Today on Streetsblog.net

Image: Leimert Park Beat

We’re coming to the end of our first week at Streetsblog Network.
The response has been overwhelming and very heartening. We’ve been
getting e-mails from all over the country, and the message we’re
hearing is that people are craving connection with others who are
thinking about the ways in which smart planning and improved
transportation networks can change their lives.

One of the most interesting e-mails came from Eddie North-Hager of Los Angeles, CA, who wrote asking us to add a blog called Leimert Park Beat to the network:

Leimert Park
[is] the African American cultural center of Los Angeles.The historic
neighborhood finds itself in the crossroads. Residents reap the
benefits of sound planning that mixed apartments and homes with a focus
on trees and wide parkways, and once even mass transit. Yet there is a
fear that new transit projects such as the Expo Line and the Crenshaw
corridor will change the way of life here. Education and compromise are
keys to getting things done, and done right.

Though the primary
focus is not on transit, the Beat does promote sustainable and livable
communities. I could see why Leimert Park Beat doesn’t fit into your
blog network at first glance. But these are stakeholders that need
interaction with your community to move mass transit forward in these
neighborhoods.

We’ve added Leimert Park
Beat to our blogroll, and it made us think about just how complex and
multifaceted the “livable streets” movement is becoming–and needs to
be.

This morning on Streetsblog.net, the featured post is from GreenCityBlueLake,
a northern Ohio blog, and it talks about how planners in Lansing, MI,
are installing relatively simple, low-cost infrastructure to reduce
stormwater runoff. It’s the kind of project that can change the way
people see the streetscape.

We’ve also got news from
Philadelphia about bike racks and from Enid, OK, about hiking and
biking trails. And we can’t wait to see what comes over the network
next.