This chart, via Jennifer Keesmaat, shows the important nexus between the infrastructure design and public health.. As evident from the chart, when it comes to building healthy communities the United States has a long way to go in catching up with their counterparts and the huge (no pun intended) disparity in % of obese people shows how unhealthy we are as a nation.

Health implications of city design: more walking, cycling and transit means less obesity + chronic disease (via @jen_keesmaat on Twitter)

Spurred by this tweet, I went looking for data on healthcare spending in the US vs. other OECD countries. Sigh! The chart below shows how much we spend on health compared to other countries (slightly older data).  If we spent a few billion dollars on building more walking/biking/transit infrastructure instead of building more highways and encouraged more people to walk/bike/ride transit, may be we don’t have to incur such an expensive medical bills after all.  Despite all the evidence, our lawmakers seems to be favoring the highway lobbies (and the optics of ribbon cutting for new highways) but talk endlessly about healthcare spending every election cycle!

U.S health spending vs. other countries

Here is a snapshot of the US health spending, according to the OECD:

• Health expenditure per capita: $8,713
• Expenditure as a pct. of GDP: 16.4%
•  Obesity rate: 35.3%
• Life expectancy: 78.8 yrs

“Health spending in the United States (excluding investment expenditure in the health sector) was 16.4% of GDP in 2013, well above the OECD average of 8.9% and the next highest spenders – the Netherlands (11.1%), Switzerland (11.1%) and Sweden (11.0%). The share of GDP spent on healthcare has remained unchanged since 2009 and health spending growth has matched economic growth. The share of government spending in the United States as a share of total spending on health has increased from around 44% in 2000 to above 48% by 2013. Over this period there has been an increase in health coverage for the population – in 2006, Medicare Part D, a voluntary drug benefit programme for seniors and certain disabled persons was introduced.

The future of personal mobility looks more and more “connected” as the two economic forces, technology and automobiles, are colliding at a far greater velocity.  This paves way for a landscape that is expected to feature unprecedented levels of connectivity (i.e, tethered vehicles). Here is a neat infograph from Statista that shows the landscape of connected cars and what’s ahead.

That said, one big question that looms large in my mind is this – how are going to manage all that troves of data from these connected cars? How are we going to parse/analyze and make sense out the digital mess that is ready to flood our roads? Only time will tell (or the app developers?).

Image Courtesy: Statista via Forbes

First, here is the video of “The Ridge”, featuring the dare devil Danny Macaskill on his mountain bike. It was the first time in one of his films Danny climbs aboard a mountain bike and returns to his native home of the Isle of Skye in Scotland to take on a death-defying ride along the notorious Cuillin Ridgeline. Danny’s ridiculous riding skills and the stunning scenery blend beautifully with the sound track, making it a great viewing experience :

And here is an interview with the film-maker where he shares how we used low-tech everyday technology to capture this breathtaking video

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• What This Guy Can Do With A Mountain Bike Is Simply Mindblowing
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• What This Guy Can Do With A Mountain Bike Is Simply Mindblowing

Apparently, the American public have the least amount of trust in their political overlords. New polling from Gallup shows car salespeople actually maintain a decent-sized advantage on Congresspersons when it comes to “honesty and ethical standards.” What’s more interesting? That’s actually a slightly smaller gap in than in 2013, when it was 66-47. So, it is not all that bad, right? Click here for  the full story.

Image Courtesy: Washington Post. Click the image for full story.

Young motorcyclist pops a wheelie on his high-powered sports motorcycle gets caught red handed by horse-mounted policemen.. When you see the video below you can’t help but laud the way the police handled the youngin’. If you got a few minutes to spare, see the comments posted on this YouTube video..

Pretty cool video that offers a nice overview of the 2nd avenue subway project and its impact on residents and businesses in the Upper East Side neighborhood. The size and scope of the project in addition to the geographical location makes for an interesting combination..

Related articles

• MTA releases Second Avenue subway photos
• Next Second Avenue subway phase gets some funding

via Sploid (Gizmodo)

We have all seen a ton of dash cam videos from Russia but nothing like this.  ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS and one of the craziest  things ever caught on camera on a Russian road. Moral of the story: When in Russia, never get out of your car to fight anyone on the road. But if you feel so compelled better not mess with a dude who wears a Sponge Bob costume.

A brilliant animated primer from the ASCE explains what’s at stake for the average American as the highway trust fund is fast nearing its end.. For the uninitiated,the Highway Trust Fund is the US federal funding for roads, bridges, and transit systems, and it is on course to become insolvent by August, jeopardizing America’s infrastructure and its economy. Unless our lawmakers get their act together with extreme urgency, we might be in for some serious trouble and may lose some of the hard fought economic gains quickly…Learn more:http://www.fixthetrustfund.org/

In case you are wondering why the highway trust fund is running out of money, take a peek at this article from Washington Post..

Related articles

• Roadscapes Wednesday: Fix The Trust Fund
• Highway Trust Fund Insolvency to Halt Mississippi Highway and Bridge Projects
• The US will start running out of money for roads in August. Here’s why.
• Highway Trust Fund is running on empty
• Highway Funding: Is 7 Percent a Crisis?
• Why the Highway Trust Fund is running out of money, in 5 graphs

(via Bloomberg)

I admit that I don’t think much about my seats when I fly and instead I’d be more interested in where I’m seated (aisle or window). But apparently a lot of time and resources are poured into designing the seats. Take a peek inside the highly-secretive, East London studio where airline seats are dreamed up.

How bad is the road safety problem across the planet? Pretty bad.  The global road death toll has already reached 1.24 million per year and is on course to triple to 3.6 million per year by 2030. In “Roads Kill,” The Washington Post joins with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to bring stories from around the world about this neglected but easily curable public health crisis.

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