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Edmonton’s Quick-Build Protected Bike Lane Grid: “A New Model” for Change

By Michael Andersen | | No Comments
Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities connect high-comfort biking networks. The most interesting thing about this week’s best bike infrastructure news isn’t what’s being built. It’s how it’s being built. Two years ago, the sprawling Canadian prairie metropolis of Calgary decided to buck tradition and test an entire [...]

Today’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | No Comments
  • Florida DOT Awards $44 Million for Bike Trails (Orlando Sentinel)
  • Most of Gwinnett’s $400M Transpo Tax Would Be Spent on Roads (AJC)
  • Massive Parking Deck Threatens to Swallow Atlanta’s Grant Park Neighborhood (Atlanta Biz Chron)
  • Louisiana DOT Touts Safety of Roundabouts (CityBusiness)
  • Clarksville, TN Bus Park-and-Ride Lot Is a Hit (Clarksville Online)
  • Matthews, NC Road Widening Project Would Cost 85-Year-Old Her Home (WSOC)
  • Buses Will Serve Crozete, VA Commuters to Charlottesville (Crozete Gazette)
  • Little Rock’s Broadway Bridge Withstands 93 Tons of Explosives (WTHR)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

There Will Never Be “Enough” Parking

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
To accommodate everyone expected to come to downtown Rochester, Minnesota, by building more parking, you would have to pave over downtown Rochester. Graphic: DMC Employees at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have to accumulate 13 years of service time before they get an on-site parking permit. To get a sense of how much employees become invested in this system, check out this [...]

Today’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | No Comments
  • 60 Miles of I-95 Closed After North Carolina Dam Breach (WUNC)
  • Will Virginia Resurrect a Historic Richmond Train Station for High-Speed Rail to DC? (Roanoke Times)
  • Foundation Seeks Ideas on Sustainable Transportation for Columbus, GA (Ledger-Enquirer)
  • Forsyth County, GA Sure Does Spend a Lot of Money on Roads (Forsyth Herald)
  • Frankfort, KY Makes Main Street Two-Way Again (State-Journal)
  • State DOT Chief Says Tennesseans Spend More on Cell Phones Than Roads (Kingsport Times-News)
  • Birmingham Bike-Share Users Rode 81,000 Miles Last Year (AL.com)
  • Alleged DUI Driver Kills Atlanta Teen in Hit-and-Run (AJC)
  • Soon You’ll Be Able to Rent a 1920s Pullman Car in New Orleans (The Advocate)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

Today’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | No Comments
  • Hurricane Matthew Shuts Down North Carolina Roads (WITN)
  • 373 Roads and 38 Bridges Closed in South Carolina (The State)
  • Georgia Spared the Worst of Matthew (11 Alive)
  • Florida Reinstates Freeway Tolls After Matthew Passes (Miami Herald)
  • Roads and Bridges Still Closed in the Jacksonville Area (Action News Jax)
  • Allegedly Distracted Driver Veers Off Road, Hits Family of Six on Atlanta Sidewalk (AJC)
  • Sun Sentinel Calls Broward Tax for Light Rail and Buses a “Boondoggle”
  • GoDurham Administrator Takes Transit Expertise Back to Native Ghana (News & Observer)
  • Sales Tax Isn’t the Way to Pay for Mississippi Transpo Projects (Clarion-Ledger)
  • Two Roundabouts Planned for Alexandria, LA (Town Talk)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

The Highway Era Is Over. When Will Our Institutions Catch Up?

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
The highway era is over. The construction of the Interstate Highway System is essentially complete. How much has changed at American transportation agencies since the 1960s? Image via YouTube Americans will continue to log lots of miles on highways, but for the most part, the job of building them is over. We’ve already connected the places worth connecting by highways. The problem is that transportation agencies — [...]

Today’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | No Comments
  • How Southern States Moved 2 Million People Out of Matthew’s Way (Wired)
  • Mandatory Coastal Evacuations Ongoing in Georgia (Savannah Morning News)
  • Lane Reversals End on I-16 in South Carolina (WRDW)
  • Birmingham Multimodal Station Set to Open in December (AL.com)
  • Birmingham’s Expensive, Environmentally Destructive Northern Beltline (Trussville Tribune)
  • Shreveport Residents Spend a Quarter of Their Income on Their Cars (The Times)
  • The Navy Doesn’t Want a New Road Through Naval Station Norfolk (Daily Press)
  • Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Shills for Uber (Alexandria News)
  • Bristol, TN Holds Meeting on Virginia Avenue Crosswalks (Herald Courier)
  • Brookhaven, MS Installs Sidewalks After Driver Hits Two Students (Daily Leader)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

via The Naked City Blog

Another Independence Boulevard — Lost Opportunity or Potential Future?

