StreetFilms

Streetfilms and TransitCenter have a new short video out today highlighting the success of downtown Los Angeles' Flower Street bus-only lane.

StreetFilms and TransitCenter explore L.A. transit successes and issues, and question what is needed to make transit better serve the county's future

Over two years ago, Barcelona set the transportation world aflutter when it announced it would be attempting to reinvent parts of its city by developing a Superblock system by transforming targeted street grids to prioritize people over cars. On selected small street networks large parts of intersections and roadways would be taken back for parks and community gathering. Vehicles would not be banned, but it would redesign the grids so that fast thru-traffic was discouraged thru a series of driving direction changes, street narrowing and speed limits. Thus, almost all vehicles present would be either local residents or people with personal business on those streets.

Blue and Expo trains slow to a crawl in downtown L.A. where they compete with cars. Wny not fix this problem when the Blue Line is improved next year?

If you're jonesing for more Seville on top of the full-length Streetfilm about the city's rapidly growing protected bike lane network, here's a segment for you.

As recently as 2006, almost no one in Seville got around by bicycle. The city's bike network was nearly non-existent. When the leaders of this city of 700,000 in Andalusia decided to make bicycling a viable transportation option, they didn't mess around -- they built an 80-kilometer bike network in just 18 months -- and that was just the beginning.

It's no secret that the Dutch have the best bicycle infrastructure on Earth. And it keeps getting better. I recently got to ride the Arnhem-Nijmegen Cycle Superhighway. Imagine being able to bike 11 miles between two downtowns and not have to stop once for cars -- that's what the superhighway provides.

One of the best transportation stories of 2016 comes from Vancouver, British Columbia, which achieved its goal of having transit, biking, and walking account for 50 percent of all trips a full four years ahead of schedule. Bicycling is a big part of that shift, and now one of every 10 work trips is by bike.