Lily Bernheimer

Lacking high-quality, free photos for use in your livable streets advocacy work? This fall you've got two exciting chances to change that (and win big prizes while you're at it).

Taken a look at your Livable Streets profile recently? We've added some handy features.

Want more bike parking in Williamsburg and Greenpoint?

As Elana Schor wrote here a few weeks ago, transportation reform is health reform. The connection between active transportation and public health took center stage at PA Walks and Bikes this week, where Michele Barrett shared some startling statistics on the huge toll obesity takes in Pennsylvania:

Hang Chau is a future medical student who researched block parties and public health as an undergrad in Philadelphia, and is now organizing more in San Diego. In a new StreetsWiki entry on block parties, she examines the way these public community events encourage people to invest in their neighborhoods by highlighting the positive (outdoor fun, personal connections) rather than the negative (litter, crime):

Andrew Nash, former Executive Director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, has just posted a paper about Web 2.0 for Transport Planning on StreetsWiki. He's asking the Livable Streets Community, as experts on the ground, to contribute to it before he presents the final draft at the Transportation Research Board's 2010 annual meeting.

When starting a new Livable Streets campaign people will often ask us, "How do I connect with others in my neighborhood and build a working group?" Cantor Benjamin Kintisch is facing this familiar concern in Harlem and Hamilton Heights, and this time we're putting the question to you. If you've had success building a campaign in your area, we want to know how it all started. How did you get the word out off-line and which methods worked best? Respond to this post with your tips for Cantor.

This May, a bill surfaced in the U.S. Senate that would triple federal funding for Safe Routes to School programs. Livable Streets Community activists have been on the case this week, mobilizing support for the measure. In many communities, however, local policies also have to change to help kids get to school by walking or biking.

The interplay of cycling, fashion, and gender has been a hot topic in the livable streets blogosphere this month, and in the Livable Streets Community too. We recently saw the launch of a bike culture-themed group blog called Amsterdamize, and on StreetsWiki we have a new article on Cycle Chic.

This week we turn our attention to news of a multi-state effort to expand NJ Transit's Raritan Valley Line. Livable Streets member group RenewLV -- a campaign for smart growth in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley -- attended an exciting meeting of the broader Raritan Valley Rail Coalition. RenewLV reports;