Despite the ruinous housing crisis just a few years ago, the federal government still keeps the suburban sprawl machine humming. About 85 percent of federal subsidies for housing flow to single family homes, according to a recent report from Smart Growth America, though only about 65 percent of Americans are homeowners and the majority of [...]
One year into its work to catalyze the creation of world-class bicycling facilities in the U.S., our Green Lane Project announced the opening of a major new protected bike lane in Austin, Texas on Friday. The City of Austin Bicycle Program worked to create the protected bike lane at Barton Springs Road as part of their [...]
By Amy Wilburn – Back in 2008, Delaware ranked 31st in the League of American Bicyclist’s Bicycle-Friendly States program. It was disappointing and embarrassing, and was one of many factors that helped motivate us to work harder. Our ranking shot up 22 points in 2009 to 9th place, in good part due to the Complete [...]
On the face of things, it’s hard to understand why would anyone oppose bicycling. It’s cheap, it’s healthy, it’s good for the environment. Somehow, though, cycling has become politicized, and it’s the party of personal responsibility, austerity, and small government that tends to carry the anti-bicycling banner. That’s odd, writes Bill Lindeke at Network blog [...]
On the face of things, it’s hard to understand why would anyone oppose bicycling. It’s cheap, it’s healthy, it’s good for the environment. Somehow, though, cycling has become politicized, and it’s the party of personal responsibility, austerity, and small government that tends to carry the anti-bicycling banner. That’s odd, writes Bill Lindeke at Network blog [...]
Investigators are still poring over Friday’s train derailment and collision in Connecticut. Early reports point to damaged track as the cause of the crash that injured 70 people. Meanwhile, Amtrak has said that the route connecting New York and Boston will be closed for several days while the investigation continues, and Metro-North says commuter rail service [...]
“Hi… excuse me… can you help me find this address?“An oft-used phrase for visitors in a foreign city. A few months ago I met up with Andy Cutler from Providence, RI, who was in Denmark to explore opportunities for Providence and Copenhagen to hook up on a creative and business level. He did a cool [...]
It’s bike to work day, America! Hope you had a lovely commute today. This will probably come as no surprise, but if you biked to work this morning and you live in a city that’s making an effort to improve conditions for cycling, odds are you had a lot more company on the streets than [...]
The newfound popularity of bicycling and the rapid expansion of bicycle lanes doesn’t excite everyone—at least not right away. “Bike lanes are coming to my neighborhood, and now I will no longer be able to afford living there,” is a common reaction in low-income Portland neighborhoods says Olivia Quiroz, Educator for the Multnomah County Health [...]
If it seems like we’ve been singling out Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin DOT a lot lately, that’s because WisDOT is such an excellent example of what a highly dysfunctional state transportation agency looks like. The latest foolishness: a billion-dollar proposal to double-deck part of a Milwaukee freeway. Milwaukee is a city that lost 0.4 percent of [...]
Today we learned that U of T researcher Jessica Dennis found helmet laws do nothing to reduce rates of hospitalization for head injury. We can add this to the other studies that have successfully questioned the usefulness of helmet legislation. There has been a lot of confusion between statistics that show that helmets reduce head [...]
In the movement to create a multi-modal transportation system, states tend to be the toughest nut to crack. More aligned with rural interests, many state leaders seem to get a perverse thrill out of scuttling their major cities’ transit plans. But there is some progress as well, even in political environments that might seem especially hostile [...]
Thanks to everyone who’s given to Streetsblog and Streetfilms so far in our spring pledge drive — we’re nearly a quarter of the way to our fundraising goal of $40,000. I can’t emphasize enough how crucial it is for readers to chip in and help us reach our targets. Your contributions keep us going so [...]
There’s a line of reasoning advanced by the media, angry motorists and, sometimes, cyclists, that goes something like: Since some cyclists don’t follow the rules, cyclists don’t deserve respect. A version of this axiom was repeated yesterday by Sarah Goodyear at Atlantic Cities, in an article titled “Cyclists Aren’t ‘Special,’ and They Shouldn’t Play by Their [...]
We’ve been focusing on the Troost corridor for quite a while now, and one of the biggest stopping points for us in exploring the area and imagining “what could be” has always come back to a critical set of questions: Who would actually invest in development in the area? Can one project act as the [...]
