Northeast Ohio to State DOT: Road Expansions Getting Out of Hand
If you could point to one aspect of American transportation policy that's more disastrous than all the others, expanding highways and roads to the point of absurdity is probably it.
January 12, 2016
Straightening Out the Vestigial Kinks in Bus Routes
Just a few months after Houston reorganized its bus network to provide more frequent service where more people can use it -- without increasing the operating budget -- ridership is already on the upswing.
January 11, 2016
If Congress Cared About Climate, Its Transport Bill Would Look Much Different
With a few exceptions, the five-year transportation bill heading to President Obama's desk continues what has been the core function of federal transportation policy for more than 60 years -- sending a ton of money to the states to spend on highways.
December 4, 2015
The Stubborn Persistence of Car Dependence
With driving on the upswing again as gas prices remain surprisingly low, Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic is taking a long hard look at what it will take to substantially change America's travel habits. He notes that except for a handful of cities with good transit, driving continues to account for most of the nation's growth in travel:
October 19, 2015
When DOT Refuses to Acknowledge That Its Streets Have a Design Problem
Today on the Streetsblog Network, Mary Newsom at the Naked City has a classic story about a dangerous street in desperate need of a design overhaul, and a DOT that's only willing to try out tiny, cosmetic changes.
August 24, 2015
An Experiment in Driver-Cyclist Interaction, Powered By Christmas Lights
When you're on a bike getting passed by motorists going 20 or 30 mph faster than you, it can feel like one act of deliberate aggression after another. And in many cases there is real, seething hostility and complete disregard for other people's safety at work. But a lot of the time, people drive fast because that's the message the street design is sending, and they don't know any better.
August 10, 2015
How Parking Permits Can Improve the Politics of Walkable Development
Residential parking permits are often referred to as "hunting licenses" because while they grant permit holders the privilege of parking on the street, there's usually no limit to how many permits can be issued. If there are more permits in a neighborhood than available on-street parking spaces, there's still going to be a parking crunch and permit holders will still circle streets hunting for a spot.
August 3, 2015
Transpo Funding Intrigue in Washington State
Here's a look at what's happening around the Streetsblog Network today...
July 20, 2015
When Transit Goes Down at the Polls, Here’s Some Advice on How to Regroup
Last week, voters in the Vancouver region rejected a half-cent sales tax to pay for a package of transit infrastructure and service expansions necessary to handle growing demand. Even in the city of Vancouver, the measure fell shy of a majority. Polling revealed that most "No" voters didn’t trust the regional transit agency, TransLink, to make good use of the additional revenue.
July 6, 2015
Killing a Transit Project Isn’t Going to Fix Your City’s Parking Crunch
Yesterday we ran a post from Michael Andersen about how Newark fixed the glut of parked cars on Mount Prospect Avenue, the first street in New Jersey to get a protected bike lane: Instead of letting people park in the bikeway, the city started charging for parking. With a price on parking, people stopped storing their cars on the street all day long, and there was finally some turnover. Problem solved.
July 2, 2015