Traffic Congestion Quotes

Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people in themselves.

Once I thought that writing this book would be impossible. It was a skyscraper, massive and complete and unbearably far off. It taunted me from the horizon. But do we ever look at such buildings and assume they sprung up overnight? No. We’ve seen the traffic congestion that attends them. The skeleton of beams and girders. The swarm of builders and the rattle of cranes… Everything grand is made from a series of ugly little moments. Everything worthwhile by hours of self-doubt and days of drudgery. All the works by people you and I admire sit atop a foundation of failures. So whatever your project, whatever your struggle, whatever your dream, keep toiling, because the world needs your skyscraper. Per aspera, ad astra! —Pierce Brown

I’ve done some exploring,” he said. “Thought you’d like to know, Daedalus got his punishment.” “You saw him?” Nico nodded. “Minos wanted to boil him in cheese fondue for eternity, but my father had other ideas. Daedalus will be building overpasses and exit ramps in Asphodel for all time. It’ll help ease the traffic congestion. Truthfully, I think the old guy is pretty happy with that. He’s still building. Still creating. And he gets to see his son and Perdix on the weekends.

Technology has its own ethic of expediency and efficiency. What can be done efficiently must be done in the most efficient way—even if what is done happens, for example, to be genocide or the devastation of a country by total war. Even the long-term interests of society, or the basic needs of man himself, are not considered when they get in the way of technology. We waste natural resources, as well as those of undeveloped countries, iron, oil, etc., in order to fill our cities and roads with a congestion of traffic that is in fact largely useless, and is a symptom of the meaningless and futile agitation of our own minds.

Are you – who make your living snooping – sneering at my curiosity about people and my attempts to satisfy it?" "We're different," I said. "I do mine with the object of putting people in jail, and I get paid for it, though not as much as I should." "That's not different," he said. "I do mine with the object of putting people in books, and I get paid for it, though not as much as I should." "Yeah, but what good does that do?" "God knows. What good does putting them in jail do?" "Relieves congestion," I said. "Put enough people in jail, and cities wouldn't have traffic problems.

Bombay, you will be told, is the only city India has, in the sense that the word city is understood in the West. Other Indian metropolises like Calcutta, Madras and Delhi are like oversized villages. It is true that Bombay has many more high-rise buildings than any other Indian city: when you approach it by the sea it looks like a miniature New York. It has other things to justify its city status: it is congested, it has traffic jams at all hours of the day, it is highly polluted and many parts of it stink.

There are no rest stops on the road of life. Otherwise they'd be congested with traffic.

Traffic is thick, so my urge to gun the car, to feel the freedom of this temporary independence, is stymied by the congestion at every intersection. I look up through the windshield at the bruised sky, hoping it won’t rain.

To me, being a man means being kind, generous, and a good provider. The most important part of being a man is being strong. Having the self-confidence to handle any situation you face, whether you live in the city and face traffic, congestion, and crowds, or you live in remote areas with wild animals and inclement weather. And it’s a quiet self-confidence. A strong, self-confident man doesn’t announce his strength to the world. He leads by example. He’s the guy who steps up and takes charge when a challenge is faced, and then quietly fades into the background when the issue is resolved.

