More Bike Lanes? No Thanks!
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-campbell19may19,0,6391618.story?coll=la-home-commentary

Methinks I’m gonna go on Spoke(N)Art tomorrow, as should others!
We can chant it there….

And catch Fuzz’s special art show at the Bike Oven!

Thanks for taking the —– (wait for it)— LEED!

Ingrid,

Thanks to you, I’m going to stick with “LEED for streets” now. I can tell you where I thought of the idea for that the next time we meet (LABAC meeting in Feb.?).

YES! A+ for Brayj!

Can you imagine engineers all competing to make the most livable street? Dutifully measuring and recording a whole host of criteria they learned in their new certificate training program…

Better metrics = better streets (or at least, the possibility for them)

If only LADOT could grasp this….

IF ONLY.

“There are pseudo-scientific measures of our roadway employed by civil engineers and traffic engineers. Reformers need their own set of measurements that can make a scientific case for alternatives to car-only roads.

“I’ve got a small list I keep amending, and I’m sure that there are enough big brained people out there that we can get a slate of measurements slowly incorporated into the canon of transportation engineering.”

…i’d encourage you to check out the people-centric steets ‘metrics’ developed by Gehl Architects, as highlighted in New York City DOT’s report ‘World Class Streets’. see:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/WCS_Gehl_08_spreads.pdf

as well, Paris Metro has been employing some really innovative social scientific research techniques as it tries to nudge its own system from a ‘passive’ transportation one, to and ‘active’/dialogical mobility one. a useful report generated within this logic can be found at:
http://www.ratp.fr/corpo/references/pdf/anglais/RATP_RA_2007_GB.pdf

“The reason cycling as transportation is not too popular in this country is that, as a policy, roads are optimized for recklessly fast automobile travel …”

I can’t remember the moment that this idea dawned on me, but I remember how it felt. I think I was fighting through an internal argument about Vehicular Cycling and my mom’s stated preference for a protected bike lane.

It quickly became obvious to me that learning about how our roads are designed was very important. Once I read up on that, and found out about the ITE (Institute for Transportation Engineers) I really got a fresh persepctive on transporation planning in the U.S. and some possible ways of fixing it.

Plainly put, we need to measure (not just “focus”, “report on”, or “care”), actually measure, the impact that transportation plans have on people, businesses and the civic spirit in neighborhoods around a project.

There are pseudo-scientific measures of our roadway employed by civil engineers and traffic engineers. Reformers need their own set of measurements that can make a scientific case for alternatives to car-only roads.

I’ve got a small list I keep amending, and I’m sure that there are enough big brained people out there that we can get a slate of measurements slowly incorporated into the canon of transportation engineering.

I imagine a sort of “LEED certification” for roads.