Cartoon Tuesday
Streetsblog Basics
Cartoon Tuesday Double Feature: Bike Tolls and Bridge Trolls
Editor's note: With bike tolls being a hot topic recently, Streetsblog cartoonist, transportation engineer, and Loeb Fellow Ian Lockwood was inspired to submit two items for this installment of Cartoon Tuesday. Ian writes of the second toon:
April 17, 2012
Cartoon Thursday: Traffic Sham
This November 'toon from Ward Sutton, who skewers conventional editorial cartooning for The Onion, hits all the notes -- the myth of cyclist privilege, the disparity between the amount of space allotted to cars vs. other modes, and the waste and helplessness that comes with sitting in traffic. The coup de grâce of Sutton's "Kelly" panels has got to be the cartoonist "self-portrait," breaking the fourth wall with a pithy bon mot. Also note the Statue of Liberty, crying as cyclists whiz by.
December 15, 2011
Cartoon Tuesday: How Does a Drag Strip in Front of My Home Improve Safety?
This XtraNormal animation from the folks at StrongTowns expertly picks apart the logic underpinning car-centric street design and planning. I saw it and felt compelled to revive our weekly cartoon feature after an extended hiatus. It clocks in at more than eight minutes, which allows the sense of dread to creep up on you gradually. There's also a shorter version if you have a YouTube-era attention span.
December 7, 2010
Cartoon Tuesday: Little Green Man and the Lizard Squeezins
Sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to see things clearly. So what would an extra-terrestrial think of humankind's dependence on fossil fuels? In light of the devastation being unleashed off the shores of the Gulf states, cartoonist and recent Pulitzer recipient Mark Fiore files this brilliant summation of the absurdly self-destructive lengths we earthlings go to for our "lizard squeezins."
May 18, 2010
Cartoon Tuesday: Paint the Pavement… on the Elevated Highway
This project takes the spirit of intersection repair to new heights. You're looking at the Elevado Costa e Silva, a two-mile stretch of 1970s-vintage elevated highway in the middle of gridlocked Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's known informally as the minhocão ("giant worm"), and according to local blog Inside Sao Paulo, a project to remove the structure is on hold despite some form of support from the City Council. For now, the minhocão is closed to traffic on Sundays, when it opens to the public for ciclovia-style recreation.
October 13, 2009
Cartoon Tuesday: Captain Car-Free
Today is World Carfree Day, and though we somehow let it slip by us, NotionsCapital reappropriated this classic comic to promote events down DC way.
September 22, 2009
Cartoon Tuesday: Beware of the Ouchies
After reading about a new Pew Poll that found 88 percent of Americans believe they can't live without a car, I couldn't help thinking of this cartoon from John Akre -- who also gave us Cars for Hats. Car dependence has never looked so terrifying.
May 12, 2009
Cartoon Tuesday: Park-N-Abandon
Today's toon combo comes to us via the Times' By Design blog, where Allison Arieff has posted a paean to Steven M. Johnson, an inventor, author, cartoonist and former urban planner described by Arieff as "a sort of R. Crumb meets R. Buckminster Fuller." Many of Johnson's "whimsical musings" are transportation related, and at least one of them (which Johnson called the "Treadaround") has become reality.
May 5, 2009