By Mary Newsom | | No Comments
Bologna's Independence Boulevard on a Monday morning in October. Photo: Mary NewsomOn a recent trip to Italy, we stopped for a night in the northern city of Bologna, home to some famous pasta sauces, the world's first university and a basilica where, legend has it, a German priest was so disgusted by the church's opulence he went back to Germany and – his name being Martin Luther – started the Reformation. It's also home to an Independence boulevard.  I didn't capitalize "Boulevard" because the official name of the street is Via dell' Indipendenza. In any case, it's a powerful reminder that a busy city thoroughfare need not be ugly.Photo: Mary NewsomUnder the arcadeI took these photos about 9 a.m. on a Monday, and I took them during breaks in traffic, so they don't accurately convey the traffic, although it's safe to say it's far less than Charlotte's Independence Boulevard, which carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day in places.Our Indy Boulevard began life in the 1950s as a four-lane U.S. highway (U.S. 74) that sundered a white, working class neighborhood as well as the city's first municipal park and its rose garden. Today, Independence Boulevard in Charlotte is either a freeway-style highway lined with sound walls or, where the freeway hasn't been built yet, a seemingly endless strip of bleak, now-bedraggled highway commercial development that had its heyday in the 1970s and '80s.But in Bologna, first settled about 1,000 BC, via dell' Indipendenza looks different. We arrived on a Sunday evening and the street was jammed with people, and no cars. The street and several others are pedestrianized from 8 a.m. Saturday to 10 p.m. Sunday.The street itself, like many of the old streets in the city center, is lined with an arcade, which protects pedestrians in bad weather. Under the arcades, many with vaulted ceilings, the sidewalks are terrazzo tile, or something similar. No chewing-gum-stained concrete or crumbling asphalt.Is there any hope for our Independence Boulevard? I confess to being a pessimist about that. Streets, I've observed, set a development pattern that's difficult to change unless the government decides to buy up all the land, tear everything down, and start over with new development. They have tried that before here, and urban renewal was a brutal disaster.Charlotte's Independence Boulevard, 2014. Photo: Nancy Pierce

Today’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | No Comments
  • Stay Off the Roads After Hurricane Matthew Hits (StarNews)
  • Evacuation Begins in South Carolina (WYFF)
  • Traffic Builds on I-16 as Coastal Georgia Residents Flee (WMAZ)
  • Florida Lifts Tolls for Matthew Evacuees (Palm Beach Post)
  • Jacksonville Buses Will Be on Sunday Schedule Friday (Times-Union)
  • Florida Could Shut Down Bridges If Winds Hit 40 MPH (First Coast News)
  • Charleston Named Worst City for Cyclists (Bicycling)
  • Tennessee Is Falling Behind on Transpo Funding (WCYB)
  • Widened Stretch of 400 Open in Atlanta (Patch)
  • Gulf Shores Zipline Removed to Make Way for Pedestrian Bridge (Gulf Coast News Today)
  • Orlando Uber Drivers Strike Over Low Rates (Sentinel)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

Atlanta BeltLine Visionary Speaks Out on His Very Public Resignation

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
Not many planners get an opportunity to influence their city in the way Atlanta’s Ryan Gravel has. Photo: Atlanta BeltLine Flickr via ATL Urbanist The concept Gravel laid out in visionary master’s thesis — transforming forgotten railroad tracks circling the city of Atlanta into a recreational and active transportation corridor — laid out an entirely new organizing principle [...]

Today’s Headlines

By Blake Aued | | No Comments
  • Coastal Florida Might Be Evacuated Today as Hurricane Matthew Approaches (CBS Miami)
  • South Carolina Will Reverse Freeway Lanes for Matthew Evacuees (The State)
  • Evacuations Ordered in Coastal North Carolina, Too (News & Observer)
  • New Orleans Opens New Streetcar Line (Curbed)
  • Jefferson Parish Applies for Bike Infrastructure Grants (Times Picayune)
  • Arkansas Bridges Need $750M in Repairs (Insurance Journal)
  • Middle Tennessee Mayors Talk Up $6B Regional Transit Plan (Tennessean)
  • Nashville-Area Candidates Say Traffic Is Voters’ No. 1 Concern (Nolensville Home Page)
  • Groome Ends Shared-Ride, Charter Bus Services in Richmond (Times-Dispatch)
  • Florida Task Force Recommends Buses, Passenger Rail to Alleviate I-75 Traffic (News Chief)
  • Charlottesville Officials Start Regional Transit Talks (NBS 29)

More headlines at Streetsblog USA

The Risks We Take By Not Letting Kids Walk to School

By Angie Schmitt | | No Comments
American kids don’t walk and bike to school much anymore. Even after some modest progress in recent years, only about 20 percent of 5- to 14-year-olds walked or biked to school in 2012, compared to 48 percent in 1969, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School. Are kids better off in the back seat than out and about and walking? Photo: [...]
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