For decades, the Manzanar National Historic Site has served as a reminder of the incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. As reported by Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, Los Angeles artist Dan Kwong is now leading a project to rebuild the baseball field at the former camp, hoping to bring healing and honor to those who endured this dark chapter of U.S. history. Baseball, a quintessential American sport, offered Japanese Americans in the camp a rare sense of normalcy and connection to their identity during their confinement.

Kwong, whose mother was incarcerated at Manzanar, has collaborated with the National Park Service and volunteers, including Chris Siddens, to restore the field. The project, two decades in the making, is more than just a reconstruction of a baseball diamond—it symbolizes resilience, justice, and the collective memory of those wronged. While much of the camp's tragic past remains, this effort to bring back the field and hold annual baseball games represents a form of healing for descendants and the community at large.

The restoration of the baseball field, supported by grants, is nearly complete, with plans for more additions like an announcer’s booth and scoreboard. Kwong envisions future games on this sacred ground, bringing together Japanese American teams and fostering a space where history, healing, and American traditions intertwine. Kwong reflects on how proud his late mother and others who lived through Manzanar would be, knowing that the spirit of resilience is being honored through these efforts.

• Manzanar
• internment camp
• World War II
• Historic Preservation
• Japanese Americans
• Baseball

L.A. Metro averaged more than 1 million weekday riders for the first time since before the pandemic last month, according to an article from local news outlet KNX News. The milestone marks the 22nd consecutive month of year-over-year ridership growth. The announcement comes as transit ridership has lagged behind pre-pandemic levels in major cities across the country.

The article goes on to report that L.A. Metro’s combined bus and rail ridership reached 86.4 percent of its September 2019 pre-pandemic records, which exceeds the nationwide transit average of 76 percent of pre-pandemic levels. When divided between weekdays and weekends, Metro boardings stood at 83.6 percent and 96.9 percent of September 2019 levels respectively.

One of the driving factors in the sluggish ridership recovery is shifting work patterns (e.g., increase in remote work), as well as service cuts due to funding and staffing challenges. But all modes are not struggling, or recovering equally. According to a April article from Smart Cities Dive, bus transit has recovered faster nationwide, having reached 81 percent of 2019 ridership as of December 2023, while commuter rail has lagged at 65 percent. According to the KNX News article, L.A. Metro is bucking that trend, with commuter rail boardings increasing 10 percent in September 2024 compared to September 2023 versus 6.9 percent for bus boardings.

• Los Angeles
• Transit
• Transit Ridership

Stand up and try to balance on one leg. Can you do it? 

How long we can stand up like a flamingo is an important indicator of general health, especially as we age. It indicates changes in the strength of our legs and balance. New research from the Mayo Clinic found that a person’s ability to balance on one leg actually deteriorates with age faster than walking gait or grip and knee strength and is a better indicator of aging. The findings are detailed in a study published October 23 in the journal PLOS ONE. 

Good balance, muscle strength, and an efficient gait are some of the major factors to our independence and well-being as we age. Exactly how they change and at what rate can help healthcare providers develop better programs for healthy aging. 

“Balance is an important measure because, in addition to muscle strength, it requires input from vision, the vestibular system and the somatosensory systems,” Doctor Kenton Kaufman, a study co-author and director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, said in a statement. “Changes in balance are noteworthy. If you have poor balance, you’re at risk of falling, whether or not you’re moving. Falls are a severe health risk with serious consequences.”

In this study, 40 healthy, independent people between the ages of 52 and 83 underwent walking, balance, grip strength, and knee strength tests. During the balance tests, participants were asked to stand on force plates in four different ways–on both feet with their eyes open, on both feet with their eyes closed, on their non-dominant leg with their eyes open, and on their dominant leg with eyes open. These tests lasted 30 seconds each and participants were able to hold their other leg however they wanted during the one-legged tests. 

According to the results, standing on one leg and particularly the non-dominant leg showed the highest rate of decline with age. This loss of balance can lead to unintentional falls, one of the leading causes of injury in older adults.  According to the National Institute of Aging, over 1 in 4 people ages 65 and older fall annually.

[Related: How does your body stay balanced inside? Thank homeostasis.]

