Month: February 2009

Urban space advocates the world over use best practice examples from other cities to raise the bar on policy and praxis in their own cities.  For years in New York, Transportation Alternatives and the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign invoked the phrase "Lessons from London," pointing to congestion pricing and the pedestrianization of Trafalgar Square, among other excellent projects, that demonstrated that city's commitment to reconquering its streets for people over cars. They also pointed to Paris, Copenhagen and Bogotá for examples of brilliant bike share programs, four decades of urban design giving primacy to pedestrians and cyclists, and innovative use of street space and buses to move more riders on Transmilenio BRT than most cities move on their entire transit systems.

Sustainable school transportation officials and advocates have celebrated the installation of the first new bike racks in the San Francisco Unified School District in many years.  

Today, The Transport Politic continues its excellent coverage of high-speed rail proposals around the country with a comprehensive roundup of the projects that will be vying for federal funds in the months to come. As Yonah Freemark writes,

New York Is Getting a Trial Car-Free Broadway. Why Can’t SF Do This? (Streetsblog) Virgin’s Richard Branson Expresses an Interest in California’s HSR Line (CHSRB) Who’s Competing for High-Speed Rail Grants? (Transport Politic via Streetsblog.net) GM Nosedive Continues Unabated (NYT) BART Board to Get Update on Shooting Investigation and Discuss Budget Cuts (ABC7, CBS5) Boy … Continued

Transportation and social justice advocates packed the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) board meeting today to demand that the agency not spend a proposed $70 million of federal stimulus money on the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project.  MTC commissioners heard testimony for over two hours from some of the more than one hundred members of the public who were mostly opposed to the OAC, claiming it would take money from the operations of AC Transit and other transit operators.