if consumer demand should increase for the goods or services of any private business, the private firm is delighted; it woos and welcomes the new business and expands its operations eagerly to fill the new orders. Government, in contrast, generally meets this situation by sourly urging or even ordering consumers to “buy” less, and allows shortages to develop, along with deterioration in the quality of its service. Thus, the increased consumer use of government streets in the cities is met by aggravated traffic congestion and by continuing denunciations and threats against people who drive their own cars. The New York City administration, for example, is continually threatening to outlaw the use of private cars in Manhattan, where congestion has been most troublesome. It is only government, of course, that would ever think of bludgeoning consumers in this way; it is only government that has the audacity to “solve” traffic congestion by forcing private cars (or trucks or taxis or whatever) off the road. According to this principle, of course, the “ideal” solution to traffic congestion is simply to outlaw all vehicles! But this sort of attitude toward the consumer is not confined to traffic on the streets. New York City, for example, has suffered periodically from a water “shortage.” Here is a situation where, for many years, the city government has had a compulsory monopoly of the supply of water to its citizens. Failing to supply enough water, and failing to price that water in such a way as to clear the market, to equate supply and demand (which private enterprise does automatically), New York’s response to water shortages has always been to blame not itself, but the consumer, whose sin has been to use “too much” water. The city administration could only react by outlawing the sprinkling of lawns, restricting use of water, and demanding that people drink less water. In this way, government transfers its own failings to the scapegoat user, who is threatened and bludgeoned instead of being served well and efficiently. There has been similar response by government to the ever-accelerating crime problem in New York City. Instead of providing efficient police protection, the city’s reaction has been to force the innocent citizen to stay out of crime-prone areas. Thus, after Central Park in Manhattan became a notorious center for muggings and other crime in the night hours, New York City’s “solution” to the problem was to impose a curfew, banning use of the park in those hours. In short, if an innocent citizen wants to stay in Central Park at night, it is he who is arrested for disobeying the curfew; it is, of course, easier to arrest him than to rid the park of crime. In short, while the long-held motto of private enterprise is that “the customer is always right,” the implicit maxim of government operation is that the customer is always to be blamed.

Becomingly dressed in a tan cotton suit, Nancy set off in her convertible for the shopping district. She drove down the boulevard, and upon reaching the more congested streets, made her way skillfully through heavy traffic, then pulled into a parking lot. “I think I’ll try Taylor’s Department Store first for a dress,” she decided. Taylor’s was one of River Heights’ finest stores. Nancy purchased several items for Hannah on the main floor, then went directly to the misses’ wearing apparel section on the second floor. Usually Nancy had no trouble finding a sales-clerk. But this particular morning seemed to be an especially busy one in the department, and an extra rush of customers had temporarily overwhelmed the sales force.

He just lingers long enough to see his plane put to bed properly, then grabs a cab at the airport-gate. "The Settlement" and forgetting that he's not inland any more, that Shanghai's snappier than Chicago, "Chop-chop." "Sure, Mike," grins the slant-eyed driver. "Hop in." A change has come over the city since he went away, he can feel that the minute they hit the outskirts, clear the congested native sections, and cross the bridge into the Settlement. Shanghai is already tuning-up for its oncoming doom, without knowing it. A city dancing on the brink of the grave. There's an electric tension in the air, the place never seemed so gay, so hectic, as tonight; the roads opening off the Bund a welter of blinking, flashing neon lights, in ideographs and Latin letters alike, as far as the eye can see. Traffic hopelessly snarled at every crossing, cops piping on their whistles, packed sidewalks, the blare of saxophones coming from taxi-dance mills, and overhead the feverish oriental stars competing with inter-crossed searchlight beams from some warships or other on the Whang-poo. Just about the right town and the right night to have fifteen thousand bucks in, all at one time. ("Jane Brown's Body")

In many ways, communications networks are like road systems: their purpose is to move traffic quickly from one place to another with minimum congestion. They therefore present similar problems to their designers. Speed is important, of course, and so is safety, which means essentially the same in communications as it does on highways: what arrives at a destination should bear as close a resemblance as possible to whatever left the departure point.

It’s hard to blame Representative Petri for missing the point. The value of studying fireflies is endlessly surprising. For example, before 1994, Internet engineers were vexed by spontaneous pulsations in the traffic between computers called routers, until they realized that the machines were behaving like fireflies, exchanging periodic messages that were inadvertently synchronizing them. Once the cause was identified, it became clear how to relieve the congestion. Electrical engineers devised a decentralized architecture for clocking computer circuits more efficiently, by mimicking the fireflies’ strategy for achieving synchrony at low cost and high reliability.

