Disqus - Latest Comments for BarbChamberlain

Re: We Need More Geriatric Heroines: Seven Books About Actually-Old Women

BarbChamberlain — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:30:22 -0000

I've read and enjoyed the first two in a trio of darkly whimsical mysteries by Leonie Swann starting with The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp--whimsical due to Agnes's failing memory and the quirks of her also aging housemates. dark due to the murders. Can't give away spoilers, but they don't all have the advantage of MI-5 connections.

Re: Cranberry Orange Jam with Crystallized Ginger

BarbChamberlain — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 17:09:05 -0000

I'm wondering whether this recipe has had the rigorous testing I expect from Serious Eats. Maybe if they're super-thin-skinned, but in my experience orange peels don't soften in 10 minutes of cooking even if they've been chopped up by a food processor. This needs an earlier step of macerating the chopped oranges overnight with the sugar or some other method to help them break down more. Time, heat, chemistry: Pick at least two.

Cranberries can also take a while to break down depending on the variety. I live in a cranberry-growing area get a tangier variety than what you'll find in the store. The Willapa cranberries I get have a somewhat tougher skin but they're worth it for the depth of flavor.

I'd start the whole thing the night before with chopping and sugar, and/or preboil just the citrus for at least 10 minutes before adding the chopped cranberries.

I ended up having to add a splash of water, then 1/4 c. apple cider (to maintain flavor overall rather than water down the fruit element more) to enable the cooking to continue until the fruits truly softened. Total cooking time was closer to 30 minutes than 10 to get to the softened state.

I successfully make jams and jellies without adding pectin, and cranberries are naturally high in pectin to begin with. With this recipe I added 1 T. commercial lemon juice, no pectin, and it jelled just fine with some additional simmering after reaching the boiling point.

I reduced the sugar to 3-1/2 c. because I don't like super-sweet preserves. I'd suggest starting with 3 cups, then tasting and adding more to suit your personal preference.

Re: Living in a walkable place reduces dementia

BarbChamberlain — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 18:18:20 -0000

Walking makes us more reliant on others? That's not what this says and I hardly think walking makes people "soft". Honestly, walking is the form of transportation LEAST dependent on others. Drivers need entire systems managed by others who build and maintain cars, roads, traffic signals, and they're sitting in helpless immobilized bricks if something happens to disrupt the fuel supply or electrical grid. Transit systems need all those systems and need to be able to hire drivers, route planners and the rest, but with the benefit that I'm free from thinking about driving and can do other things while I ride the bus or train. Bikes are built by someone else, although they create a lot less need for pavement and its maintenance than motor vehicles and an e-bike still works as a bike when the battery's dead.

Being connected to others in your community is strength, not weakness. It's a force multiplier, if you like that term.

Understanding how to move around your community builds brain power across our entire lives. Studies in children found the ones who are driven everywhere are less able to navigate by themselves ( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-07/kids-who-get-driven-everywhere-don-t-know-where-they-re-going ).

I have a lot more transportation independence and self-reliance, walking, biking, or taking transit than I do in my car. I know a greater variety of ways to get places and I'm not stuck when vehicular traffic is stuck if I'm on foot. I don't have to worry about my old age when I'm no longer able to be a safe driver. I'll still be free to move myself.

Re: Tablespoons and Cup Measures Around The World

BarbChamberlain — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 12:54:13 -0000

All of this is a good reason to cook using weight rather than volume!

Re: US Agencies Release Blueprint for Decarbonizing Transportation and It's Amazing

BarbChamberlain — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 12:16:56 -0000

They could have added that this is health policy and brought in Dept. of Health and the CDC to point to the public health benefits, along with other agencies such as EPA, but that would make it too big. I hope other agencies can connect their work to this in acknowledgment of the ways these policies need to communicate with each other. And I hope people who want to yell about coordinated efforts can stop for a minute and think about whether we really want to pay taxes to fund policies working at cross purposes.

Re: Mary Ruefle's Stunning Color Spectrum of Sadnesses

BarbChamberlain — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 11:26:52 -0000

Wonderful piece and I'll look for the book. Small correction--you list the poet herself as the author of this piece but it's by Maria Popova, according to the credit at the end.

Re: How to Make Homemade Tortilla Chips

BarbChamberlain — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 12:49:32 -0000

When we were buying tortilla chips at the store we loved the lime ones. I sprinkled lime juice on these and then the salt before baking the first side. When I flipped them over the underside still had a slightly doughy quality to it, at least on some, so I just sprinkled salt without adding any more lime juice in case that would be too much. Couldn't really taste the lime juice so I think next time I'll try it on both sides and maybe season them more with chili powder etc.

Great way to use up part of a pack of corn tortillas that were more than I needed for a recipe.

Re: How Green is cycling?

BarbChamberlain — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 00:13:52 -0000

The exhalations of humans aren't part of the carbon calculations we're all worried about--we take in carbon in the plants we eat, then we exhale most of it (but not all) as CO2. The concern is from the release of carbon that has been locked up for millions of years and is now being burned. https://slate.com/news-and-...