“If you can’t stand on your leg for five seconds, you’re at risk of falls,” Dr. Kaufman told The Washington Post. “If a person can stand on their leg for 30 seconds, they’re doing really well, especially if they’re older.”

Additionally, the researchers used a custom-made device to measure participants’ grip. To measure knee strength, participants were sitting down and instructed to extend their knee as forcefully as they could. The grip and knee strength tests used the participants’ dominant sides.

While grip and knee strength did decline significantly by decade, it did not drop as much as balance. Grip strength decreased at a quicker rate than knee strength, so the team believes this is a better strength metric for predicting aging.

[Related: The Monty Python ‘silly walk’ could replace your gym workout.]

In the gait test, participants walked back and forth on a 26 feet, level walkway at their own pace and speed. They found that the gait parameters didn’t change with age. According to Kauffnan, this was not a particularly surprising result since the participants were walking at their normal pace and not at their maximum pace. 

There were also no age-related declines in the strength tests that were specific to sex. This indicates that their grip and knee strength declined at a similar rate, according to the study. They also did not identify any sex differences in the gait and balance tests, so male and female subjects were equally affected by age.

While aging itself is unavoidable, there are steps you can take to train your balance. Standing on one leg can train the body to coordinate muscle and vestibular responses to keep our bodies in correct balance, according to Kaufman. 

“If you don’t use it, you lose it. If you use it, you maintain it,” Dr. Kaufman said. “It’s easy to do. It doesn’t require special equipment, and you can do it every day.”

The Mayo Clinic also recommends other balance exercises, including weight shifts, bicep curls, and tai chi.  

The post How long can you stand on one leg? What it says about your health. appeared first on Popular Science.

There is a serious disconnect between what travelers want and the type of transportation systems planning produce. Currently, the majority of transportation infrastructure spending is devoted to roads and parking facilities; this reflects a planning process that that prioritizes speed over other goals, and therefore faster modes over slower but more affordable, inclusive and resource-efficient modes. Yet, that is not what transportation system users want.

One National Household Travel Surveys asked respondents to prioritize transportation problems. It found that the highest ranking problem was not traffic congestion, crash risk, pollution or inadequate mobility options for non-drivers, the problem that users considered worst was the “Price of travel,” or what I call unaffordability, as illustrated below.

Transportation Issue Ratings

Affordability is the most overlooked and undervalued transportation planning goal. Transportation agencies have clearly defined goals, targets and performance indicators for increasing traffic speeds, reducing congestion, improving safety, reducing emissions, and sometimes for social equity, but few even mention affordability, and I've found none that have measurable targets or effective ways of evaluating whether a particular planning decisions increases or reduces overall affordability. This is a major planning failure.

My newest report, Evaluating Transportation Affordability: How Planning Can Better Respond to Demands for Lower Cost Travel, hopes to fill this gap. It provides practical guidance for incorporating affordability goals into transportation planning.

Affordability refers to the costs of goods relative to incomes, and households’ ability to purchase necessities such as food, housing and healthcare. Transportation affordability refers to households’ ability to access basic goods and activities while leaving enough money to purchase other necessities. 

Unaffordable transportation creates problems: it forces lower-income families to forego desired travel and opportunities, use inferior — inconvenient, uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous — travel options, or spend more than they can afford on mobility, as illustrated to the right. Affordable transportation allows everybody to enjoy opportunity, freedom and happiness.

Problems of Transportation Unaffordability

There are various ways to define and measure affordability. Experts recommend that households spend no more than 45 percent of their budgets on housing and transportation combined, which recognizes the trade-offs that families often face between housing and travel expenses. A typical family that spends 30 percent of its budget on housing can afford to spend up to 15 percent on transportation. Of course, every household has unique needs and abilities; some can spend more than these limits, but others can afford less, and even people who normally rely on higher-cost modes can benefit from having more affordable options that they or their loved-ones could use if needed in the future.

The figure below compares U.S. household transportation expenditures by cost category and income class. Although fuel costs tend to receive the most attention, they are a modest portion of the total. Most (70–80 percent) vehicle costs are fixed (not significantly affected by the amount a vehicle is driven), so once a household purchases a vehicle it has few ways to reduce its costs.