This month saw the launch of Foodlogica, which aims to contribute to the localised food system by providing affordable zero-emissions transport and less traffic congestion. This urban delivery service uses solar-powered electric tricycles for the final link in the food distribution system, as well as aiming to shorten the chain between local food producers and sellers.

I told them my new entity would make a series of apps—I had learned the language well enough to counterfeit a convincing plan—constructed around the GPS location software now built into most every device. Users would tag their experience in the street, in bars and clubs, on different modes of public transport. “So, like Foursquare,” my interviewer said, with the doubt of a young person looking at an old man in front of a computer. “Exactly like that,” I said, “except that our users will record incidences of hate. We’ll be working initially to produce a live map—like a traffic congestion map—of more and less racist areas, safe routes home, institutionally racist police forces and local authorities, local populations. We’ll have a star rating system and so on. Eventually I want to roll out iterations for anyone who is not part of the obvious privileged class—for women, for trans people, for people of colour, for the blind and the deaf and so on so that we can map prejudice and racism intersectionally—but one must start somewhere, so I’m calling version one Walking Whilst Black. I have some concerns about the name because I don’t wish to rule out those who are in wheelchairs or mobility carts, but the phrase is there in the language and I feel it is well understood.

When we passed Camp Johnson, the military compound, I couldn’t believe that I was seeing two bodies suspended from the high security fence near the gate. On Broad Street, which is the main drag in Monrovia, there were streetlights but to my horror they were being used as gallows. Some still had bodies hanging from them, which appeared bloated and badly decomposed. Other bodies were decomposing in the gutters, with runoff water swirling around them. The decaying process doesn’t take long in this tropical heat, and it was obvious from the sickenly smell that permeated the air that they had been dead for a while. The city appeared to be under Martial Law with soldiers assisting the police, directing traffic. Lacking traffic lights each intersection was congested with cars, horn blaring and nobody moving. It was a mess and heavily armed, rag-tag soldiers, were now, everywhere.

Traffic was congested in both directions due to the recent destruction of the bridges and the many abandoned cars, which left fewer options for those still trying desperately to flee the city and finding themselves unable to go anywhere. The vehicle occupants were easy pickings for the increasing number of infected on the roadway.

The place was a truck stop town. Large 18 wheelers lined the sidewalks and cafes. Giant diesel motors roaring their exhaust into the cloudy night skies. Wearied looking truckers climbed into the cabs like captains of gigantic steel ships. She could not imagine anyone trying to maneuver such large metallic beasts all over the roads of the nation. While the idea of being behind the wheel with nothing but the comfort of the radio, and the isolation were appealing. The thought of fighting all the congested traffic in smog infested industrial waters of choking vapors killed any pleasant dreams of the occupation.

Congestion-reducing activities like carpooling, off-peak commuting, bicycling, telecommuting, and mass transit would all increase with congestion pricing in effect. Already Pigovian principles have been applied to revenue-generating segments of infrastructure like toll roads and London’s congestion zone, which reduces traffic and takes in money by charging motorists to drive into the city center during peak times. Meanwhile, Singapore has implemented an Electronic Road Pricing System that has virtually eliminated congestion.

Americans collectively spend over one hundred billion hours stuck in traffic jams, a testament to the fact that road pricing is not yet widely adopted. By some estimates, the revenues from optimal congestion pricing would be enough to eliminate all state taxes in California.

How about a totally decentralized solution, such as the Tel Aviv–based, blockchain-powered ride-sharing application Commuterz? In that case no one owns the platform, which like Bitcoin is just based on an open-source software protocol that anyone can download. There’s no Commuterz, Inc. taking 25 percent. Instead, users own and trade a native digital currency system that incentivizes them to share rides to reduce traffic congestion and lower the cost of transportation for all.

In congested traffic, there will always be a temptation to change lanes, the other lane seems to move faster, smoother, and less congested.

