Bike/Ped
FHWA: Bike-Ped Investments Pay Off By Cutting Traffic and Improving Health
Nine years after launching a program to measure the impact of bike and pedestrian investments in four communities, the Federal Highway Administration credits the program with increasing walking trips by nearly a quarter and biking trips by nearly half, while averting 85 million miles of driving since its inception.
June 26, 2014
Senator Pat Toomey Fights to Spare America From Safe Streets
You know the Senate is close to passing transportation legislation when someone introduces a hare-brained amendment to ban bike and pedestrian programs.
June 25, 2014
371 City Leaders Ask Boxer For More Local Control Over Bike/Ped Money
Last week, 371 mayors and other city leaders wrote a letter [PDF] to Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, in support of local control over transportation dollars for bike and pedestrian projects.
June 25, 2014
Building a Bike-Ped Data Model That Planners Will Take Seriously
It's hard to make the case for public spending on biking and walking without hard data. And quality data has been hard to come by. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is looking to change that. The group has taken on a new project to rigorously measure walking and biking on various corridors, providing baseline data that can help make the case for active transportation projects.
May 30, 2014
Will Maryland Finally Build a Safe Bike/Ped Crossing on the Susquehanna?
Imagine you live in Havre de Grace, Maryland. Congratulations: It’s a lovely, quaint little town. I’ve enjoyed stopping by on my way between DC and Philly, eating ice cream and watching sailboats bobble in the water where the Susquehanna River spills into the Chesapeake Bay.
April 24, 2014
Rep. Joe Crowley Announces Pedestrian Safety Bill — The Third in Six Months
Rep. Albio Sires has his New Opportunities for Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Financing Act (HR 3978). Rep. Earl Blumenauer has his Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act (HR 3494). And now, Rep. Joe Crowley has unveiled his Pedestrian Fatalities Reduction Act.
April 1, 2014
What Yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision Means for Rail Trails
Yesterday the Supreme Court dealt a blow to rails-to-trails efforts. In an 8-1 decision, the court ruled that lands granted to railroad companies by the federal government do not necessarily revert to government lands when they are abandoned. (Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued the lone dissenting opinion.)
March 11, 2014
Families of NYC Traffic Violence Victims Band Together for Safer Streets
On Sunday, New Yorkers who've lost loved ones to traffic violence gathered on the steps of City Hall in Lower Manhattan to launch Families for Safe Streets, a new initiative advocating for street designs and traffic enforcement that will save lives. In this moving Streetfilm, members of Families for Safe Streets talk about their goals and why they're speaking out.
February 25, 2014
Developing Nations Respond to UN’s “Decade of Action for Road Safety”
As poorly as America performs on street safety compared to places like Germany, the UK, Japan, and the Netherlands, traffic violence is an even graver public health threat in most other countries. Despite the fact that Africa has fewer cars per person than any other continent, for instance, no other suffers from a worse traffic fatality rate. Each year, 24 out of every 100,000 Africans are killed in traffic, with 38 percent of those deaths being pedestrians.
February 24, 2014
Why Is It Still So Hard to Find Out How States Are Spending Transpo Money?
You would be lucky to get half as much information about a $5 million transportation project in your state as you can get from a toothpaste tube about how to brush.
February 19, 2014