Washington DC

In an effort to improve safety and mobility for pedestrians and cyclists, Washington, DC has embarked on a number of livable streets reforms (market rate street parking), and is considering others (reclaiming auto-occupied street space for people). Though a recent article in the Washington Post casts these initiatives as a "war" against car commuters, it's clear that DC officials -- like those in many US cities -- are in fact acting to level the field following decades of auto dominance, and at a time when driving has become a more expensive, less desirable option.

Un-Shoupian parking policy on display on Brooklyn's Fourth Avenue

Attention aspiring Streetfilm directors: U.S. PIRG has noticed that transit doesn't seem to be on the radar of most pols, so it's enlisting the YouTube generation to help lawmakers see the light. From the U.S. PIRG website:

We're nearly a couple of weeks into baseball season, and fans of the Washington Nationals are enjoying their new transit-, bike- and pedestrian-friendly stadium. The DC complex, with its transit links, shuttle buses and valet bike parking, is so accessible -- and city efforts to encourage fans to get there by alternate means so successful -- that on Opening Day its relatively few parking lots weren't even full, reports Greater Greater Washington:

After months of following the step-by-step evolution of the congestion pricing proposal, there's a certain satisfaction in seeing familiar concepts codified in legislative language. To wit, we hope readers who've been tracking Streetsblog's coverage of this topic enjoy these excerpts from the bill. Parse away.

In a first for a big east coast city, Washington, DC, is putting the ideas of celebrated parking reformer Don Shoup to work. Spurred by concerns over game day traffic surges caused by the opening of a new baseball stadium, the city council recently created two performance parking pilot project zones. The most important provision of the legislation is that 75 percent of the meter revenue, after initial expenses and maintenance, "Shall be used solely for the purpose of non-automobile transportation improvements in that pilot zone." This includes a menu of transit, bicycling and pedestrian improvements including sidewalk widenings, traffic calming, separated bikeways and real-time information signs for buses and trains.

On Wednesday Streetsblog declared Portland the leader in the race to launch a public bike-share program here in America. But as reader Chris Loos pointed out, a bike-share system in Washington is actually imminent.

An organized ride on one of Portland's bike boulevards.

One of the more intriguing stories at yesterday's National Bike Summit in Washington D.C. came from Nicole Freedman, who was appointed Boston's first bike czar last September. A planner and one-time professional cyclist, Freedman was charged with building a bike network out of nothing, in a city routinely ranked among the nation's worst for bicycling, on a shoestring budget.