As cities expand and more vehicles take to the roads, the infrastructure struggles to keep pace, resulting in congestion, compromised safety, and an increased risk of accidents. The need for a holistic approach that encompasses infrastructure development, public awareness campaigns, and stringent law enforcement becomes evident in addressing this critical issue.

Today, the estimated cost of all motor vehicle traffic crashes in the United States alone is on the order of $340 billion annually.7 These tangible costs include lost productivity, workplace losses, legal and court expenses, medical costs, emergency medical services, insurance administration costs, congestion costs due to the crash, and property damage costs. If we include nontangible losses such as those related to loss of quality of life, it jumps to $1.76 trillion.

Mass Mobilization of Youth Despite the well-founded dissatisfaction of the younger generation with the kind of life offered by the bloated affluence of megatechnic society, their very mode of rebellion too often demonstrates that the power system still has them in its grip: they, too mistake indolence for leisure and irresponsibility for liberation. The so-called Woodstock Festival was no spontaneous manifestation of joyous youth, but a strictly money-making enterprise, shrewdly calculated to exploit their rebellions, their adulations, and their illusions. The success of the festival was based ont he tropismic attraction of 'Big Name' singers and groups (the counter-culture's Personality Cult!), idols who command colossal financial rewards from personal appearances and the sales of their discs and films. With its mass mobilization of private cars and buses, its congestion of traffic en route, and its large-scale pollution of the environment, the Woodstock Festival mirrored and even grossly magnified the worst features of the system that many young rebels profess to reject, if not to destroy. The one positive achievement of this mass mobilization, apparently, was the warm sense of instant fellowship produced by the close physical contact of a hundred thousand bodies floating in the haze and daze of pot. Our present mass-minded, over-regimented, depersonalized culture has nothing to fear from this kind of reaction-equally regimented, equally depersonalized, equally under external control. What is this but the Negative Power Complex, attached by invisible electrodes to the same pecuniary pleasure center.

But Honolulu isn’t just famous for its sky-high real estate prices. It also ranks as one of the top five most traffic-congested cities in the world. Forget what you see on Hawaii-Five-O. All those neck-snapping car chases and squealing tires are just wishful thinking. It takes hours to get from one end of O’ahu to the other.

Dreams, visions or ideas can come like a traffic congestion on your mind sometimes and they can create confusion, frustration, stagnation...you name it. The first thing to do is to sit back, relax and try to figure out how to tackle the situation. There are number of simply things that can help you to regain your mind sight like: .taking a walk .listening to music .doing excise or .jogging These can put you in a better place.

Cities, as the venues for this historic transmutation, became dehumanized—and by the 1950s, their pathology had become extreme. They were too big, gigantic, megalopoleis. Housing was scarce and shoddy. Traffic congestion had reached the point of dysfunction. The subways were overcrowded and unreliable. Office work was monotonous and sedentary; stifled by tedium, urban workers had come to resemble machines, “enslaved, insecure, and one-sided.” City dwellers encountered one another in passing, with mutual indifference or mistrust. The giant city was “a mere aggregate of dispirited [people] scattered among cold, featureless structures.

whatever some Prius fans may believe, it turns out that Priuses do have a corporeal form, and a Prius in congested traffic will cause more emissions indirectly by slowing other cars down than it will emit directly.

