… San Francisco not even on the list 
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because one needs legs like a redwood to walk up and down the neighborhoods.
take it from a (former) bicycle messenger in downtown Seattle, i know the feeling!
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I used to work sometimes on Patrick’s Hill in Cork and it was super steep and people used it for training. We used to complain a lot about going up that hill. Particularly me as Dublin is really flat (the whole Northside will be under water some time soon no doubt).
One time the round Ireland cycle race was finishing with a criterium in Cork and Lance Armstrong had agreed to do the race (in return for being allowed to return to racing in the Tour of Down Under without doing his full wait term of drug testing that would be required. So that he could take training drugs in large quantities closer to the race time than would be normal. Obviously he wouldn’t have been drug tested while retired)
I digress but anyway they were tearing through the town and just as the bould Lance got to the bottom of Patrick’s hill he looked up, swung right, and swung his leg over the crossbar and got off. I screenshot it and sent it down to my colleagues in Cork in solidarity with their struggles!
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Good to note that livable cities doesn’t mean urban cores only,
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Pretty depressing. Much like the long term contamination of our urban environments with lead from airborne pollution we have a decades long multi pronged health issue to really make our cities livable.
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Because Neutral is Liberalism, according to the current hegemonic ideology.
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A great example of the kind of cyclist Lance is, when he’s not sweating EPO from every pore.
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He’s very concerned about fairness in sport. /s
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How utterly unsurprising.
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Short video (3 minutes, 49 seconds long) about urban planning and happiness, in relation to commuting.
Dr. Yingling Fan, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a research scholar at its Center for Transportation Studies wants to transform the way we experience transportation. With the help of Minneapolis—St. Paul residents, Dr. Fan has developed an innovative “Transportation Happiness Map” that captures the positive emotions tied to biking, reliable public transportation, safe and scenic paths, and avoiding traffic behind the wheel.
West River Parkway (which turned out to be the happiest peak-morning-hours road) used to be my bicycle commuting route, for many years. Can confirm that it made me happy 
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Go vertical? I recall a 1970’s film, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, set in San Francisco. At one point, their speeding cop car flies from an elevated urban freeway into the nth floor of an adjacent apartment building.
Do such events actually occur? Where?
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Former San Francisco bicycle courier here. Many bits of SF are quite walkable and rideable, but stomping the commercial downtown sure builds one’s muscles… and perception. Beware drivers, pedestrians, critters, et al. Survive. 
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They’re not wrong about how far marketing these days is focused on hostility and violence. Cars used to be designed with friendly faces anthropomorphised on them, now they are designed to look aggressive. The murderous bonnet height (even in electric cars with not much in them) is what people would be better imprisoned for though. That is, literally, killer fashion sense.
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This is a common misconception. Bonnet height is increased by design exactly for pedestrian safety.
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The linked article doesn’t say that.
It says that making the bonnet more able to deform and absorb the shock of collision with someone’s head reduces injuries, and lowering the bonnet height reduces limb injuries.
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But it really does say that in the context of the discussion.
Why have vehicles gone from happy-face to aggressive, with blunt, high hoods? Because designers have increased the space between the engine and bonnet. Within reason, they can’t lower the engine more than they already have - if they could, they would for vehicle dynamics improvements. The only way to create more space between the engine and the hood is to go up. And they prioritize reducing head injuries over reducing limb injuries because head injuries cause more fatalities.
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Better tell the EU! They don’t think so based on car crash stats in real life.
But I do get told that it’s better for you every time it comes up. Trucks, also, are exempt from many of the safety regulations that cars adhere to. Guess what the highest people killing bonnets are on?
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Cite those figures, please. I would be genuinely interested. But I would bet dollars to donuts those results just look at raw bonnet height and don’t factor in vehicle size, weight, axle height, or engine height. My point was a direct response to your assertion that bonnet height has increased for style instead of purpose. That just isn’t the case.
And I’m definitely not defending trucks and truck-based SUVs. They are manifestly unsuited for being a passenger vehicle due to braking distance, rollover risk, and simple controllability when they aren’t carrying cargo. They should only be used for work vehicles or towing. That’s the only justifiable public use.
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