Re: How Green is cycling?

BarbChamberlain — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 00:08:47 -0000

Similar to another piece I read a while back on the environmental impact of cycling (although that was "back of the envelope" and you've done more work--https://keith.seas.ha..., you include caveats but ultimately sum up as if riding for everyday transportation necessarily requires extra calorie consumption.

Since bicycling is calorie for calorie the most fuel-efficient form of transportation, I don't understand the basis for this assumption. I bike for everyday transportation. I'm not in a hurry, I'm not trying to elevate my heart rate, and I don't eat extra food to "fuel" my cycling whether I ride 5 miles or 15. I might enjoy a treat but I'd do that whether I biked or drove--it isn't a function of my mode or whether I use my e-bike or one of my acoustic bikes.

Where's the research that actually finds that people who bike *for transportation* eat more as a result of riding? In particular, given that the research you link to finds "a spontaneous reduction in hunger associated with participation in exercise" it seems to me the caloric intake should just be left out. Too many unknowns, too many individual-level variables.

You appear to assume that driving a car consumes zero calories. That's not actually the case--there's movement inside the car and walking to the destination from wherever they parked--sometimes not an insignificant part of the total trip, whereas I can bike to the door of my destination. While we're at it, a manual transmission requires more energy of the human than an automatic. I imagine this is a tiny difference but if you're going to attribute food/carbon cost to movement, get all the movements into the equation.

You note the difference between meat-eaters and those who aren't. That would be true for drivers too. Since I'm biking to the local farmers' market for locally grown food and I'm a vegetarian, I know I come out ahead of someone driving to McDonald's for beef shipped from across the country or to the grocery store to get vegetables brought in from another continent. But that's individual and there's no way to generalize to dietary habits by mode choice. When you only talk about whether the people riding/walking eat meat, the scales aren't being weighted equally.

Otherwise a great article. This food piece just feels like a distraction and something that will be misquoted without the caveats you've included. I know I saw the Harvard piece picked up with "oh, those naughty bike people are actually bad for the environment!" kinds of headlines when it came out.

Re: What Exactly Is a ‘Birb’?

BarbChamberlain — Sun, 05 Jul 2020 12:28:04 -0000

A birb can never be a floof because a floof is definitely a fluffy cat.

Re: Twitter for Urban Planning

BarbChamberlain — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 13:31:32 -0000

Given that I work in transportation I also skew who I follow, but then as I heard someone say on a webinar the other day, transportation and land use are the same concepts with different jargon.

Planners:
@DrDesThePlanner
@ULOCNetwork
@HanaCreger
@HarlemGirl59
@Jay_Pitter
@DubOnTheStreets
More on my list Planning-Urban https://twitter.com/BarbCha...

Journalism:
@StreetsblogUSA and associated regional Streetsblogs
@IndigenousUrbanism

Advocacy:
@SmartGrowthUSA
@CompleteStreets
@AARPLivable
@JanaLynott
@AmericaWalks
@BlackSpaceOrg

Find and amplify voices of disabled people discussing planning such as @SFDirewolf, @bambinoir, @mssinenomine, @AlexHaagaard. These ones fall under Advocacy but you'll find people for every category.

Under Academics:
@RobinMazumder
@AimiHaimraie
@ctbrown1911
@UrbanAdonia
@UrbanDemog

Some lists to mine or follow that have heavy doses of planning or adjacent thinkers:

#UrbanistLeadersOfColor by @mslynnross https://t.co/I6AniAglob
#UrbanistWomenAtWork by @schmangee https://t.co/DC0i0U1ClM
My #WomenChangingTransport https://t.co/uwHkaIEQuS + #MoveEquity https://t.co/p22Kwx96Vc lists.

I could keep going but we all have real lives too. Thanks for the great list. Looking forward to others adding their recommendations.

Re: Emissions Report: Cars Are Still Our Biggest Problem

BarbChamberlain — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 23:26:02 -0000

It may possibly be baffling to some climate advocates that reducing automotive emissions isn't a bigger focus. It's far more baffling to many in the active transportation world that major climate reports and political proposals can come out with perhaps some discussion of electric vehicles but little or no mention of supporting walking and biking as zero-carbon transportation.

New cars are out of reach for many who rely most on these modes, and still require all the room on the road of an old gas-burner. Given that far more used than new cars are sold each year (well over two times as many), it's going to take quite a while to turn over the vehicle stock of the US.

We could simultaneously address climate issues, costly health conditions that can be improved by easy access to light exercise, the pedestrian safety crisis on our roads, and access to opportunity for people who can't afford new cars if we did more for walking, biking, and transit (which relies on access to transit stops so it too requires walk/bike investments). No other transportation investment can offer this many benefits.

