Cities and Countries
Streetsblog Basics
Guangzhou, China: Winning the Future With Bus Rapid Transit
Guangzhou is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. The economic hub of China's southern coast, it has undergone three decades of rapid modernization, and until recently the city’s streets were on a trajectory to get completely overrun by traffic congestion and pollution. But Guangzhou has started to change course. Last year the city made major strides to cut carbon emissions and reclaim space for people, launching new bus rapid transit and public bike sharing systems.
March 31, 2011
Eyes on the Street: Media Envy in DC
In Washington for the National Bike Summit, Clarence Eckerson snapped a shot of this ad for the capital's NBC affiliate and its reporter Joe Krebs (described in his bio as "an avid swimmer and cyclist").
March 9, 2011
Senior Philly Planner, Unlike NYC Peers, Says Parking Minimums Matter
We reported last week that Boston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. are each making policy shifts to curb the proliferation of off-street parking even as New York City continues to enable the construction of more and more traffic-inducing, land-devouring parking.
February 22, 2011
Pedestrians and Cyclists Come First at D.C. Street Safety Hearing
"If we want to give meaning to multi-modal transportation ... and if we want a vibrant city, then we must encourage safety for people who walk and bicycle."
February 16, 2011
Bragdon: PlaNYC 2.0 Cheaper, Bottom-Up, But May Include Hudson Tunnel
City sustainability chief David Bragdon offered some more hints about what to expect from April's update of PlaNYC this morning. Speaking at a livability conference hosted by NYU's Rudin Center, Bragdon said that the update would eschew large capital projects and feature a larger role for neighborhoods and individuals. In terms of transportation, Bragdon seemed to suggest that a call for a new Hudson River crossing of some kind would be a part of PlaNYC 2.0.
February 3, 2011
Invisible Cyclists: Immigrants and the L.A. Bike Community
GOOD Magazine recently examined the role that the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition's City of Lights program has taken in giving voice to the overlooked and under-represented bicyclists. A program that started by handing out lights to immigrant cyclists and has become a national model for bicycle advocacy by focusing its efforts on safety to those underserved by government.
January 19, 2011
European Parking Policies Leave New York Behind
Flashback to Europe, sixty years ago. Just emerging from the ruin of total war, the continent was in the midst of a nearly unprecedented reconstruction. Over the next decade, industry finally was able to turn toward consumer products, from stockings to refrigerators and, of course, the automobile. Italians owned only 342,000 cars in 1950, but ten years later that number had increased to two million, according to historian Tony Judt. In France, the number of cars tripled over the decade.
January 19, 2011
Chicago’s Bus Tracker: Taking the Guesswork Out of Waiting for the Bus
One of the encouraging trends for American transit riders, in an otherwise bleak landscape of service cuts and fare hikes, is the growing number of agencies experimenting with ways to bring better information to their customers. Last summer Streetfilms explored how open transit data is helping to make riding the bus or the train more convenient in several cities.
January 14, 2011