Year: 2009

The difficulty of changing our ingrained daily habits -- even for our own good, not the health of the planet -- is the subject of today's post from Streetsblog Network member Twin City Sidewalks.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill

One of my favorite memories from childhood was the first time my grandparents took my sister and me into San Francisco. We were country bumpkins who grew up on a ranch in northeastern Nevada and were mesmerized by the cacophony and tumult of the big city. My grandfather took us to all the tourist destinations of note, including Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiradelli Square, but the memory that remains the most vivid in my mind was the drive down Filbert Street.

When it comes to building new developments in the Bay Area, especially in San Francisco, the battle over limiting the construction of new parking spaces is pitched. Parking reform advocacy organizations like Livable City, which maintains a listserv populated by car-free and livable-city advocates keeping a keen watch on planning commission parking exemptions, have long encouraged city leaders to tighten the parking-to-unit ratios in dense neighborhoods flush with transit and bicycling options.

Wanju Yu, a 74-year-old Cupertino resident, was struck and killed by a driver while riding his bicycle near De Anza College yesterday.

The notion of a "front-loaded" infrastructure bill to counter the rising U.S. unemployment rate has been circulating in Washington for some time, though solid details on such a measure have yet to emerge.

The Department of Energy (DoE) yesterday chose venture capitalist Jonathan Silver to head up its loan programs, which include $25 billion in loan guarantees for low-emissions cars and $32 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects.

When Chrysler asked the government for a second round of bailout money in February, it submitted a 177-page restructuring plan that vowed to usher in a new era of fuel-efficient vehicles at the famously gas-chugging automaker.

The Dangerous by Design report on pedestrian fatalities from Transportation for America and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership has been getting a lot of attention from the Streetsblog Network (and from the national press) this week. The data in the report gives advocates a powerful tool when talking to local officials about the need for safer streets.