A study recently completed by Oxford and Southern California Universities looked at the impact that Uber specifically may be having on reducing the incidents of drunk-driving fatalities nationwide. Uber has consistently touted itself as a public-safety benefit that takes drunk drivers off the road.

To quote an Uber press release from 2014, “The data confirms the intuitive claim, backed up by countless anecdotes, that potential drunk drivers will choose other options, like rides with Uber, when they are convenient, affordable, and readily available,” referring to number crunching that was performed by Uber itself, looking at Seattle Police Department data, showing a 10% decrease in the number of DUI-related traffic stops.

But the recent scientific study (that did not come out of the “Uber newsroom”) showed that the number of Uber drivers in a metro area had no impact on the number of traffic fatalities, DUI-related fatalities specifically, or traffic fatalities that occurred on weekends and holidays. The study does suggest that the reason for no noticeable impact to have occurred is the sheer number of drivers on US roads, with an estimated 4.2 million of those drivers exceeding the legal blood-alcohol limit every month, and the fact that drunk drivers should not be assumed to be able to make rational decisions about their mode choices.

This calls into question the wisdom of departments of transportation, like Seattle’s, partnering with rideshare services like Lyft and Uber with the aim of furthering Vision Zero goals for reducing traffic fatalities. While the discounts are not directly using City funds to subsidize rides, the promotions are really the biggest public engagement activity that SDOT is conducting, apart from an ad campaign to get drivers to put their cell phones out of reach. The real work with Vision Zero is the reengineering of our roads to reduce fatalities when errors do occur. The jury is still out on whether that promotion campaign even works at all. You can read a summary of that study here.

Speaking of studies that impact the Seattle Department of Transportation, researchers at Ryerson University in collaboration with the University of British Columbia found that in a span of over a year in Toronto between 2008 and 2009, 32% of all bike crashes in that city involved streetcar tracks in some way. Toronto does boast North America’s largest streetcar network, with approximately 50 miles of tracks, compared with Seattle’s 3.8 miles currently. But as Seattle prepares to expand the streetcar network, in Downtown and on Capitol Hill, this is valuable information to keep in mind. A new streetcar line without a clear plan to accommodate cyclists is, if this study is any indication, likely going to lead to an increase in injuries to people on bikes. Read the entire study here.

Lastly is a study by the American Psychological Association, which examined the impact that air pollution might be having on the cognitive abilities of both children and adults. The study compared Mexico City children to children from a less-polluted suburb, and found that the children in Mexico City were more likely to have damaged brain tissue in the prefrontal cortex. The children from Mexico City also scored lower on tests of mental ability. That study can be found here.

This is further confirmation of the health impact that the high amount of pollution and particulate matter is having on the heath of the residents of large cities, and comes on the heels of recent studies that have shown that electric cars produce a high amount of particulate matter due to their vehicle weight. This calls into question the health impacts of simply replacing fossil fuel vehicles with heavier electric vehicles.

The post City Ticker: Study Haul first appeared on The Urbanist.

As the August primary ticks closer and half of your office has their inbox set to autoreply, here are some of the other stories that we’re all talking about this week.

• Last Wednesday night, a crowd gathered at Seattle University for a design review meeting for the building set to replace the Madison Valley City People’s Garden Store. The building, which will be home to a PCC Grocery, is drawing ire from the residents in the valley due to it being “out of scale” with neighboring homes and its impact on traffic on nearby streets.
  
  The group “Save Madison Valley” has enlisted former City Council member Peter Steinbrueck in its fight, truly completing Peter’s journey from sensible civic activist to local angry person.
  
  The development has already made several concessions to local concerns, including separating the parking entrances into residential and commercial. Not much was gleaned from the first appearance before the design review board- the project will appear there again in 2-3 months and we will see how much of an impact local opposition has had on the project.

• Something that we missed reporting on earlier in the month: Senator Maria Cantwell announced that Seattle will be the recipient of the largest federal grant ever awarded to a project in the history of the State of Washington.The $45 FASTLANE grant now brings the unaccounted-for amount in the $140 million project to $35 million. This is a pretty good deal: for $140 million, some people only get Hulk Hogan to stop suing them, or 6 years of a quarterback playing on your football team.
  
  SDOT has been shopping around two options for the overpass design, both with two general purpose traffic lanes in each direction: one has a 6 foot sidewalk on either side, whereas the other has a 14 foot multiuse path. The multiuse path is really the only option that provides any bicycle infrastructure.

• The City of Seattle on Thursday announced that the Meyers Way Parcels bordering the Seattle Fire Department’s Joint Training Facility will not be sold off. Neighborhood and citywide activists were calling on the City to reverse its decision to sell the land for development.
  
  The $5 million anticipated to have been gained from the sale would have gone toward funding the city’s state of emergency on homelessness.Seattle Parks & Recreation does not have any plans to develop the area into a park right away: From Ed Murray’s statement: “At a future date, Seattle Parks and Recreation will conduct further public outreach to determine how best to use the property.”West Seattle Council member Lisa Herbold was quoted as saying she is “pleased” with the decision by the City to retain Myers Parcels.

  

• Incidentally, on Thursday the King County Boundary Review Board approved the proposal by the city of Seattle to move forward with an annexation ballot measure for White Center and Unincorporated North Highline area. If everything proceeds as scheduled this should be on the ballot in November 2017. We anticipate digging into that proposal when more information becomes available.

Top image: wall art in Yakima, WA. Look for more photos from our writer’s travels at our Instagram account.

The post City Ticker: Save Madison Valley, Save Myers Parcels first appeared on The Urbanist.