Of more angst to drivers are the customer ratings systems imposed by the app companies. While most drivers do not have a problem with the notion of being rated, they are concerned that they will receive poor marks for circumstances beyond their control. Customers can give even the most earnest drivers bad ratings for any reason such as bumpy rides over pothole strewn roads, traffic congestion and passengers underestimating how much time they need to reach their destinations. Miscommunication between passengers and drivers can occur because passengers cannot speak the local language, are drunk, or fall asleep and cannot direct the driver to their remote destinations. Perhaps some passengers just do not like the ethnic group to which some drivers appear to belong. Circumstances such as these are clearly the fault of passengers who may rate drivers poorly nonetheless. Drivers with low ratings can be expelled from on-demand taxi services. This unfairness is compounded to the extent that drivers make large investments in their cars, insurance and fuel. Making drivers, who basically invested in a franchise, vulnerable to expulsion from a system because of unfair ratings seems to me to be a potential source of dissention or even litigation. Another concern associated with the taxi app business model is that drivers only have 15 seconds to respond to notices of pick up opportunities. Drivers that fail to respond in such tight windows lose the business. Repeat failures to make timely responses can result in temporary suspensions. This pressure, and related distractions associated with interacting with handsets, is applied simultaneously with all of the challenges of navigating traffic in a variety of weather conditions. Foremost, this is a driving hazard that imperils everyone in the vicinity. It also ties in with the ratings systems because drivers are only rated on the rides they complete. Drivers who claim rides but abandon the customer if it looks like the pickup will be delayed have no ratings risk. Paradoxically, no ratings result in the worst customer service as passengers end up stranded.

Not that anyone needs much of an excuse to stay away from Cairo, with its chronic traffic congestion, choking pollution, and legions of touts who have a very well-earned reputation for ripping off all and sundry, but especially Gulf Arabs.

the obvious solution to congestion—building more roads—simply produces more traffic, creating a hedonic treadmill of construction and frustration.

Jakarta has no mass transit system to speak of, so traffic jams are legendary... Each year, another 200,000 cars pour onto the streets. That means more traffic, and longer commutes. The chauffeur-driven rich kit their cars out with mobile offices so that they can use the time they spend on gridlocked roads more productively. A few years ago, the city government decided it would cut congestion on the city's main arteries by insisting that in rush hour, each car must have at least three passengers. Again, Jakarta's infinitely creative residents made the most of the change. Within days, the pavements of the feeder roads were crowded with unemployed people hiring themselves out as 'jockeys', extra passengers for rich people's smooth, air-conditioned cars.

Meanwhile, Singapore has implemented an Electronic Road Pricing System that has virtually eliminated congestion. Americans collectively spend over one hundred billion hours stuck in traffic jams, a testament to the fact that road pricing is not yet widely adopted.

Back in the good old days of 1911 when London’s streets were covered in horse manure and traffic congestion could give you a parasitic infection as well as a headache, the Post Office decided to utilise two new cutting edge technologies—electric rail and the Greathead Shield Tunnel Boring System—to create a mini railway for the post. It would run from Whitechapel to Paddington and allow the mail to glide from one side of the city to the other, untroubled by traffic jams, inclement weather or, during the occasional world war, high explosives. It opened in 1924 and was only closed in 2003 because ‘being awesome’ no longer registered on the Royal Mail’s balance sheet.

Much of the signal system was installed in the 1930s and transit employees now have to fabricate their own replacement parts for obsolete equipment. While subway riders have to rely on this century-old technology, New York's automobile drivers take advantage of traffic signals that are part of a sophisticated information network. Above the streets, the city's Department of Transportation monitors data from sensors and video cameras to identify congestion choke points, and the remotely adjusts computerized traffic signals to optimize the flow of vehicles. Drivers obtain accurate, real-time traffic condition information via electronic signals, computers and smartphones.

City congestion has a large influence on fuel consumption. In the United States, for example, traffic in 2014 caused upwards of 3.1 billion gallons of wasted fuel, Texas A & M’s Transportation Institute calculates.

