Streetsblog.net
Looking Ahead to the Year in Transit Expansion
After significant transit construction in the United States in 2014, the next year will see another impressive round of groundbreakings and new openings. That's according to Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic, who has catalogued major transit expansion projects throughout the U.S. and Canada for the last six years.
January 5, 2015
To Build Safer Streets, Cities Have to Challenge State DOTs
Have you ever heard this line from your local transportation officials? "We'd like to redesign this street for safety, but the state won't allow it." Often, that is indeed the truth.
December 22, 2014
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka to Rip Out City’s First Protected Bike Lane
Mt. Prospect Avenue in Newark has New Jersey's first protected bike lane, as far as we know. But unfortunately it looks like the Garden State will soon be back to zero.
December 19, 2014
Cities Won’t Turn Out the Way Highway Builders Predict
The highway lobby in Dallas keeps beating the same drum: They talk about projected population growth and predict that highways will become a massive logjam. So they argue Dallas should be building, building, building new highways for these future drivers at a furious pace.
December 18, 2014
Using a Construction Project to Predict the Effect of a Road Diet
Barbur Boulevard in Portland is one of the city's most deadly streets, and advocates there have pushed for a road diet that would slow traffic and provide comfortable space for biking and walking. But the state DOT has refused to change the road, in large part due to objections from the local chamber of commerce.
December 17, 2014
The Test of a Great Bikeway
What separates a great bikeway from one that makes you wonder why anyone even bothered?
December 16, 2014
The High Cost of Unwalkable School Districts
About a generation ago, many American school districts started shuttering and abandoning walkable neighborhood schools and building replacements in sprawling, undeveloped locations where the land was cheap.
December 15, 2014
Whoops! How Planners and Engineers Badly Overestimate Car Traffic
How much car traffic will a new building generate? Engineers and planners are constantly trying to divine the answer to this question in the belief that it will tell them the "right" number of parking spaces to build, or how to adjust streets to accommodate more cars.
December 12, 2014
How to Make Transit Succeed in a Sprawling City
In many ways, Calgary, Canada's third-largest city, is very much like a sprawling American city. But in one way, it's very different: It's a huge transit city. Despite being composed mostly of sprawling single-family homes, in this Canadian energy boomtown, 50 percent of downtown workers arrive by transit and another 11 percent by bike -- way higher than what you see in its American counterparts.
December 11, 2014
Stockton CA Wants Better Transit, Biking, and Sidewalks, Not Wider Roads
What happens when you ask people point blank what they want from their local transportation system?
December 10, 2014