Transportation Costs by Income Class

The following figures show the portion of household spending devoted to housing and transportation (H+T) by income quintile (fifth of all households). Most households spend more than 45 percent, indicated by the dashed line, which is more than is considered affordable.

H+T Expenditures by All Households

Low-income vehicle-owning households typically spend more than 20 percent of their budgets on transportation and more than 60 percent on H+T combined, as illustrated below. 

H+T Expenditures by Vehicle-Owning Households

This indicates that many lower income households face severe transport costs and risks: lower-income motorists tend to bear particularly high vehicle loan, insurance and repair costs, their vehicles tend to be unreliable, and many live in automobile-dependent areas that lack non-auto travel options. This can cause absenteeism and tardiness, missed appointments, limited childcare and school options, and poor access to affordable food. If they lose their job or driving privileges, or their vehicle fails or crashes, they may face disaster: reduced income, no vehicle, lack of mobility options, ongoing vehicle payments, poor credit rating, and sometimes disabilities.

Various factors affect transportation affordability. Walking, bicycling, e-bikes, public transit and telework (telecommunications that substitute for physical travel) have much lower total costs than automobiles, as illustrated in the following figure. As a result, transportation cost burdens increase with automobile ownership and use.

Typical Annual Costs by Mode

Multimodal communities have much more affordable transportation. The following graph shows that relatively small increases in non-auto mode shares tend to provide large cost savings.

Transportation Spending Versus Mode Shares

Households in central, multimodal neighborhoods tend to spend much less on transportation than in urban fringe areas, as illustrated in the following map. These transportation cost savings often offset higher housing costs, making central neighborhoods most affordable overall.

Housing and Transportation (H+T) Affordability Index

Transportation affordability increases with Walk Score ratings, as illustrated below. This indicates that more compact and multimodal neighborhoods significantly increase transportation affordability and provide many co-benefits. Multimodal transportation also helps reduce traffic congestion, crashes and pollution emissions, and by improving non-auto travel options improves public fitness and health, helps achieve social equity goals, and increases economic resilience (resident’s ability to respond to economic shocks such as reduced income, illness or a vehicle failure).

Transportation Spending Versus Walk Score

This analysis indicates that automobile ownership is unaffordable to most low-income and many moderate-income households. When families cannot afford food, housing, or healthcare the ultimate cause is often excessive travel costs, including sometimes large and unexpected expenses. Efforts to make driving cheaper tend to be counterproductive because they impose indirect costs and encourage automobile-dependency which reduces affordability, as indicated by the following graph which shows that lower fuel prices are associated with higher total transportation cost.

Transportation Spending Versus Fuel Price

There are many possible ways to increase transportation affordability, some of which are better than others overall. Some strategies simply shift costs to other sectors, reducing affordability overall. For example, low fuel taxes and road tolls increase general taxes (to pay roadway costs not funded by user fees). No-fault insurance reduces crash victim compensation. “Free” parking increases housing costs (for residential parking) and the price of goods (for customer parking). By making driving cheaper, vehicle underpricing increases traffic problems including congestion, crashes and pollution, and reduces travel options for non-drivers by reducing demand for non-auto modes.

Most vehicle cost reduction strategies, such as low fuel taxes and no-fault insurance, provide modest savings; strategies that reduce vehicle ownership and parking costs provide much larger affordability benefits, as illustrated below.

Estimated Savings from Transportation Affordability Strategies

The most effective and equitable affordability strategies improve lower-cost modes, provide financial rewards for reduced driving and parking needs, and create more compact and multimodal communities where it is easy get around without driving. In addition to increasing affordability these strategies help achieve other community goals including more independence and opportunity for non-drivers, improved public fitness and health, plus reduced congestion, infrastructure costs, traffic risks and environmental harms. They are win-win solutions. However, strategies intended to make driving more affordable by reducing fuel taxes, road tolls and parking fees tend to contradict other goals, and over the long run tend to reduce affordability by increasing automobile dependency and sprawl.