Twenty-one stories below, constipated traffic worked its way through the infamous Angeleno congestion, automotive peristalsis encouraged by horns and expletives.

it putted to life after one try. He patted the handlebars and muttered, “Good loyal girl.” He put it into gear and pulled away from the ditch, running with filthy water. Soon he’d maneuvered himself along a parallel road. He couldn’t see them but knew from the updates that they were one block away, still moving north. He scowled. Soon that road would leave the congestion of city traffic, and his updates would stop as the car would outdistance his people on bicycles trying to keep tabs on them. Time to move over and get on the same road. But before he did, it dawned on him. He slammed his hand on the handlebars and picked up the walkie-talkie. “Break off,” he said in Spanish. “I know where they’re going.” Instead of veering onto their road, he accelerated. Traffic on this road was much lighter than the main road, and what little there was, he could easily avoid. “She’s a clever one,” he said, and he rubbed the speedometer lovingly. Soon he topped out his speed and his road merged with the main road. He chanced a glance behind, but didn’t see them yet. He didn’t doubt their destination for an instant, though. It made perfect sense. The Americans would need proof that she wasn’t a Nazi spy, and showing them a couple of dead Nazis she’d killed would be just the thing. He didn’t know what they’d do with her then, but he’d be close by if she needed him. He could feel the weight of the .38-caliber pistol he had shoved into his waistband. He hoped he wouldn’t need to use it, but he wouldn’t hesitate. * * * “Pull in here.” Ilsa pointed to a wide point in the road. The driver veered in and stopped in front of a seemingly impregnable wall of green jungle. Portman, in the front passenger seat, asked, “Here?” Ilsa nodded. Mr. Portman held an M1 carbine. He stepped out and ordered, “Keep her there while I check it out.” Ilsa, Mr. Blake, and the driver watched him walk around, searching for an ambush.

Prior to the term of President Rodrigo Duterte, average infrastructure spending for the past five decades was only at 2.5 percent of the country’s GDP. The 2015 IMF report found that the Philippines had a lower public investment in comparison to other members of ASEAN. We all know that Build, Build, Build is a program that is not only necessary but is in fact long overdue. If the Philippines is to achieve its full potential, then it must do something to cut losses due to traffic congestion in Metro Manila, which has gone up to ₱3.5 billion a day. It was at this point that Secretary Mark Villar presented the plan to decongest the 90-year-old EDSA, a 23.8-kilometer circumferential highway, which has long exceeded its maximum capacity of 288,000 vehicles a day.

Rather than just reacting to events, as transportation planners tend to do with traffic congestion, makers of, say, a patent system can construct one to reward creators or distribute intellectual property in ways that are not simply reacting to market pressures. We don’t only have to enlarge what is there. We can light out for new territory, and make new places, and markets.

The most [...] literal proposal to solve the problem of congestion comes from Harvey Wiley Corbett [...] Ultimately, Corbett calculates, the entire surface of the city could be a single traffic plane, an ocean of cars, increasing the traffic potential 700 percent. "[...We see] a very modernized Venice, a city of arcades, plazas and bridges, with canals for streets, only the canals will not be filled with real water but with freely flowing motor traffic, the sun glistening on the black tops of the cars and the buildings reflecting in this waving flood of rapidly rolling vehicles. From an architectural viewpoint [...] the idea presents all the loveliness, and more, of Venice. There is nothing incongruous about it, nothing strange..." Corbett's "solution" for New York's traffic problem is the most blatant case of disingenuity in Manhattanism's history. Pragmatism so distorted becomes pure poetry. Not for the moment does the theorist intend to relieve congestion; his true ambition is to escalate it to such intensity that it generates -- as in a quantum leap -- a completely new condition, where congestion becomes mysteriously positive [... Corbett and the authors of the Regional Plan] have invented a method to deal rationally with the fundamentally irrational. [They know] that it would be suicide to solve Manhattan's problems, that they exist by the grace of these problems, that it is their duty to make its problems, if anything, forever insurmountable, that the only solution for Manhattan is the extrapolation of its freakish history, that Manhattan is the city of the perpetual flight forward.

