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Bella Chu

@isabellachu.bsky.social
3.8K followers 3.2K following 391 posts

John Snow and safe street stan. Lover of 17th to 19th century cities but with more trees and less cholera. Not official record.

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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
There are so few places in the United States, even in older cities well served by transit, where it is possible to walk without continual exposure to noise, pollution and risk of blunt force trauma from automobiles. Pedestrian/bike only infrastructure is the best way to protect people from cars.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
A frequent reason given whey we can’t have infrastructure for walking, wheelchairs, bicycles and scooters is funding: “it’s expensive.” NYC has created safe pedestrian spaces all over the city with large rocks. Rocks are cheap.
Bollards made of large rocks in NYC Wall Street district.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Its possible to design far less lethal transportation system. Injury and death is *literally baked into* US traffic engineering standards. I am unaware of any other type of engineering *particularly civil engineering* with a design tolerance of 5 deaths/node/year.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
When discussing traffic violence it’s important to distinguish between imposing costs, risks, harms and bearing those harms. Between hurting or killing someone and *being* hurt and killed. Virtually *all* the costs, pollution and lethal force in our transportation system comes from one mode: cars.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
I have so many friends whose little ones HATE the car seat. They have to be strapped in like they’re being shot into space and cars *still* manage to be the leading cause of child traumatic injury and a leading cause of death for young children.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
The headways at Millbrae *the* major station between San Francisco and Silicon Valley and BART connection is 30 minutes at 7:50 on a Saturday night. The next train isn’t until 8:16. Our region has wealth, stated progressive values and perfect weather. There is no good reason we are so car centric.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
“The best indicator of the quality of public spaces is the age of children who are free to roam around on their own.” - Eva Kail (Vienna urbanist) @nacto.bsky.social This is a good rubric for evaluating subjective and objective safety: “Would I let a beloved child walk or play alone here?”
Eva Kail. Vienna urbanist.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
“Time is the most valuable thing we have…Every day we do something well, we improve people’s lives.” - @wmatagm.bsky.social Transit doesn’t just improve lives. It saves them. It is 30-70 times safer than driving and among the most important public health interventions available to us.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
I’m so grateful to be able to attend the 2025 @nacto.bsky.social conference. This is a group of amazing people who want our cities to be great and for everyone to get where they need to go joyfully and safely.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
The public sphere used to be glorious. Now so much of it is neglected, degraded and defunded. I wish we could get that part of American greatness back.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
“Transportation corridors” is a rebranding of urban highways: those big, ugly, traffic clogged roads that cut through every city. They are invariably high noise and air pollution, injury and fatality corridors. Setting housing back protects people from these exposures. @completedstreets.bsky.social
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Americans accept tens of thousands of deaths and *millions* of injuries every year of disproportionately young, healthy people as the reasonable cost of riding around cities in motorized easy chairs and if you say that’s an unacceptable and insane price to pay you sound like a crazy person.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Public health, public policy and elected service should all have the same goal: advance the health, safety and flourishing of human life and ensure that those benefits are available to *all* members of our society. I love to see this all come together. Abundance @siepr.bsky.social
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Today I saw our season’s first teddy bear bee. For some reason the other bees are *always* picking on these sweet little guys. They NEVER fight back. They’re so gentle. Unfortunately bees are difficult to discipline.
Male carpenter “teddy bear” been on dark purple salvia blossom. These bees are large and a reddish gold color. They are gentle natured and often harassed by other bees.Male carpenter “teddy bear” been on dark purple salvia blossom. These bees are large and a reddish gold color. They are gentle natured and often harassed by other bees.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
The intern cohort for the San Mateo API Caucus intern class has gone from 8 to a cap of 20. Kids are hungry to make a difference.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Damn you Gary.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
I’m headed to the city council meeting on one of the many @samtrans.com buses from my neighborhood: clean, convenient and friendly. There is amazing transit for RWC District 3!
Bus 276 to downtown Redwood City.City Council member Isabella Chu on the city bus in Redwood City.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Awesome. @aclu.org Please don’t forget this poor guy. In a gulag for having an autism awareness tattoo.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Guns are the number one cause of child death, but automobile crash deaths are not far behind, have been #1 for decades and crash injuries outnumber gun injuries 24:1. These are the real problems HHS should be focused on.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Is there anything better than trains?
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
I had occasion to use a @thronebathrooms.bsky.social facility at the Sunnyvale station. They have cracked the code of providing clean, high quality public restrooms. Absolutely outstanding work. It was sparking clean, fully stocked and even played nice music while in use for auditory privacy. 🥇🚽🥇
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Musk: 1. Declares himself Dark MAGA 2. Spends hundreds of millions to buy a “co-presidency.” 3. Uses the power he bought to destroy everything progressives hold dear, including democracy itself. 4. Expresses shock that the people he declared war on will not buy his products anymore.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Eh, they kind of do. This guy seems like a wonderful, upstanding, hardworking, responsible young man.
Neri Jose Alvarado Borges, a legal US resident, has an autism awareness tattoo on his leg as a tribute to his younger brother. He was put in a concentration camp for life because US ICE said this was evidence of gang membership.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
I asked once why @scottwiener.bsky.social is so effective and so popular. They said "He is relentless in his pursuit of what is right, regardless of whether it's politically popular." People admire courage, conviction and moral excellence. Good leaders are not thermometers. They're thermostats.
Image showing election results. Scott Wiener won the general election with 77.8% of the vote and the primary with two democratic challengers with 73% of the vote.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
America’s auto arms race which results in ever bigger, heavier cars has enormous economic, climate and health costs. These cars have poor sight lines and result in much higher lethality when they are involved in a crash. We could save so many lives and so much money with smaller, lighter cars.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
I think about this guy every day. He is, by all accounts, a hardworking, honest, loving brother, *here legally* who was sent to a gulag for having an autism awareness tattoo. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
An excerpt.
There’s a reason toddlers are at peak cuteness. It’s because Nature knows that toddlerhood is when you are most likely to take your child to a public park and leave him there with a note that says “I’m a little shit and they couldn’t take it anymore.”

