Month: March 2010

House infrastructure committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), facing steep political odds in his push to pass a new six-year federal transportation bill this year, has begun to pitch an outside-the-box solution to the financing shortfall that is still stalling congressional action: Treasury bonds.

One of my favorite transportation rhetorical devices has always been the relationship between Transit Oriented Development, or TOD, and its evil brother, Transit Adjacent Development, TAD.  TAD breaks all the rules that make TOD work, but because they can look similar they often get confused.  Unfortunately, TAD can give TOD a bad name.

While we were down in Washington, DC for the National Bike Summit, Streetfilms got the chance to check out some of the innovative bike infrastructure.

At an event in Minneapolis today, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) announced his support for giving urban transit agencies more flexibility to spend federal transportation formula money on operating -- a change in the current law that has already won the backing of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood but has split the transit industry.

Today on the Streetsblog Network, Jarrett Walker at Human Transit talks about how the push for better transit in Los Angeles provides an example for planners in other parts of the world, especially in newer cities that don’t benefit from European-style density. Walker acknowledges that LA has a long, long way to go toward building a world-class transit system (read the post in full for all his caveats), but argues that the power of its image in popular culture gives it a unique influence as it moves forward:

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

I have to admit.  When I was told last week that LADOT had opened the "LADOT Bike Blog" I assumed it was a joke.  After the creation of the Michelle Meowery twitter feed at the end of last year, and knowing how easy it is to open a wordpress blog; I assumed this was going to be another chance for everyone to get a laugh at LADOT Bikeways.

If you're a student looking to get more involved in Los Angeles' Livable Streets Movement, have I got a deal for you.  I'm looking for help to expand the Streetsblog empire in Los Angeles and I have a couple of research projects for which I need some help.  At this point, Streetsblog can't offer pay, although maybe if this summer's fund raising goes well that situation might change, but here's three things that I can offer you:

Though it may seem esoteric, one of the biggest impediments to designing streets for people is the over-reliance on design standards that have long privileged movement of vehicles over any other consideration on the streets. That's why advocates cheered when U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood published a policy paper recently that, at least in word, placed bicycles and pedestrians on equal footing with motorists.