Brad Aaron

When I find myself complaining about city subway or bus service — while waiting too long for the bus or watching helplessly from one train as the one I need to transfer to leaves the station — I try to keep in mind that, maybe above all else, the relative ease of car-free mobility is the reason I live in New York. Jarrett Walker of Human Transit might say that, by having the choice to make my home in such a place, I have reached the self-actualization level on the Transit Hierarchy of Needs.

Picking up on a thread from earlier this week on how street design can be used to prevent high-speed crashes in dense urban environments, today on the Network we hear from Streetsblog New York regular "Andy B from Jersey," via WalkBikeJersey Blog.

As schools across the country open their doors for another year, Robert Ping of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership says students are increasingly facing "bans" against walking and biking to campus. Network member BikePortland.org reports:

It remains to be seen whether lawmakers will move on a new long-term federal transportation bill this year. If they do, what might the opposition look like, and how will legislators react? These are the questions posed today by The Transport Politic (TTP).

Since the impact of bike lanes on businesses has emerged as a peripheral issue in the New York City mayoral race, a post today from the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia seems especially timely.

Today on the Network, Ohio member blog Xing Columbus questions a recent article in The Columbus Dispatch that attributes Franklin County pedestrian fatalities to carelessness on the part of the victim. According to a Columbus police officer interviewed in the story, local people killed by cars are usually jaywalking or "just walking in the road" -- where "you might not see a person until you’re right on top of them."

Fallout continues in the wake of last Friday's narrow passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill, otherwise known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, in the House of Representatives. Paul Krugman can't believe 212 reps voted against it, while Matthew Yglesias points to a conservative faction that has branded eight Republicans who helped pass it as "traitors."

It's the largest transit system in the United States, moving millions of people daily throughout New York City and beyond and serving as the lifeblood of one of the largest economies in the world. Unfortunately, writes Streetsblog Network member Benjamin Kabak on Second Avenue Sagas, those who depend on the MTA -- and those whom the MTA depends upon -- are often ignorant of its plight and seemingly indifferent to its fate.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we ever-so-gingerly broach the issue of etiquette when pedestrians and cyclists share the same space. Mayor Adrian Fenty has proclaimed pedestrian safety as a top priority, and is backing up his words with millions in federal stimulus funds and a pedestrian master plan. Adam Voiland at DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner has also noticed a proliferation of signs instructing cyclists to dismount in pedestrianized areas.

While President Barack Obama promoted wind power and cap-and-trade legislation, VP Joe Biden spent Earth Day talking up transit. Public radio's "The Takeaway" reports that Biden held a presser at a bus maintenance facility in Landover, Maryland, to tout a $300 million investment in hybrid buses and other municipal vehicles as part of the federal stimulus package. Said Biden: