When we post an article in World Streets, as we do on most weekday mornings, we are always extremely careful about our selection of topic and the manner in which 
we present it for our busy readers. But once the day's feature has its hours of front page glory and takes its place in our ever-expanding database, which at this point consists of more than a thousand original pieces by more than a hundred no less original collaborators worldwide, it often comes as a surprise to us which postings turn out to get most attention from our readers. Which article is going to have several thousands of readers, and which just a trickle? Fortunately, life in the twenty-first century being what it is, we are able to track readership and are now able to share with you this listing of the "top twenty" articles consulted here over 2011. To me this listing is nothing if not surprising, but let me get out of the way here so you can go at it yourself.
- Going down? Newman and Kenworthy on Peak Car Use
- UK High Speed Rail: Going very fast in the wrong direction
- What can we learn from the murderous attack on cyclists in Porto Alegre on Friday?
- Energy and Equity, Ivan Illich.
- Honk! City of the Future? (Have a stupid weekend)
- Why Free Public Transport is a bad idea?!? (v. 1.1)
- PRT proposal for Delhi convinces the Chief Minister (But does it convince you? See poll results)
- Cycling as the catalyst for more human and sustainable transport
- Best transport research database we have ever seen.
- Weekend reading: How do the Dutch get out of a car?
- Locked in Suburbia: Is there life after Autopia?
- Autolib' – Paris bets big on new carshare technology
- Bike-Sharing: 2011 State of the European Union report
- Delhi Metro - A Transport Planner's Perspective
- Hangzhou – View from the saddle of one of China's most liveable cities.
- Towards Carfree Cities X: What happened in Guadalajara from 3 to 10 September 2011?
- Seize the moment: A "Street Code" for Porto Alegre
- Car Free Days 2010: Part 1. Origins, Timeline, Progress
- In homage to Lee Schipper
- Tragedy of the Commons: The car as enclosure
Most of what we see on this latest listing we can understand, but what is "Have a stupid weekend" doing here (and below). And there are other surprises that we simply would never have anticipated. Both ways.
Well to us it suggests that people come here looking for ideas, orignal approaches, new angles, and prepared to give a few minutes at these two considering what may at first blush seem to be a wild idea. But who knows? As we say, "you never know where the next good idea is going to come from."
Finally being unable to avoid the temptation, here you have the next twenty, at least as of 11 November 2011. Check back with us in July 2012 to see how things look then.
- Toward a new paradigm for transport in cities: Let's see what Carlos Pardo has to say
- The P2P carsharing saga continues: The WhipCar story
- Car Crazy: Lee Schipper on the Perils of Asia’s Hyper-Motorization
- At Any Cost? The hidden costs of charging for public transport
- International Advisory Council on Sustainable Transportation
- America's Amsterdam? – Work in progress on the bike front in the Home of the Brave
- Sustainable transport in Delhi and Stockholm
- Kaohsiung 2010 Papers. Sharing/Strategy for a Small Planet. Part I
- Dutch cycle infrastructure quality drives one cyclist crazy
- Kaohsiung 2010 Papers: Will Carsharing Work in China?
- Editorial: The Seven Simple Truths of Sustainable Mobility (Come argue with me)
- Honk! Cars, People and the Planet. It's a Wonderful World (Have a stupid weekend)
- Kaohsiung 2010 Papers: Will Carsharing Work in China?
- Testimony: Science and Technology Select Committee, UK House of Lords
- A short history of social mobility/
- Cars, people and the planet: It's a wonderful world (Have a stupid weekend/
- What percent of your city's street space is allocated to non-car uses/a>
- Best city-cycling map known to me
- Why leftists want to pull you all on mass transit
- Slowth: Or why it is so very important and so very easy to slow down traffic in cities/
# # #
Print this article
Posts
Eric
ReplyDeleteThe surprising statistics could also reflect the quality of the headline. I think certain words in headlines can have a dramatic impact on the level of click-through. 'Have a stupid weekend' might mean nothing, but it is surprising inside a headline, so we look to see. 'Peak Car' is a term that is just grabbing attention. So is it the topic, or the headline, that gets the clicks? It might be dangerous to draw too many conclusions.
Cheers
Paul