Month: August 2012

They may not have succeeded in stopping plans for Bus Only Lanes for Wilshire Boulevard, but Brentwood community groups scored a victory earlier this week when the City of Los Angeles scrapped plans to shorten the sidewalk in a two-block stretch to make way for the buses.  The change does not impact plans to construct the bus only lanes, currently scheduled to be in place sometime next year. The letter can be read here.

The intersection of 6th Street and Hauser Boulevard just south of the popular Park La Brea residential compound has long been considered an inhospitable one for pedestrians. Residents of Park La Brea complain about crashes happening "all the time," and the wide four lane streets encourage fast moving car traffic. But following a fatal car crash on July 11th, City Councilman Tom LaBonge is calling for changes to the intersection.

How substantial are the benefits delivered by federal investment in bus rapid transit projects, and how can the feds help local governments build better bus improvements? A new report from the non-partisan Government Accountability Office [PDF] looks at the results of BRT projects that have been completed in 20 cities since 2005, when SAFETEA-LU expanded federal funding eligibility for such projects. The GAO found that almost all of the projects have proven successful as cost-effective upgrades to increase ridership, but it also identified a few ways that federal policy provides incentives for local governments to avoid building bus projects that meet the standards for high-quality BRT.

American zoning policies serve as a massive subsidy to sprawl, but the actual market-distorting regulations and their costs can be hard to tease out.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill