Cities and Countries
Streetsblog Basics
Profiles of American BRT: Pittsburgh’s South Busway and East Busway
Last month the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy released its report, "Recapturing Global Leadership in Bus Rapid Transit" [PDF], which proposed a LEED-like rating system for bus rapid transit projects and laid out a strategy for American cities to build systems as good as the world's best BRT. While more than 20 American bus projects have claimed the BRT mantle at various times, the ITDP report named just five American cities with bus corridors that made the grade and earned the title "True BRT." Streetsblog is pleased to publish a series of case studies from ITDP examining these innovative transit projects, starting with the country's first BRT routes, in Pittsburgh.
June 20, 2011
From London to D.C., Bike-Sharing Is Safer Than Riding Your Own Bike
People riding shared public bicycles appear to be involved in fewer traffic crashes and receive fewer injuries than people riding their personal bicycles. In cities from Paris and London to Washington, D.C. and Mexico City, something about riding a shared bicycle appears to make cycling safer.
June 16, 2011
The Biggest, Baddest Bike-Share in the World: Hangzhou China
Anyone who claims that bike-sharing is a European-style transportation innovation has clearly never set foot in Hangzhou, China. The 50,000-bike system in this southern China city of almost 7 million people (about 1.5 million people fewer than New York City) blows all other bike-shares off the map. As Bradley Schroeder of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy said, "I don't think there is anywhere you can stand in Hangzhou for more than a minute or two where you wouldn't have a Hangzhou Public Bike go past you."
June 2, 2011
In Defense of the Corner Market
Much has been made of the food desert phenomenon afflicting the industrial Midwest. GOOD Magazine, Dateline, NBC and countless others have weighed in on the apparent market failure that causes grocery stores to shun cities like Detroit and Cleveland like a bad case of head lice.
May 10, 2011
Third Houston Outerbelt Would Turn Prairies Into Texas Toast
There’s a place just outside Houston where the vinyl siding and attached garages thin out and recede into grasslands.
April 28, 2011
SFPark, Putting Shoup’s Ideas to the Test, Launches to Much Political Support
San Francisco launched the world's most ambitious and innovative parking project yesterday, a federally-funded trial that could revolutionize the way cities manage the public supply of parking. SFPark promises to make it easier for motorists to find spaces in busy commercial districts, while reducing congestion, speeding transit, increasing safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, and improving air quality.
April 22, 2011
Gabe Klein, Architect of DC’s Bike Progress, Is Chicago Bound
Chicago Mayor-Elect Rahm Emanuel has snapped up Gabe Klein, former head of the District Department of Transportation in Washington, to head up his transportation team in the Windy City.
April 19, 2011
Moving Beyond the Automobile: The Right Price for Parking
You might be shocked at how much traffic consists of drivers who have already arrived at their destination but find themselves cruising the streets, searching for an open parking spot. In some city neighborhoods, cruising makes up as much as 40 percent of all traffic. All this unnecessary traffic slows down buses, endangers cyclists and pedestrians, delays other motorists, and produces harmful emissions. The key to eliminating it is to get the price of parking right.
April 19, 2011
The Columbia River Crossing: A Highway Boondoggle in Disguise
The Columbia River Crossing is a mega-project by any standard. A bridge replacement, a highway widening, and light rail project wrapped into one, the CRC is a proposal to span the distance between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. With a $3.2 billion price tag -- by conservative estimates -- it would be the largest public works project the region has ever undertaken.
April 14, 2011