Month: September 2016

S2 Presentation

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

Hi everyone,

for my S2 presentation I have decided to investigate wether or not a correlation exists between knowing the Bicycle rules of the road and how safe people feel about riding in SF. Many people argue that it is dangerous and scary to ride in the city and chose not to do it. The bike rules give you a clear guideline on things that should be done in order to stay safe on the road, maybe if people knew all of these they would feel more confident to ride. I will use of a survey asking people how strongly they agree with a statement being a rule of the road or not (eg. Pedestrian have the right of way, strongly agree, agree…). The last question will be ‘I feel safe to ride in SF’.

Hopefully with this i will be able to see how knowledgable people are on the rules of the road and see if that influences how safe they feel.

Thanks for listening.

Space Observation

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

Reading Chris Carlsson, “I’m in a Hurry, so Slow down!” and John Zimmer’s article entitled “The third transportation revolution” helped me get a better sense of how cars have caused a shift of both the physical and social environment of America. Both writers are well informed on the matter and have had personal experiences to shape their knowledge, seen in Carlsson’s post when he says ‘As an urban cyclist for the past 40 years” and Zimmers’s passion towards the car world seen in his language throughout his article.

A position which is shared by both authors is that people don’t have the possibility to come together and socialize anymore. Wether it is due to not having enough time as Carlsson suggest – “everyone is so busy all the time that friendships are fraying and many don’t have time for a “real relationship.” – or because streets have been stripped of communal space where people could have gathered, children could have played, or small shops could have opened, argued by Zimmer in his article. Both writers agree that the cause of this is that “our cities were dramatically reshaped to favor cars over communities.” (Zimmer)

The outcome of favouring cars over people is that infrastructure is built for the purpose of cars, further narrowing and confining where cyclist and pedestrians can be. During my observation of where John F Kennedy Drive (A) meets with Kezar Drive (B) i saw how this is true and how it affects the type of interactions people can have with certain types of roads.

Image 1

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Zimmer said “Transportation doesn’t just impact how we get from place to place. It shapes what those places look like, and the lives of the people who live there”

 

I could clearly see how this intersection has been specifically shaped in order to allow good traffic flow.

Most of the space here was taken up by curbs dividing the road, there were sings for both stop and directions, trees, cars, bikes and pedestrians. There was a pretty constant flow of traffic with different levels of density throughout my stay which caused a constant level of noise that was noticeable. The shape was determined by the curbs and painted lanes on the road (image 2 and 3).

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Figure 2, 3

 

 

 

These separated the car lane form the bike lane, there was also a protected bike lane on one side. ‘STOP’ was written on the pavement and yellow lanes indicated the curb ahead, so a no drive zone. Crossing was complicated, and could also be confusing. There were many different directions and speeds in which the cars and bikes could go, this could imply higher chances of collision. Which made me think that there should be a traffic light at the end of Kennedy Drive for the cars that want to cross over Kezar and continue on Kennedy.

In conclusion i agree with both Zimmer and Carlsson that we have focused our cities’ frameworks to favour cars which has consequently caused less space for communities to meet and interact – as seen in the intersection discussed.

 

Open Post: Average speeds of Transportation

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

As we are going to collect data on walking and bike speed i thought that it would be useful to look up what the average speed of those and other means of transport is.

I found some data collected in Mossoro City, Brasil. It was interesting because they didn’t just calculate speed as distance divided by time but they thought that it was also important to look at the time spent waiting for the bus or working for the money to pay off that particular mode of transport. They called this ‘effective speed’. Effective speed can be defined by the total distance travelled divided by the total time devoted to the mode of transport. Using their calculations they found that the best mode of transport for Mossoro or a medium sized city, is cycling. Effective speed could help focus public investments into more adequate modes of transport.

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For more information visit their website at: http://www.bikecitizens.net/the-concept-of-effective-speed/

 

 

 

Group Organization Assessment

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

When discussing my speech with my group, they claimed that it best fitted the style of a Causal argument. Because of the clear presenting of facts and how those subsequently caused Armstrong to be seen more or less credible.

