Streetsblog Network

“It’s time to drop the small-town mindset and go for a big fix.” That’s how Tony Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee described plans to widen the gridlocked Capital City Freeway through the city at a cost of $700 million. Highway widening, to him, must be emblematic of a “big-city mindset.” But as Network blog Systemic Failure points out, … Continued

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. Some good improvements are in the works, but the people in charge of Louisville’s streets clearly need to get over some bad habits. Branden Klayko … Continued

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. Network blog Cap’n Transit doesn’t have much patience for that argument. America’s transportation system is already highly stratified, and it’s hard to see how the new services will make that situation worse: If you go to … Continued

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. Savannah Bicycle Campaign says that will force cyclists onto nearby streets where traffic moves at deadly speeds, and the city has no plan to redesign them: A proposed … Continued

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. David Alpert at Greater Greater Washington has the recap of what the city will do to improve safety: More than half of pedestrian … Continued

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? The bill reserves $820 million for biking and walking infrastructure annually in its first two years, … Continued

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 … Continued

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. It wasn’t just heads of state meeting last week in Paris. If a two-degree celsius rise in global temperatures and the devastating fallout … Continued

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 … Continued