Re: Check Out Portland’s New Bike Traffic Circle

BarbChamberlain — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 15:53:39 -0000

Washington state has a bike roundabout at an intersection of two trails. http://wabikes.org/2014/12/...

Re: Detroit Streetlight Effort Dramatically Reduces Ped Deaths

BarbChamberlain — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 15:12:02 -0000

Every person who gets out of a car becomes a pedestrian in that moment. Every place currently selling winter coats is selling racks and racks of black, charcoal gray, navy blue, and other dark colors.

It is not realistic to tell people to buy special clothing, and that advice assumes the ability to own multiple coats. Many people walking/bicycling do so out of necessity. A fix that relies on them to have money ignores the responsibility of the managers of the public realm to make it work for all.

Systematic safety approaches work far better than admonishing individuals to change their coats. Better lighting on the street provides a fix for everyone regardless of mode. Better headlight designs on cars would also help drivers see farther down the road. Are you advocating for those through the NMA?

Re: Is It Time to Redefine the Bike Lane?

BarbChamberlain — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 13:24:02 -0000

If speed is an absolute priority you won't fill the streets with cars. Current evidence demonstrates compellingly that this is a recipe for moving slowly, not quickly.

Re: Hit-and-Run Deaths Are Skyrocketing, and Pedestrians and Cyclists Bear the Brunt

BarbChamberlain — Wed, 09 May 2018 21:11:24 -0000

I don't know what study you looked at. See http://aaafoundation.org/wp..., the research brief linked from the study page. Bicyclist fatalities in hit and runs have gone up every year from lows in 2009-2010; see Table A1.

(Those were years in which a number of fatality stats dipped a bit, including for the other modes listed in this report. See https://www.sciencedirect.c... as one source if you're interested in the possible effects of the recession.)

Re: Letting People on Bicycles Use LPIs: A New Way Forward on Cycling Safety

BarbChamberlain — Mon, 09 Apr 2018 16:14:50 -0000

In Washington state law bicyclists in a crosswalk have all the same rights and responsibilities as pedestrians. http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/d...

Re: The Florida International Bridge Collapse Is About So Much More Than a Failed Structure

BarbChamberlain — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 14:40:11 -0000

Two words: Transit service.
One more word: Bikes.

Re: What Explains the Gender Gap in Walking?

BarbChamberlain — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:44:28 -0000

My experience is generally better on my bike too, although not 100% free from harassment. This piece https://bigorangebike.wordp... speaks powerfully to a lack of feeling safe on a bike as well--in particular the dark side of any "see and be seen" campaigns so popular with behavioral traffic safety efforts.

Re: How should speed limits be set? A powerful committee is asking

BarbChamberlain — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:27:58 -0000

Link to the survey doesn't point directly to it. It's here: https://www.surveymonkey.co...

Re: A Full Four Days of No Driving

BarbChamberlain — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 22:37:40 -0000

Super! I've done #30DaysOfBiking several times and making it a routine part of ever day makes it easier for me.

Re: American Cities and the Creeping Criminalization of Walking

BarbChamberlain — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 16:18:08 -0000

Every city faces resource constraints. Working from a data-driven, systematic approach to safety you'd want to focus those resources on the actions that do the most to contribute to collisions, injuries, and fatalities. What might those be?

Well, it isn't people listening to music in a crosswalk. In a 2015 study NHTSA found that the critical reason for the crash--the thing that happened right before a collision occurred--was driver error in 94% of collisions. Let me repeat--NINETY-FOUR PERCENT.
- Recognition errors (I'd swear there wasn't anyone there)
- Decision errors (if I speed up I can beat that yellow light before it turns red)
- Performance errors (I'm okay taking this corner fast on a dark and rainy day)

Study link: https://crashstats.nhtsa.do...

If you aren't focusing your enforcement as well as engineering efforts on 94% of the problem you're wasting tax dollars.

Did I mention it was driver error in 94% of all collisions? This isn't even just about pedestrians.

Re: "You Do Not Sound American": A Live Interview on WGN-TV | JOOJOO AZAD | جوجو آزاد

BarbChamberlain — Mon, 12 Feb 2018 22:06:50 -0000

They should now ask every blogger on any topic to explain US foreign policy and see how many well-informed answers they get--and also ask them each to discuss fashion, clothing norms, society, religion, and job creation for immigrants and refugees and see how well they address those too, while they're at it. I admire your grace under stupid pressure.

Re: They paved paradise, put up a parking lot

BarbChamberlain — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 16:05:52 -0000

"Use Uber" shouldn't be on the list of ways to avoid contributing to Big Asphalt.
https://www.bostonglobe.com...
https://qz.com/1103247/uber...
https://www.citylab.com/tra...

Re: How Much Can Bicycling Help Fight Climate Change? A Lot, If Cities Try

BarbChamberlain — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 16:23:04 -0000

Whether you breathe fast or slow, deep breaths or shallow breaths, you are just returning to the air the same CO2 that was there to begin with--not releasing any stored carbon.