Livable Streets
Streetsblog Basics
Illinois Adopts “Complete Streets” Into Law
The National Complete Streets Coalition reports on an important victory for the livable streets movement in Illinois. A new law mandates that the principles of complete streets must be incorporated into all new projects and construction, effective immediately.
October 17, 2007
Indianapolis Paves the Way for Bikes and Pedestrians
Construction is underway on what may be the nation's most advanced urban greenway system.
October 15, 2007
Is Transportation Reform Possible When the Cops Don’t Care?
A reliable Streetsblog tipster sends along this photo of a police cruiser parked in the Department of Transportation's new Ninth Avenue bike facility. The police officer seen getting into the car was returning from a nearby deli with what appeared to be lunch for him and his partner.
October 10, 2007
The World’s Greenest, Most Livable Cities
Writing in this month's Reader's Digest, Matthew Kahn, an environmental economist at UCLA's Institute of the Environment, analyzed data from 141 nations and ranked the planet's greenest, most livable places.
October 8, 2007
GAPCo Wins Design Trust Fellowship
Sculpture on the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch, Grand Army Plaza
October 4, 2007
A Ride Down NYC’s “Street of the Future”
For years, Livable Streets advocates have pleaded with New York City's Department of Transportation to just try new things. Do street design experiments using temporary materials. Give new ideas a shot. If an experiment doesn't work, take it down, redesign it, improve it or, heck, just restore it to how it used to be. What do we have to lose? If we don't start figuring out new ways to design and manage New York City's streets, all we're left with is a future of ever-increasing gridlock, pollution and honking.
October 4, 2007
Doubts About DOT Congestion Prescription in Jax Heights
Community activists in Jackson Heights have been complaining about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave. (right) for years. A major traffic study of the area is underway, but according to a DOT spokesman, the department didn't want to wait to implement "short-term initiatives" that could ease the problem. Problem is, some of the activists--including Will Sweeney of the Western Jackson Heights Alliance--aren't necessarily thrilled with the department's solution.
October 3, 2007
Fresh Direct Responds to Environmental Critics
FreshDirect, the company that has built a grocery empire, in part, by using New York City's free, public streets as their virtual warehouse, sent out an e-mail yesterday to let customers know of five new environmental initiatives the company is undertaking. While the company's non-union truck drivers may still be double-parking, creating traffic congestion and driving recklessly through your neighborhood, rest assured that their trucks' tailpipe emissions will smell more like greasy Chinese food than diesel particulate matter:
October 2, 2007
Meat Market Plaza is Open for Business
The interim redesign of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street is done. Tables, chairs, planters and some of those giant granite blocks from DOT's Bridges Division have been set out as multipurpose bollard-bench-tables atop a gravelly, earth-tone pavement surface.
September 27, 2007