Notices by Brent Toderian (brenttoderian@mastodon.online)

“The Tariff Deception. How governments quietly tax their own people under the guise of trade war.”

More precisely, quietly tax their middle and lower income people, to fund a massive tax cut for the rich.
https://proconsul.ghost.io/the-tariff-deception/

Don’t forget those who insisted that actions needed to avoid the #ClimateCrisis were “too expensive.”

Don’t forget all the record-breaking, historic or “100 year” events we’ve seen lately.

They’re not the “new normal.

It’s going to keep getting exponentially worse.

Don’t forget Valencia, Spain.

Commuting by bicycle in Belgium pays off as employees earn compensation for every km they ride. 1 in 6 employees commute by bike and get a bicycle allowance of €0.28/km. People cycling to work in 2024 earned an average of around €460 net per year (some as high as €810), up 20% over the past year.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/1401729/belgian-commutes-pay-off-employees-earn-up-to-e810-for-cycling-to-work

Better for congestion AND better for crashes!

In the first 12 days of New York City’s new de-congestion pricing program, there’s been a 51% drop in crash-related injuries and a 55% drop in crashes year over year.

Via @Streetsblog
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/01/23/congestion-relief-zone-is-also-a-crash-relief-zone-data

One of the most important city-building model projects in the world.

“Initially, everyone thought it would cause gridlock. But people adapted. Now we can’t imagine the highway ever being here.”

The people-place that replaced a highway, transforming a city.

Seoul, Korea removal of the Cheonggyecheon expressway.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/17/seoul-cheonggyecheon-motorway-turned-into-a-stream

A big part of the reason the rich bad guys are winning is that they understand that buying mainstream media and social media isn’t about making money on that mainstream media or social media. It’s about power and control, and making MUCH more money as a result of that power and control.

Before choosing bottled water over tap water, remember it takes more than 10X the water that a bottle of water holds to make the plastic bottle and transport the water. And that’s before considering the fuel and GHGs, the 1000 year bottle life, and the RIDICULOUS amount of $ we’re paying for water.

Hey, remember when car and oil companies successfully lobbied governments to create car dependent cities and suburbs, and once we became almost completely car dependent, WE became the loudest, angriest champions of unhindered road space for cars, unnaturally cheap gas, and subsidized free parking?

BREAKING: "I will be Mayor of Paris until the last day, with the same energy as I’ve had since the beginning.” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, probably the best and most inspiring mayor in the world in recent years, has announced that she won’t run for a 3rd term. #Paris https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2024/11/26/anne-hidalgo-je-ne-me-presenterai-pas-a-un-troisieme-mandat-de-maire-de-paris_6414736_823448.html

NEW: "Without our bikes, we would not have been able to buy much-needed food and water supplies and then quickly deliver them to cut-off villages within half-an-hour.”

Bicycles save lives: How bikes have been critical after Spain's Valencia floods.
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/bicycles-save-lives-how-bikes-have-been-critical-after-the-valencia-floods

I’m surprised that while my Bluesky account has grown by 8000 followers — DOUBLED to 16k+ — in just the last week since the election, my Mastodon count hasn’t changed at all.

Is Mastodon not seen as an alternative to Twitter?

Or is my account hard to find for those not following me?

Honestly curious.

"'You are the media now'...sounds empowering. Musk’s acolytes see it as the end of traditional-media gatekeeping. But what he’s really selling is the notion that people are on their own—that facts are malleable, and that what feels true ought to be true."
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/you-are-the-media-now/680602/

Amsterdam’s plan to remove 11,200 parking spaces from its streets by the end of 2025 is even more inspiring when we realize the kind of people-places that are possible where cars used to be. Example — #Amsterdam’s Elandsgracht between 2014 & 2019, via @schlijper’s great pics.

THIS IS HUGE. Paris City Hall has announced that starting on Monday, Paris will limit (not ban) car traffic in the city centre, as cities like Ghent have done. They’re creating a limited traffic zone (ZTL) about 2 sq miles in size, to clean the air & create more space for people.

Valencia, Spain.

Tell us again how the actions that would allow us to avoid the #ClimateCrisis were “too expensive.”

None of the record-breaking, historic or “100 year” events we’ve been seeing a lot of lately are the “new normal.” Because it’s actually going to keep getting exponentially worse.

WATCH: Seriously, if you’re following ANY bike-lane debate, you HAVE TO WATCH this news story. You actually can’t make this up. Ford claims without evidence that bike-lanes are bad for small business, and THE ACTUAL BUSINESS ASSOCIATION obliterates him with data.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2024/10/24/annex-businesses-tell-ford-to-back-off-bloor-bike-lanes/

One of the most successful pedestrian streets in the world, the Strøget in Copenhagen was filled with cars until a 2 year pilot project in 1962. The opposition argued “no cars means no business” but the street has been a massive retail success, the city’s busiest shopping street.

“Even if autonomous vehicles eventually work perfectly — an enormous ‘if’ — they are likely to increase total emissions and crash deaths, simply because people will use them so much.” Good explanation of #JevonsParadox by ⁦@davidzipper⁩ in @verge.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/2/24232386/self-driving-car-jevons-paradox-robotaxi-waymo-cruise

STUDY: Researchers estimated that 730K people a year in the US lose their ability to live independently due to traffic pollution. This was approximately 15% of the total # who lost their independence, at an annual cost of $11.7bn (£9bn).
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/12/lower-air-pollution-may-help-preserve-older-peoples-independence-study

“One mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss.”

“Which means that Copenhagen, a city of 1.2 million people, saves $357 million a year on health costs because something like 80% of its population commutes by bicycle, even in winter.”
https://grist.org/biking/one-mile-on-a-bike-is-a-42-economic-gain-to-society-one-mile-driving-is-a-20-loss/