By making my argument Spacial i might have been able to involve and interest the audience more. For example taking them through a journey of Armstrong’s different life stages which affected his credibility, in such a way that is involving and fascinating.

Self Organization Assesment

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

Before starting to write i like to first come up with the main idea/s that i am going to write about. This is so that as i go through the essay or even beforehand i can come up with all the reasons and evidence to use to evaluate my main point/s. I usually develop my focus and might change it as i go through, depending on what i end up writing. For example for my S1 presentation, i started by evaluating why armstrong was seen as more credible in America compared to Europe, if that is even true, then i moved to how he manipulated his image in order to establish credibility and lastly i changed ‘manipulated’ to ‘uses’ because it best fitted what i wrote. Also to explain how he manipulated his image, would have been too long. I often go back and concise some of my points that might seems too long and therefore might create confusion. In summary i don’t have a particular ways to organize myself but i must know what i am going to write about and what my general points will be in order to be more clear when writing.

S1 Presentation: Self and pier evaluation

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

Preparing the presentation was very enjoyable. I found researching Armstrong to be very interesting. Memorising the speech was definitely not an easy challenge, in return I feel accomplished to have managed it. I was nervous and therefore wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. After I presented my speech I felt relieved and satisfied. Although something that I hope to improve on, is connecting with the audience. I believe that I applied some of the ideas of credibility studied in class. For example; the 4 different types of credibility, User expertise/understanding, Evaluation error and the qualities of a credible person. I thought that Victoria added value to her speech by incorporating a quote from the CEO of the SF bike coalition. Amanda was skillful in mentioning another persons’ talk. Finally I though that Koko by writing the name of his subject on the board further focused the audience on his topic.

S1 Presentation: How did Lance Armstrong use his image in order to establish credibility?

Posted on by ecrocettimarzotto

Hello everyone, today I am going to evaluate how Lance Armstrong used his image in order to establish credibility with the public. My main focus will be that credibility is a perceived quality and therefore the level to which Armstrong was seen as credible could depend on many different factors.

 

Lance Armstrong is a former American professional cyclist. He had won the tour de France 7 years consecutively from 1999 to 2005 before being stripped of those titles in 2012 due to doping.

 

Firstly I would like to begin by evaluating what the general perception of Armstrong was, and how that affected his credibility. Different events of Armstrong’s life might have affected how he was viewed, for example his Testicular Cancer in 1996 might have helped him build a stronger Presumed Credibility in which the general assumption of a cancer survivor is that they are strong, resilient and posses good will. Its often said that fame maximizes who you are; Lance was very charitable and involved in helping the less fortunate, this increased his presumed credibility of being altruistic and further distracted people from the truth of his doping.

 

Armstrong was the subject of many books, movies and news articles all of which acclaimed him as being a man to follow and admire. Everything that was reported by these credible third party institutions made up his reputed credibility. To maintain that credibility Armstrong was very clever and able in remaining clean on the ‘surface’. He would passionately and strongly speak against any accusations in a way that to anyone watching him it would seem like he was telling the truth, but of course once he admitted to the allegation people’s experienced credibility shifted and lost trust in him. In his confession to Oprha Lance said, “I will spend the rest of my life trying to earn back trust”

 

Although some people were more skeptical than others even before his confession. This depended on the people’s expertise or understanding of Lance and his doping. For example lets look at a common fan of the sport, because of the reasons I explained earlier and his limited knowledge on the subject, he might believe that Lance was innocent. But someone with more expertise in the subject such as David Walsh, who began working on a story about doping in the bike world when lance was racing, might have had more reasons to doubt him.

 

Because of the lack of proof and Armstrong’s ability to create a credible image most people committed an evaluation error. Therefore not believing Walsh’s disbelieves, even though he was knowledgeable on the subject, because it was easier to accept what seemed more probable.

In conclusion, we should be careful in who we place out trust because even though they might appear to be well-intentioned, truthful, skilled or smart they might actually just be deceiving us in order to portray those qualities for their own personal gain.

 

Thank you, any questions?