a quick update with some neat stuff i'm reading

[alyaza]

i don't have time for a more structured update today (as you might be able to tell by the timestamp, i'm sending this pretty late in the day which is not my preference), but i do have a few cool links in the pipe that i've wanted to toss on my blog. here they are, in no particular order:

Disabled Union Members Are Strengthening the Labor Movement (The Nation)

no doubt there is heterogeneity in how the labor movement has dealt with crises like the COVID-19 pandemic—and many unions have not done much if anything to protect their membership as they should—but i think it's heartening to listen to the success cases and what efforts at genuine disability inclusion look like:

[Leslie Bryan of the California Faculty Association’s Disability Caucus] noted that the union framework provides an ideal avenue for ensuring that disabled people’s needs are heard. By design, unions uplift all workers by way of facilitating coordinated, collaborative actions. A collective union action pushing for better ventilation at work, for example, has a much higher impact than a single disabled worker asking for this accommodation. Solidarity between disabled and nondisabled members also makes it clear to bosses that workers are invested in inclusion for everyone—and as a marginalized community, disabled people are more vulnerable to discrimination at work that unions can help them fight. For the [California Faculty Association], that inclusion started with advertising accommodations and supports at meetings to make it clear that disabled workers would be both welcome and heard, increasing meeting turnout and interest in engaging with the union. She said, “If you put the accommodations out there and let people know they’re there, they will come.”

[Bryan] told me that she’s seen policy shifts at the CFA, including captioning and ASL at union meetings and improved on-site accessibility. Disability advocacy drove these changes, not only within the CFA but also in discussions with sibling unions, such as Murphy’s CSUEU, which collaborated on conversations about safe emergency evacuation for disabled students and staff.

Traffic safety for all road users: A paired comparison study of small & mid-sized U.S. cities with high/low bicycling rates

would you be surprised to learn that there is evidence of a relationship between places that have a culture of bicycling and general pedestrian safety? of course it seems quite obvious when you put it that way—we would expect bicycling to occur most where there is no risk to doing it—but a shockingly large amount of traffic safety is kind of bullshit, as many of you learned together when you read Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion That Science Underlies Our Transportation System along with me. in any case:

[...]higher-bicycling cities are significantly associated with better overall road safety outcomes. In terms of mode choice differences, pedestrian ‘safety in numbers’ as well as reduced driving activity had a positive impact on pedestrian safety.

[...]the results suggest that to improve the safety of their streets, and especially for vulnerable road users, small and mid-size cities might focus on promoting alternatives to driving. There was strong evidence of pedestrian ‘safety in numbers’ identified, with cities and block groups with higher levels of pedestrian commuting experiencing lower pedestrian fatality rates.

Secondly considering the built environment, one of the principal findings of this work is the importance of a high-density built environment in terms of both land use and street networks when pursuing traffic safety improvements. Such high-density built environments are likely associated with shorter trips, lower vehicle speeds, and less vehicle miles travelled, thereby resulting in the traffic safety improvements identified in this paper, although future work will be needed to verify these underlying mechanisms.

How Arizona works to give Navajo voters a ballot they can listen to in their language

i observed on Bluesky a few days ago that we should probably have some sort of government agency—call it the United States Language Corps or something—for general language translation, preservation, and support. beyond its pro-social and pro-cultural functions, an agency like this could be something that states and counties can ask for support from when they need to give official guidance or write ballots in like, Haitian Creole or Navajo or another minority language. we already oblige them with the latter thing in many cases, as this article notes, but often they're left to do this on their own (or to subcontract it out, which sucks):

Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act requires places around the country to translate election information into specific languages if they have significant numbers of residents who share a common language and don’t understand English well, or if they meet other criteria. It’s a challenge to do these translations, and do them correctly, especially for counties such as those in Arizona that must translate historically oral languages.

now, is a Language Corps a fraught question with a lot of ethical and social considerations such as imperialism to work through? oh yeah, i'm sure this would be a very complicated undertaking, especially with historically unwritten languages (there are many in the American Southwest). but i believe it can work—i believe it can be done respectfully, especially when supported with the resources of a state. and i think linguistic preservation ought to be a human imperative: everyone should have a right to speak their cultural language, and not have to watch it atrophy and become extinct because of social forces beyond any one speaker's control.