Out of Town

Nick Whitaker files this first in a series of Streetfilms on transportation for Streetsblog Los Angeles. Here, we hear from LA City Council Member Wendy Greuel, Director of LA County Regional Transit Planning Rex Gephardt, and Executive Director of the Transit Coalition, Bart Reed, on how the city's burgeoning Bus Rapid Transit system can be a stepping stone to expanding future transportation choices.

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:

Here's an idea to file away for PARK(ing) Day 2008. In this video (which starts to pick up after the :45 mark), Paris Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin narrates Operation "Carré Vert" ("Green Square"), an intervention in which activists re-allocate road space on the Périphérique -- the highway that encircles the city -- in a matter of minutes. 

Sacramento sends cyclists a clear sign that it's okay to hitch your bike to a parking meter.

David Engwicht is a livable streets philosopher and author. Creator of the Walking School Bus, Mental Speed Bumps and many other innovative ways of taming traffic and increasing pedestrian safety, he has taken on “the challenge of a lifetime” to revitalize the downtown district of Wodonga, a small city in Australia often referred to as “Struggle Town” in comparison to its sister city Albury just across the Murray River.

Not only are Portland, Oregon's new bike boxes to be accompanied by a motorist safety campaign, they're also making them hard for drivers to miss at street level. Note the "Get Behind It" sign to the right.

Clarence Eckerson files this report (and StreetFilm) from Melbourne, Australia:

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.

StreetFilms' Elizabeth Press traveled to Istanbul, Turkey recently, and put together this vid of horrendous traffic conditions and initiatives to take back the streets. Featured in the film is Kevser Üstündag, professor of architecture and World Carfree Network advisor, who discusses transit and car-free Sundays.