Congestion Costs Chicago $7.3 Billion Per Year
You know a city is getting serious about congestion mitigation when a new report comes out measuring how much gridlock costs the region.
August 13, 2008
This Just In: The Media Business Is Auto-Dependent Too
Think web sites are saturated with car ads? The internet's got nothing on local TV.
August 8, 2008
Obama’s Energy Platform Has a (Small) Livable Streets Platform
When Barack Obama gave his big energy speech on Monday, his campaign released an eight-page fact sheet [PDF] to go with it. All the way at the end, at the very bottom of the last page -- after the parts about plug-in electric vehicles, oil shale, and clean coal technology -- there's this paragraph:
August 7, 2008
Wiki Wednesday: Ciclovía
With New York's big Summer Streets premier less than 72 hours away, this week we're highlighting the StreetsWiki entry on the mother of all car-free events, Bogotá's Ciclovía. Actually, the phrase "car-free event" doesn't quite do justice to a weekly gathering of a million people along 70 miles of streets. And as the authors note, much more goes on at Ciclovía than the name alone implies:
August 6, 2008
Hillary Clinton Introduces Senate Version of Transit Relief Bill
Transit operators struggling to keep pace with demand as rising fuel costs strain their budgets received some welcome news on Friday. New York's junior senator has introduced a version of the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act. The bill, which would provide $1.7 billion for local transit agencies over the next two years (including $237 million for New York City), passed the House in June but lacked a Senate sponsor until now.
August 5, 2008
House Bill Makes Connection Between Transit Funding and Gas Price Relief
Here's an alternative to the "Drill Now!" mantra that doesn't involve ethanol subsidies or depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Earlier this month, Congressman Earl Blumenauer introduced the Transportation and Housing Choices for Gas Price Relief Act [PDF]. Blumenauer's hometown paper, The Oregonian, calls the measure a "smart bill":
July 31, 2008
Wiki Wednesday: Bike Box
This StreetsWiki entry is rounding into encyclopedic form quite nicely. Andy Hamilton, DianaD (who also brought us the VMT entry last week) and Streetsblog's own Aaron Naparstek have been piecing together a detailed look at the history and effectiveness of bike boxes:
July 30, 2008
NYPD Thug Attacks Cyclist without Cause. Cyclist Goes to Jail
Words fail when watching this clip of an NYPD officer forcibly knocking a Critical Mass rider to the pavement last Friday. The assault was caught on video by a bystander in Times Square. Compounding the injustice, reports Gothamist, is what happened next:
July 29, 2008
How to Ease Pain at the Pump Without Deepening Oil Dependence
As the drumbeat for domestic drilling grows louder, can the Democratic leadership come up with a better alternative than tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? Over at the Huffington Post, Shelley Poticha and Geoff Anderson of Transportation for America propose a few ideas that will actually pay dividends. Pols who are serious about reducing the impact of high gas prices should listen up:
July 24, 2008
Wiki Wednesday: Vehicle-Miles Traveled
In the second installment of our serialized tour through StreetsWiki, we turn to DianaD's entry on Vehicle-Miles Traveled:
July 23, 2008