Streetsblog.net
Louisville Removes Sidewalk “For Safety”
Louisville is in the middle of a three-year, federally-funded safety initiative to reduce the city's high rate of pedestrian fatalities. Per capita, four times the number of people are killed walking in Louisville than in Washington, DC.
December 22, 2015
America Already Has a Stratified Transportation System
The emergence of app-based taxis and private city bus services has prompted a lot of handwringing about the emergence of a "two-tiered" or "stratified" transportation system.
December 21, 2015
Savannah Weighs Bike Ban in Beloved City Park
Talk about a reductive view of safety. After a couple of unusual incidents where bicyclists collided with pedestrians in Savannah's 30-acre Forsyth Park, the city is now considering outlawing cycling in the park.
December 18, 2015
D.C. to Pilot Protected Intersections as Part of Vision Zero Effort
Yesterday, Washington DC officials released the city's Vision Zero plan [PDF], which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities within the District by 2024. It came with a good deal of analysis highlighting where the most dangerous places in the city are.
December 17, 2015
Is the FAST Act Good for Bike Funding?
When Congress passed a long-term transportation bill for the first time in more than a decade earlier this month, People for Bikes called it "a great day for bikes," and Momentum Magazine called it a "win for bikes." But is it?
December 16, 2015
Seattle’s Struggle to Keep the Transit in Its “Tunnel Plus Transit” Plan
Back when Seattle and the state of Washington made the (regrettable) decision to replace the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct with an underground highway, the consolation was that the elevated highway running between downtown and the waterfront would come down and make way for a nice surface street with dedicated transit lanes. Proponents of the deep bore tunnel even gave their plan a greenwashed name: "tunnel plus transit."
December 15, 2015
To Save the Climate, Mayors and Cities Can Lead the Way
On Saturday, the COP21 summit in Paris culminated with a precedent-setting climate change agreement. Nearly 200 nations are on board, but their commitments don't go far enough to head off catastrophic global warming.
December 14, 2015
The Problem With Designing Streets for Peak Hour Traffic
When engineers make decisions about streets, they tend to emphasize the "peak hour" -- the morning and evening rush when traffic is at its most intense. For the most part, city streets are still designed to move motor vehicles during this relatively short period of time, to the detriment of people outside of cars -- i.e. the people who live in the neighborhood.
December 11, 2015
Why Changing the Rules of the Road for Cycling Won’t Cause Chaos
Washington, DC, is the latest city to consider changing its traffic laws to require cyclists to yield at stop signs and red lights but not come to a complete stop unless necessary. Similar proposals have recently surfaced in New York and San Francisco.
December 10, 2015
St. Louis Struggles With an Old Question: “Why Go Downtown at All?”
Alex Ihnen at NextSTL uncovered this video from a 1965 television program about traffic and commuting in the St. Louis region. Noting the growing number of businesses in the suburbs with "free parking," the narrator asks, "Who needs to go downtown at all?" This leads to a vision of the future that turned out to be eerily accurate:
December 9, 2015