There is evidence of significant latent demand for affordable mobility and accessibility options. Although few motorists want to give up driving altogether, surveys indicate that many would prefer to live in more compact and multimodal communities where they drive less, use affordable modes more, and spend less time and money on driving. Conventional planning does a poor job of responding to these demands. Below is a list of specific ways that planning can better responds to transportation affordability goals.

• Including indirect costs such as residential parking.
• Consider both housing and transportation costs.
• Consider vehicle ownership as well as operating costs.
• Give special consideration to affordability for people with disabilities, low incomes and other special needs.
• Identify latent demand for affordable travel options.

Below is a list of multimodal affordable transportation strategies. These strategies tend to have synergistic effects; they become more effective and beneficial as more are integrated, for example, by improving non-auto modes, supporting carsharing, implementing TDM incentives that reward reductions in driving and parking, and, creating more compact communities so travelers have better travel options and incentives to use the most efficient possible. Together they can provide large savings and benefits, particularly for physically, economically and socially disadvantaged travelers.

• Apply a sustainable transportation hierarchy in planning and funding. Align individual planning decisions to support strategic goals.
• Improve and encourage affordable modes including walking, bicycling, e-bikes, public transit, car-sharing and telework.
• Spend at least the portion of transportation budgets on affordable modes as their potential mode shares. For example, spend up to 20% of transportation funding on walking and bicycling improvements if that would give them a 20% mode share, and more if justified to achieve strategic goals and make up for past underinvestments.
• Support vehicle sharing (carsharing and MaaS) and encourage households to minimize private vehicle ownership.
• Implement Smart Growth policies that create compact, multimodal neighborhoods where it is easy to use affordable modes.
• Increase affordable housing in multimodal neighborhoods.
• Apply complete streets policies to ensure that all streets accommodate affordable modes.
• Reform parking policies to increase efficiency. Unbundle and cash out free parking so non-drivers are no longer forced to subsidize parking facilities they do not need.
• Implement TDM incentives that encourage travelers to use affordable and resource-efficient modes when possible.

Conventional economics tends to assume that happiness requires more income. This analysis offers a different perspective; it investigates ways to reduce transportation costs and therefore the money required to satisfy people’s travel needs. This is an important and unique analysis. It should be of interest to policy makers, planners, advocates and anybody who wants more efficient and equitable transportation.

What do you think? Do transportation agencies need clearer goals and better tools for incorporating transportation system user demands for more affordability into planning?

• Transportation affordability

In a piece for the Vision Zero Cities Journal republished in Streetsblog USA, Rebecca Serna and Jason Dozier outline how Atlanta, Georgia passed a ban on right turns on red this February in an effort to make streets in three central neighborhoods safer for pedestrians.

As the authors explain, “Research shows that turning right on red poses significant risks to people who are most vulnerable in crashes: people getting around by foot, wheelchair, and bicycle. As drivers make right turns on red lights, their attention is focused on oncoming traffic from their left — not on people walking across the street or waiting in the bike lane on their right. With their attention elsewhere, drivers are more likely to turn into people outside of cars who have the pedestrian signal to cross.”

Planetizen has covered right turns on red in previous pieces, noting that allowing right turns on red lights was largely a result of the 1970s energy crisis. However, transportation planners and policymakers are now recognizing its negative impact on road safety and working to reverse the laws that allows these turns.

In Atlanta, 65 fatalities and serious injuries occurred at intersections with legal right turns on red in the last nine years, with close to half of them happening while drivers were turning right at red lights. The effort to ban them was led by city council member Jason S. Dozier, who urged fellow council members — some of whom have experienced close calls as pedestrians themselves — to support the ban. “In an unexpected turn, we also found allies in councilmembers who drove some of the largest vehicles, who supported the effort due to near-misses they’d experienced with pedestrians.”

According to the authors, “Atlanta’s new no-right-on-red policy is a step towards real, measurable change in pedestrian safety. It’s also a chance to live out our declared values as a city that is both pedestrian-friendly and supportive of sustainable and safe ways of getting around.”

• Atlanta
• right turn on red
• Right Turns
• Traffic Safety
• Road Safety
• Vision Zero
• Pedestrian Safety

• 10 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's iPhone 17