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Columbus Wins $50 Million “Smart City” Grant. What Put It Over the Top?
U.S. DOT announced the winner of its $50 million "Smart City" grant yesterday, and Columbus, Ohio, bested finalists San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Denver for the prize. Many other cities had applied for this federal funding to demonstrate how new technologies can improve urban streets and transportation.
June 22, 2016
Beyond Fitness: The Social Benefits of Open Streets Events
It's a beautiful thing to witness just how much neighborhood streets can change when you remove car traffic. As open streets events, modeled after Bogotá's Ciclovia, have spread across the U.S. in the past several years, they've brought not just opportunities for physical activity, but a joyful new way to use streets as public spaces.
June 21, 2016
What Gun Violence and Traffic Violence Have in Common
The horrific mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando has prompted some soul-searching about America's ability to take significant steps to curb gun violence. Congress did nothing to control guns after dozens of young kids were massacred at Sandy Hook. Will the loss of 49 innocent lives finally lead officials to take action?
June 17, 2016
Goodbye to the Era of Big Infrastructure?
Despite the occasional feature story about America's "infrastructure crisis" and the campaign platforms for increased investment, the "era of big infrastructure is over," argues University of Minnesota engineering professor David Levinson at the Transportist.
June 14, 2016
New Jersey May Finally Do the Responsible Thing and Raise the Gas Tax
For a long time now, New Jersey politicians -- first and foremost Governor Chris Christie -- have been playing a high stakes game of chicken with transportation funds, doing practically anything to avoid raising the gas tax. Only one other state in the nation has a lower fuel tax than New Jersey. Thanks to inflation, drivers pay less and less for the roads, but transit riders are paying as much as they ever have following a fare hike last year.
June 13, 2016
Many Americans Live Near Transit, But Few Live Close to Good Transit
This chart tells an eye-opening story about access to transit in the United States. Using the new data tool AllTransit, TransitCenter dug into who has access to transit in American cities, making a crucial distinction between residents near any transit whatsoever and residents with access to convenient, frequently running service.
June 10, 2016
Blaming Jaywalkers and Drunk Pedestrians Lets the Real Culprits Off the Hook
New Mexico was recently named the deadliest state for walking by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Something's got to change, but what? Well, the Albuquerque Journal ran a front page article blaming the state's terrible safety record mostly on "jaywalking" and "drunk pedestrians."
June 8, 2016
Finding the Political Will to Fix “Four-Lane Death Roads”
A driver struck and killed a woman last week in St. Paul on what Bill Lindeke at Streets.mn calls a "four-lane death road."
June 6, 2016
Why Helmets Aren’t the Answer to Bike Safety — In One Chart
Better street design and getting more people on bikes -- not blind faith in helmets -- are the keys to making cycling safer, recent research has shown.
June 2, 2016
A New Partnership to Help Cities Make Smart Transportation Tech Decisions
There's a rush in cities to apply new transportation technologies like ride-sharing apps and real-time transit data, as exemplified by U.S. DOT's $50 million "Smart City Challenge," which is currently down to seven finalists. Public and private entities in Columbus, for example, recently pledged $90 million to help advance the city's bid to U.S. DOT. But are cities well-equipped to navigate the landscape of tech contractors and make interventions that actually improve people's lives?
June 2, 2016