exist, they’re still much more of a guideline than is normal in the greater united states. Here’s a slice of what Balinese scooting norms looks like, on their most intensive highway. This is, truly, the largest highway on the island.3 wistia-player[media-id='6egwnjx8q0']:not(:defined) { background: center / contain no-repeat url('https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/6egwnjx8q0/swatch'); display: block; filter: blur(5px); padding-top:177.78%; } I’m trying to convey a sense of “every place has a distinctive way of doing something, some other places do things differently, sometimes its better”. I’ll find videos of some of the smaller roads, the ones that I usually encountered. I rode my scooter on the highway very rarely when I was there. American Legal Norms Often-enough I record myself riding my scooter around and I sometimes want to discuss how I go through junctions. I go through most junctions in a similar-enough way. I note wanting to reference this page and some of these norms. Additionally, in some places, 50 cc scooters are legal equivalents with a regular pedal-powered bicycle. So, in a stretch, a scooter can do what a bike can do. That mine happens to have a larger-than-50-cc-engine in it is… true. Bikes are ‘allowed’ to treat stop signs as yields. Rolling stop + idaho stop or something. Red lights are ‘allowed’ to be treated as stop signs. I have a firm stance on jaywalking anyway. I can move my scooter at the same speed, agility, and ‘footprint’ that I can move myself on my own two feet, so sometimes I treat it exactly as I would me on my own feet. Just better carrying capacity, and easier to move around with. An uncontrolled vs. controlled junction So, I discussed navigating a ‘controlled’ junction (those are anything where the path is affected by a stop sign or traffic light), and now lets discuss ‘navigating’ a ‘uncontrolled’ junction if you’re driving through a four-way junction, and cross-traffic has a stop sign and you do not, that is an ‘uncontrolled’ junction, in at least one, probably two, probably many more than two, ways. Another form of ‘uncontrolled junction’ is every time an alley and a street intersect. So street-street junctions can be uncontrolled, alley/street junctions. There’s more. They’re sorta like bollards. Once you know what they are/how to identify them, you might notice them everywhere. Imagine a sign hung, that says ‘cross-traffic does not stop’. That sorta implies that the junction is uncontrolled, so you must wait until circumstances support your crossing. (a traffic bean brings all inbound speeds to ~10 mph and makes it so all traffic comes exclusively from the left, at 10 mph, thus one doesn’t need to worry about ‘cross traffic does not stop’ signs/dynamics. It can be made large, sorta like a traffic ‘ribbon’, if necessary, or really small) how I go through uncontrolled junctions Because an uncontrolled junction is a matter of timing, passing through it can be a rare and special opportunity, especially for people in cars. Their mobility is less, the pressure they feel from lights and stop signs and other cars is much, much more than I feel. If I see a car with any sorta of ‘darting’ energy, or heavy on the gas, late on the brake, I stay well clear of them and anywhere they could bounce, if they hit someone else. if I see a person approaching from the left or right, as I’m passing straight, I’ll assume they don’t see me until I have reason to think they do. I might come to a FULL STOP and let them go through first. Why would I not? Because I believe in a fantasy of a thing called ‘right of way’? would never be me. I also check junctions for people crossing them by foot. I also am aware of, and stay out of, ‘the dooring zone’ The dooring zone when passing a car or a line of cars, parallel parked, imagine any of them (or all of them) opened the drivers side door all the way. Any part of the lane that would be reachable by the door (so, an aweful lot of bike lanes, of course) is called ‘the door zone’. My vehicle is not a bike, no one expects me to ride in the dooring zone, least of all me. But I’m intensely aware of it when on my scooter. That said, I might squish into the right side of a lane, to ease by some vehicle that is proceeding the other direction, or I won’t, or both. I go through all junctions sorta in a roundabout shape. Depending on speeds and cross streets, sometimes as I roll up on a junction, to reduce my exposure to complexity, I’ll plan on taking a right turn, instead of going straight. That eliminates from concern all traffic coming from the right, and I only have to ensure that the lane from the left is clear. I can do that, in a variety of ways, and based on the shapes of the junctions, vehicles parked around it, I can ‘clear’ with my eyes the left lane out a certain number of feet. Anywhere from 30 feet/3 meters (a pretty small bit of visibility, I wouldn’t go into a junction until I had a lot more than 30 feet of visibility) to 300 feet/100 meters or sometimes far beyond. So, I can plan on going right, and then sometimes I might make a u-turn, and then as I approach the junction from the opposite side, I might proceed straight (a j-turn, mentioned above) or make another right turn, which puts me as on the opposite side of the junction, going in the same direction as when I started it. Sometimes I make eye contact with other people, who’ve obviously watched the whole thing. For example, imagine the POV of a commercial vehicle driver, at the front of a line of traffic, waiting at a red light, who can see me approaching from many stopped cars away on the opposite side. I ride to the front of the line of traffic, make a casual right turn… then pop a quick u-turn after finding a good gap, making another right turn. Many a nod of appreciation has been given. Sometimes it’s a quick right turn-u-turn-right turn, or, if it’s ‘really fast’ it follows the shape of a traffic circle or a traffic bean, through the junction. At night, sometimes it’s much easier to see cars from much farther away, because most vehicles (certainly not all!) have headlights illuminated. On Headlights This can be annoying, as the recent proliferation of LED-type headlights is abhorrent, and can make visibility, especially with oncoming traffic and their headlights pointed right at you, very challenging. They blind one with the light, and cast deep shadows, making one’s ability to perceive intricacies of the surface one is riding over more challenging. At full, deep night, with no moon light or street lights, I might ride at not above 40 or 45 miles per hour, even on big roads where people in cars often go much faster. but even at that fast speed (not fast to motorcycles, very fast to someone like me used to mostly bicycle riding, before this) I can easily stop the vehicle well within the cone of light cast by my high beams. Momentum (thus breaking distance) increases geometrically with speed. I vastly prefer