- Bunmi Laditan
Toddlers are A**holes: It’s not your fault.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
This is a real book. It’s full of affection and exasperation. It’s also very funny.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
This is a post from DJTs truth social. He is deliberately crashing the American market, and with it, the economy, and bragging about it.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Here are another examples of the same idea. Narrow boxes with colorful fronts. The key to an interesting street front is granularity (which is just another way to say small lots) and *variety.*
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
I have a better idea. Let's give our cities a Ghibli switch so that they are walkable, saturated with color and teeming with life. The last two are real places!
Rich colorful street scene in Japan. Ghibli style.Rich colorful city scene, Ghibli style.Jiufen, Taiwan: Colorful buildings full of light with many plants visible. Looks almost like a painting.Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden: Beautiful narrow buildings along a street with small spaces between them painted bright colors and each a little different than the one next to it.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
California's new daylighting law prohibits parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk approach (even unmarked). This important law protects all road users: children, people on foot and bicycle and drivers. Most crashes are at intersections. This law will save lives. Photo credit: @bfurnas.bsky.social
A young child on a push scooter with colorful tassels hanging from the handles is approaching an intersection. There is a large car blocking the view so that a driver approaching the crosswalk would be unable to see her.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Evergreen.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
I was in SF yesterday and noticed so many of the most gorgeous and beloved buildings are just boxes with gingerbread. Pitched roofs, decks, bump outs as needed. This approach is cheaper to build, less likely to have issues, provides more usable space and has produced centuries of beautiful cities.
Apartment building. Simple box with cornice and mural on the blank side.Apartment building. Simple box with cornice and mural on the blank side.Apartment building. Simple box with bay windows and elaborate cornices.The famous painted ladies houses in San Francisco. Simple boxes with pitched roofs, gingerbread and front decks.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
People I see on e-bikes: - Seniors staying active and living their best life. - Moms, dads and kids actually enjoying the school run. - People getting groceries or running errands - Service workers commuting on an affordable vehicle “E-bikes aren’t cheating. They’re winning.” - @pflax1.bsky.social
A cream and grey Trek mixte bicycle with a Copenhagen wheel, grey panniers and a wooden basket in front of a bakery. There is a colorful bag of delicious cupcakes in the basket.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
I’m headed to the San Francisco today on @samtrans.com Route EPX. This route drops riders a 4 minute walk from San Bruno @bart.gov PS Bus wraps are gorgeous and awesome, the ball gowns of transit. Moar please. Covering the windows is not awesome. Please consider leaving the windows unobstructed.
SamTrans bus EPX with colorful wrap.SamTrans bus EPX with friendly, smiling driver and colorful bus wrap.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
The externalities of cars scale with weight, size and speed: space taken, gas burned, tire particulates, noise, pavement, cost to consumer and, above all, crash force, injuries and fatalities. Shrinking cars would accomplish most of the goals of EVs with many ancillary benefits, like fewer deaths.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
I would like to see civil engineering and medicine locked into a friendly competition of who can increase disability free life years the most. Fun contest.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Why am I always talking about sewers and toilets? Because doing sewage and sanitation well is unglamorous, unsung hero work that is one of the foundations of a healthy society. @caltrain.com has wheelchair accessible toilets on board new trains and now has clean, well functioning platform toilets!
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Took the @samtrans.com 276 this morning from my home to catch @caltrain.com and spied one of my all time favorite bus wraps at the Redwood City bus depot. 🐍 The transfer was really well timed! About a 7 minute wait. Enough buffer to be relaxed but no wait.
SamTrans Lunar New Year of the Snake bus wrap at the Redwood City Bus Depot. It’s colorful and whimsical all at once.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
I think about this image all the time. There are so many areas where Americans spend more and get less. GDP is useful for many things, but is money without health and prosperity really wealth? I want a society where American children make it to old age and being poor doesn't mean a life cut short.
Chart showing US life expectancy vs healthcare expenditure. Americans spend 2 - 5 times that of other nations with much worse outcomes.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Twice as many children die in car crashes than from all pediatric cancers combined. This does not count the long term health effects of breathing exhaust, brake and tire particles or the loss of physical activity and independence from living in a world hostile to traveling outside of a car.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
I’ve always liked @kevinmullin.bsky.social but this is next level. Thank you for fighting for our future!
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Not to make everything about granular, beautiful, walkable cities, but the single best defense against online disinformation is real relationships and attachments to one’s acquaintances, neighbors and friends. Those are enormously more likely in walkable cities.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Their logo.
Graph showing the relative rates of road deaths for the United States vs peer nations. The US has completely diverged and now has the most deadly roads among peer nations, including Russia. Yes, that Russia.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Car crashes have been the leading cause of child traumatic injury and death—by far—for decades. The ratio of crash injuries* to gun injuries is ~33:1. Most crash injuries and deaths occur while doing an ordinary thing. * Trips to emergency room. Does not count non ED injuries.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Andor.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Autonomous vehicles have the potential to significantly improve road safety (Waymo, NOT Tesla) but it will be decades before they are as safe as transit which is 30-70 times safer that driving and they will never be as efficient. The answer to the problems caused by cars is never different cars.
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Redwood City wore it better. 😍
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Bella Chu @isabellachu.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
I so wish people appreciated the humble bus. My neighborhood is well served by many buses running down arterials within a few blocks of every house. For just $2.05, you have a safe, warm ride anywhere you need to go.
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