Cities and Countries
Streetsblog Basics
Streetfilms: Seattle’s Link Light Rail — The Start of Something Big
Right now, Seattle is making as serious a commitment to transit as any city in the nation. Recently, Streetfilms got to take a tour of the newest addition to the city's network --
the 13-station Link Light Rail, which opened in
mid-2009.
March 3, 2010
Waiting for Raymond: LAPD Chief Leapfrogs Kelly on Cyclist Outreach
Since taking office late last year, the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Charlie Beck, has taken several steps toward making conditions more tolerable for local cyclists. The most notable to this point is probably the formation of a cycling task force to address issues including traffic laws and bike theft. As reported by Damien Newton of Streetsblog LA, last week Beck fielded questions at a city council committee meeting, during which he referred to cycling as "an admirable form of transportation" and called cyclists "our most vulnerable commuters."
March 1, 2010
The Truth About Student Fares: MTA a Huge Bargain for State and City
A new round of MTA Board hearings gets started this week, and the biggest flashpoint is sure to be the student MetroCard program. New York City school children depend on free and reduced fares, especially since education reforms have led more students to attend schools farther from home. Yet the state has withdrawn funding for the program and the city has allowed its contribution to remain flat since 1995.
March 1, 2010
Community Benefits Agreements: What Do They Mean for Livable Streets?
Last week, Comptroller John Liu announced plans to convene a task force to study and issue recommendations about community benefits agreements in New York. While details on the task force are still forthcoming, the renewed public attention on these planning tools provides an opportunity to examine how CBAs have worked in New York and how they are increasingly being used to build livable streets.
February 26, 2010
Streetfilms: Biking to Work With Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn
When Seattleites elected a new
mayor at the end of 2009, they really went for a breath of fresh air. In the general election, Mayor Mike McGinn, who rides a bike to work daily, was outspent nearly four to one. The race was very close, but with
an energetic volunteer base -- and a campaign that emphasized many livable streets
issues -- he pulled out the victory.
February 16, 2010
Streetfilms: Sharrows Point the Safe Way to Bike Across Rail Tracks
It's something even the most experienced
cyclists do: wipe out while crossing a set of train tracks. When you ride across rails, you need to maneuver your bike's angle of approach so that
you hit the tracks as perpendicularly as possible. But even knowing that,
some riders don't slow down enough to sashay properly, and newbies have no idea how the angles work until it's too
late!
February 12, 2010
Biz Students See Ripe Market for Bike-Share in NYC
A Nextbike kiosk in Tubingen, Germany. Image: Eldersign via Flickr. With bike-share systems launching in three major American cities this year, the question naturally arises: Does New York have an appetite for bike-sharing? Patricia Bayley and Martin Mazza say yes. Students at Barcelona’s IESE, one of Europe’s top business schools, Bayley and Mazza intend to … Continued
February 10, 2010
Strict Liability: Civil Law for Civil Streets
Yesterday we highlighted a Bob Mionske column that eloquently lays out inherent biases common in U.S. traffic codes and proposes measures we can take to start correcting them. One of them is strict liability, which generally assigns responsibility for a collision to the operator of the vehicle likely to do the most damage (just as motorists are expected to look out for cyclists, cyclists must look out for pedestrians).
February 9, 2010
Sponsors Sold on Health, Economic Benefits of Minneapolis Bike-Share
Don't count out Boston just yet, but it looks like Minneapolis may be the first American city out of the gate with a public bicycle system of 1,000 bikes or more. Last week, the non-profit Nice Ride Minnesota selected the Public Bike System Company (the same firm behind Montreal's Bixi) to install its system, which is slated to feature 1,000 bicycles at about 75 stations when the first phase wraps up later this year.
February 8, 2010
PlaNYC Report Takes a Restrained Approach to Promoting Electric Cars
Last week, the Mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability released its newest report, "Exploring Electric Vehicle Adoption in New York City" [PDF]. In a breezy 22 pages, it lays out some strategies to maximize electric vehicle purchases by so-called early adopters in the next five years.
January 29, 2010