We need to change the ways in which we talk about humanity and the environment and in order to do so, we need to change the way in which we think about them, not an easy task given that we use language to think and our languages make us conceive the environment as detached. A possible way out to help us approach problems, without being drawn back by the mental models that fail us, is Systems Dynamics (Meadows 2008; Sterman 2012). Unfortunately, Sterman explains, most efforts made by individuals and institutions to enhance sustainability are directed at the symptoms and not at the causes and systems (any system) will respond to any change introduced with what is known as ‘policy resistance’, that is the existing system will tend to react to change in ways that we had not intended when we first designed the intervention (a few examples are road-building programs designed to reduce congestion that ends up increasing traffic or antibiotics that stimulate the evolution of drug-resistant pathogens—for a longer list and further explanation see Sterman 2012, 24). Systems Dynamics allows us to calculate scientifically the way in which a complex system will react to change and to account beforehand for what we usually describe as ‘side-effects’. Side effects, Sterman argues, ‘are not a feature of reality but a sign that the boundaries of our mental models are too narrow, our time horizons too short’ (24). As Gonella et al. (2019) explain: ”As long as we consider the geobiosphere as a sub-system (a resources provider) of the human-made economic system, any attempt to fix environmental and social problems by keeping the business as usual, i.e., the mantra of economic growth, will fail. The reality tells us the reverse: geobiosphere is not a sub-system of the economy, economy is a sub-system of geobiosphere. As systems thinkers know, trying to keep alive at any cost the operation of a sub-system will give rise to a re-arrangement of the super-system – the geobiosphere – that will self-reorganize to absorb and make ineffective our attempt, then continuing its own way.” (Gonella et al. 2019)

Volterra,’ Olivia announced in a flat, icy voice. VOLTERRA- WE BEGAN THE STEEP CLIMB, AND THE ROAD GREW CONGESTED. As we wound higher, the cars became too close together for Olivia to weave insanely between them anymore. We slowed to a crawl behind a little tan Peugeot. ‘Olivia,’ I moaned. The clock on the dash seemed to be speeding up. ‘It's the only way in,’ she tried soothing me. But her voice was too strained to comfort. The cars continued to edge forward, one car length at a time. The sun beamed down brilliantly, seeming already overhead. The cars crept one by one toward the city. As we got closer, I could see cars parked by the side of the road with people getting out to walk the rest of the way. At first- I thought it was just impatience-something I could easily understand. But then we came around a switchback, and I could see the filled parking lot outside the city wall, the crowds of people walking through the gates. No one was being allowed to drive through. ‘Olivia,’ I whispered urgently. ‘I know,’ she said. Her face was chiseled from ice. Now that I was looking, and we were crawling slowly enough to see, I could tell that it was very windy. The people crowding toward the gate gripped their hats and tugged their hair out of their faces. Their clothes billowed around them. I also noticed that red was everywhere. Red shirts, red hats, red flags dripping like long ribbons beside the gate, whipping in the wind as I watched, the brilliant crimson scarf one woman had tied around her hair was caught in a sudden gust. It twisted up into the air above her, writhing like it was alive. She reached for it, jumping in the air, but it continued to flutter higher, a patch of bloody color against the dull, ancient walls. ‘Bell.’ Olivia spoke swiftly in a fierce, deep voice. ‘I can't see what the guard here will decide now-if this doesn't work, you're going to have to go in alone. You're going to have to run. Just keep running in the course they tell you to. Don't get lost.’ I repeated what I had said- the name repeatedly, trying to get it down. ‘Or 'the clock tower,' if they speak English. I'll go around and try to find a secluded spot somewhere behind the city where I can go over the wall.’ I nodded two times… ‘Marcel will be under the clock tower, to the north of the square. There's a narrow alleyway on the right, and he'll be in the shadow there. You have to get his attention before he can move into the sun.’ I nodded furiously. Olivia was near the front of the line. A man in a navy-blue uniform was directing the flow of traffic, turning the cars away from the full lot. They U-turned and headed back to find a place beside the road. Then it was Olivia's turn…