to be on a road alone, with no one behind me, following me, and no one driving directly at me from the opposite direction, going the other direction. On noise I don’t like to spook animals, or people, and I usually am quiet enough that I see people long before they notice me. There’s plenty of visual queues people give off when they notice me, be they walking or driving. It’s pretty clear in some situations if they have or have not noticed me, and I respond accordingly. This is part of why I dislike heavy window tint on vehicles. It makes it much, much harder to see anything about the vehicle operator. I know that’s the point, in some ways. Because of my helmet being an extension of my head, to the degree anyone cares, it’s laughably easy to see where my head is pointed, and sometimes easy eye contact can be made. Body language can be so expressive. And that’s just a person walking. If they’re in a car, I guarantee notice them before they notice me. I counted how often I check my rear view mirrors, recently, just so I know if there is anyone behind me, per block, and the answer was never less than three times. (another reason to use a ‘scooter box’ is that one of the main multi-vehicle car crash types involving two-wheeled vehicles is the driver of the car behind them not noticing that they’re stopped behind a car in front of them. Their eye never notices the stopped motorcyclist, and they just run the car right into them, from behind.) Because I almost never stop behind vehicles (and I check intensively the behaviors of the drivers of vehicles behind me, if I do), this entire accident class is unavailable for me to experience. Contrasting a gentle style of movement with American-style rights-of-way/entitlements When driving on the roads of the greater united states, or walking or biking or scooting or whatever, it’s extremely common to encounter entitled behavior. Even if you do not operate in an entitled way, it’s common to see someone else. Vehicles not slowing down for pedestrians passing ahead of them is a form of entitlement, for instance. The concept of ‘right of way’ is a form of created-from-nothing entitlement. (It’s necessary to create the concept of jaywalking). Bali’s road networks and the people who use them don’t have these american-style entitlements, and where there isn’t entitlements, there can grow things like expectations. There are very few roads with center lines painted on them, for instance, and sometimes the roads are too narrow for vehicles to pass in opposite directions at speed. No sweat, it’s easy! When encountering a vehicle going the other way, the drivers coordinate pulling around each other, letting a tire run off the asphalt and onto packed dirt, and then back. There’s much less tailgating. not none! but there’s something distinct about american road networks. I sometimes get annoyed, feels like I have to defend that sentiment, then I ask about the driving experience of the other person, and it’s limited. how do I proceed? Loud engines/racing engines as entitlement and supportive of Bad Things loud engines are very popular in the USA. I view loud engines, or loud exhausts (including nearly every motorcycle) as supporting rape culture! deep breath. Loud engines normalize the indiscriminate (or highly discriminate) harassment of others. It can be targeted, like revving an engine “at” a person as the vehicle operator passes by on the street, or it can be non-targeted, and “just” everyone with the misfortune of hearing the engine is affected. I cannot endure the company of someone who even possesses a vehicle like this. I hate this aspect of car culture. Loud engines normalize harassment, dedignifying behavior, ruthless centering of the self, it’s the same kinds of entitlements necessary for rape culture, thus, I call it rape culture. I can tell when someone who’s walking in a quiet place becomes aware of the sound of the engine on my scooter. Even at medium acceleration, it’s not very loud. When I’m trying to be quiet, I’m almost completely silent. And at max volume, it’s still not very loud and it’s certainly not harsh. I also ride in a smooth way, I don’t inflict audible assault on the people I ride pass. If someone elects to make a lot of noise with their vehicle, I log that as a form of entitlement. Other forms of entitlements common on the mobility networks of the greater united states Heavy window tints, hiding the driver’s head and making it impossible for someone else to make eye contact, or to see where the driver’s head is pointed (pretty useful when seeing if the driver is maybe about to pull out in front of you) Really bright LED headlights that blind everyone that the headlights land upon, especially if they’re way beyond the line of sight for the driver. Tailgating. it’s no different than standing really close behind someone in a line, breathing in their ear. Being heavy on the gas and brake, or driving in a way that risks anyone else’s safety. I find scooting all over the world, and even in the USA to be relaxing and peaceful, often enough. More than a bicycle, for some reasons. More than a motorcycle, for some reasons. More than a car, for some reasons. More than my feet, for some reasons. I’d like to have some videos where I try to parse or explain some of how I move through junctions or road segments safely, but recording the video, audio, editing it all together, has thus far not really happened. I tried something like that here, and don’t love it. Footnotes I told someone (sorta a gang member, I was very directly hustling on this traffic bean concept) ‘some people would certainly love the innuendo capacity of this traffic bean concept.’ and he laughed and said the more innuendo the better. So, if you are reading this, you are welcome. ↩ I also sometimes evaluate my scooter as close-enough to a bicycle, and a bicycle is basically being on foot. I do not participate in concept of ‘jaywalking’, thus I use space in ways that I want to, crossing streets however I want. In a fair world, people in cars would feel responsible to not crush people or things outside the vehicle, and thus would not feel/act entitled to space in a way that threatens others. ↩ It’s inclusive of some things common in other parts of asia, exclusive of some things. Very distinctive. I rode many, many km in Bali and found it to be comfortable. Almost never did my speeds go anywhere close to what is common on American road networks. In bali, every function of society could be done easily by scooter. Food delivery, taxi, water delivery, construction materials, and more. Entire square km were fully serviceable by a road that was, the entire length, quite narrow, well-suited to scooter tires and nothing larger. some so narrow that a single scooter was only centimeters from places one didn’t want to go: a narrow walled alley, an embankment of some sort. One paid attention! Most roads were not harrowing at all, some were certainly harrowing. ↩