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What’s Your City’s Ratio of Places to Non-Places?
Here's a really interesting way to look at cities. Andrew Price at Strong Towns has developed a graphically compelling way to break down developed areas into what he calls "places" and "non-places."
October 15, 2014
Portland Shows How to Get More Bang for Your Traffic Safety Buck
State DOTs like to justify hugely expensive highway-widening projects, like Milwaukee's $1.7 billion Zoo Interchange, partly on the grounds of safety. But if we really want to get a big bang for our transportation safety buck, fixing city streets makes a lot more sense.
October 14, 2014
After Traffic Count Drops Off a Cliff, Albuquerque Rushes to Widen Road
Given limited budget resources and competing demands, what makes some transportation projects rise to the top of a city's wish list? Dan Majewski at Urban ABQ says that in his hometown of Albuquerque, there doesn't seem to be much sense to it.
October 13, 2014
Progress on Parking Reform Could Make DC More Walkable and Affordable
A few key changes to the DC zoning code could help make housing more affordable, streets more walkable, transit more convenient, and healthy foods more accessible. Years of debate and delay have watered down the reforms somewhat, but they still represent substantial progress. And now it looks like they will pass.
October 10, 2014
How the Lure of “Free Money” Leads to Highway Boondoggles
Why do transportation agencies spend so much money building new highways while letting their existing roads and bridges fall apart?
October 9, 2014
Suburbs in the Twin Cities Feel Persecuted — Here’s Why They’re Not
Suburban leaders in the Twin Cities region are angry. They believe too much money is being spent on transit in the city and not enough is being spent on highways in the region's outer reaches.
October 8, 2014
St. Paul Sets Out to Make Streets Safer for Young and Old
Now here's a public works concept that holds a lot of promise.
October 7, 2014
Will Politicians Fund America’s Most Important Transit Project?
Last week, Amtrak announced that because of damage suffered during Hurricane Sandy, its infrastructure connecting New Jersey and New York City below the Hudson River will have to be repaired. Each of its two tubes will have to be closed, in turn, for a year or more, which would reduce capacity by around 75 percent on a rail link that carries some 400,000 passengers a day.
October 6, 2014
Shhh! $1.5 Billion Dallas Freeway Won’t Actually Reduce Gridlock
There's been a heated debate in Dallas the last few years about whether to build the $1.5 billion Trinity Parkway.
October 3, 2014
Deranged Traffic Projections Could Cost Wisconsin $3 Billion
The advocates at 1000 Friends of Wisconsin recently completed a report [PDF] evaluating the Cheese State's traffic projections. The organization compared actual traffic levels with Wisconsin DOT projections on 11 highways where the state has proposed adding lanes. The total cost of the proposed expansions is $3 billion.
October 2, 2014