understand the extent of my neurosis before this book, he sure as hell does now. Few authors are as lucky as I am to have an editor like Mike. He’s humble, patient, and diligent, even when I’m not. That this book was brought to you only a year after Golden Son is a miracle of his making. I doff my cap to you, my goodman. And to each and every reader, thank you. Your passion and excitement have allowed me to live my life on my own terms, and for that I am ever grateful and humbled. Your creativity, humor, and support come through in every message, tweet, and comment. Getting to meet you and hear your stories at conventions and signings is one of the perks of being an author. Thank you, Howlers, for all that you do. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to howl together soon. Once I thought that writing this book would be impossible. It was a skyscraper, massive and complete and unbearably far off. It taunted me from the horizon. But do we ever look at such buildings and assume they sprung up overnight? No. We’ve seen the traffic congestion that attends them. The skeleton of beams and girders. The swarm of builders and the rattle of cranes… Everything grand is made from a series of ugly little moments. Everything worthwhile by hours of self-doubt and days of drudgery. All the works by people you and I admire sit atop a foundation of failures.

In 1955, a modern philosopher named C. Northcote Parkinson came up with the counterintuitive Parkinson’s Law: that the demand for something expands to match its supply. In economics, this is called induced demand—it’s why expanding roads to reduce traffic congestion never works in the long term because more drivers always show up in their cars to fill those extra lanes.

Beginning in the 1920s, and for nearly twenty years, Steinach pioneered one of the most popular and controversial rejuvenation treatments. He claimed that vasectomies boosted sex drive, intellect, energy, and just about anything else that withered with age. Steinach believed that blocking the exit of manly juices (which is what a vasectomy does) prompted a congestion of them, much the way a traffic jam causes a pile-up of cars.

For decades, big-city mayors and planning officials have been calling for more bike lanes, pedestrian access, and fewer cars. And for decades, traffic, air pollution, and accidents congested our streets and skies. Then, in weeks, cyclists took over the road, outdoor dining tables sprouted, and skies cleared.

Just off one of the most congested traffic corridors in Los Angeles, tiled with a mosaic of fast-food chains, nail salons, and dollar stores, lies a little green oasis: the Los Angeles Eco-Village (LAEV).

The world around us is a beautiful, supportive environment for human growth and flourishing.  Isn't it amazing how everything we need to live and thrive is given to us by our planet – air, water, food, sunlight? Unfortunately, our modern world is increasingly full of damaging and hostile elements.  Our air contains excess carbon dioxide, methane, and particulates from increasing traffic congestion and burning fossil fuels.  Our water can be contaminated with traces of chlorine, bleach, ammonia, and other chemicals.  Foods are grown in soil treated with chemical fertilizers, sprayed with chemical pesticides, and then processed to include a huge range of additives, artificial flavorings, and food dyes. 

**AI Technology for Good** is a transformative force, leveraging artificial intelligence to address global challenges such as climate change, healthcare disparities, and poverty. By using AI to optimize resource management, predict environmental changes, and enhance healthcare systems, we can drive positive societal impact and improve quality of life for communities worldwide. Whether through predictive models for disease outbreaks or optimizing energy consumption, **AI technology for good** has the potential to solve complex social issues and create a sustainable future. **Artificial Intelligence ethics** plays a crucial role in ensuring that AI technologies are developed and deployed responsibly. Ethical considerations like fairness, transparency, and accountability are essential to prevent AI systems from perpetuating biases or violating privacy. AI developers must ensure that algorithms are free from discrimination, are understandable, and operate with clear accountability mechanisms to maintain public trust. One of the most exciting applications of AI is in **smart cities**. AI is helping urban centers become more efficient, sustainable, and livable. From managing traffic flow and reducing congestion to optimizing energy use and enhancing public safety, AI is central to the development of smart cities. By integrating AI technologies, cities can offer better services, reduce environmental impact, and create a higher standard of living for their residents.