Month: September 2009

Bicycle counts are used to track the number of cyclists at key intersections. This is used to understand year-to-year changes in cycling as policy and infrastructure changes. Bicycle counts are basic city planning tools that help change policy to encourage cycling. Most major US and European cities have them. This will be LA's first, and we plan to do it right while having a good time!

Today on the Streetsblog Network, we've got a something of a debate going on the subject of putting new transit routes alongside highways in American cities.

More headlines over at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

As a lot of you know, back east I worked for a group called the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a transportation reform organization that fought highway and other car traffic inducing projects and promoted Smart Growth and alternative transportation. The Campaign didn’t advocate for a favored mode of transportation, embrace a certain environmental ideology or confine itself to a narrow geographic area; the Campaign argued regionally in the Greater New York area for better transportation based on the argument that our current transportation zeitgeist was driving dangerously close to the cliff without brakes.

When it comes to the carbon consumption of cars, trains, and buses, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DoE) Transportation Energy Data Book [PDF] is an indispensable resource. But this year's Data Book contains an eyebrow-raising error in its analysis of rail's energy use.

"Where the Sidewalk Starts" a relatively new blog focusing on pedestrian safety issues is a welcome addition to the local blogosphere.  Writer "Katie" an urban planner and suburban Southern Californian opened the blog because "The most downtrodden mode of transportation deserves a step up."

New York has them. San Francisco has them. Portland, too. Now St. Louis might be getting its own version of Summer Streets.

More headlines over at Streetsblog Capitol Hill.

Traffic Enforcement for Bicyclist Safety from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo. This amazing video, via Chicago Bicycle Advocate, was produced for the Chicago Police Department to educate drivers, cyclists and officers on traffic laws pertaining to bikes.  Given that the LAPD is revising its teaching methods for how it enforces traffic laws on cyclists this … Continued