Streetsblog.net
A (Quiet) Bike Renaissance in Rockville, Maryland
The DC suburb of Rockville, Maryland, is quietly becoming a bike-friendly city.
March 21, 2014
Should Streets Be Designed for Easy Double-Parking or Safe Bicycling?
After removing a downtown Providence highway segment, Rhode Island officials are figuring out how to redevelop 20 acres of prime city land. One outcome that local advocates are pushing for is a redesign of South Main Street with a two-way protected bike lane, reports James Kennedy at Transport Providence.
March 20, 2014
Who Pays for “Free” Park-and-Ride Parking?
Park-and-ride lots, writes Matt Steele at Streets.mn, are the "darling infrastructure of the transit planning profession." In exchange for providing a parking spot at no charge to suburban commuters, says Steele, transit systems can increase ridership.
March 19, 2014
Parking Politics Take a Bite Out of Downtown Raleigh
Donald Shoup, the godfather of parking policy, likes to point out that city planners make decisions about parking based on the politics of avoiding on-street parking squabbles, instead of broad public policy concerns like the affordability of housing, the viability of transit, or the health of downtown. Today on the Streetsblog Network, Leo Suarez at the Raleigh Connoisseur has a story that illustrates Shoup's point really well.
March 18, 2014
New Rental Industry Frontier: Single-Family Suburban Houses
For a while now, theorists have portended dramatic changes in the character and structure of American suburban communities. Frank Chiachiere at Seattle Transit Blog presents some evidence bearing out those prophesies.
March 17, 2014
You Can’t Attract Walkable Retail Without Walkable Housing
Some who want to live near amenities that come from having a lot of people living relatively close together, like cafes and small markets and shops, are also resistant to the type of development that makes walkable retail possible.
March 14, 2014
The Destructive Allure of “Free Money” for Highways
In Patrick Kennedy's campaign to tear down Interstate 345 in Dallas -- a vision he calls anewdallas -- he's running up against the "free money" argument. Since Texas DOT is willing to spend $100 million to rehab the road, the thinking goes, why not let them do it?
March 13, 2014
Embracing Transit, Resisting Transit-Oriented Neighborhoods
People in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region seem to like the addition of big new transit projects to their neighborhoods, writes Jim Kumon at Strong Towns today, but they have a different reaction when it comes to shaping their neighborhoods into places that get the most out of those transit investments.
March 12, 2014
Portland’s CRC Highway Project Is Dead — And Buried
We've said it before, and it gives us great pleasure to say it again: Portland's Columbia River Crossing highway megaproject is dead. And this time it appears the project is finally, definitely deceased.
March 11, 2014
What’s the Path to Equity for Women in Cycling?
Last week, about 375 people attended the National Women's Bike Forum the day before the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC. It was the third women's forum, an event that seeks to empower female bike advocates and confront issues that contribute to women's low cycling rate relative to men in the United States. (Just 24 percent of bike trips nationwide in 2009.)
March 10, 2014