Year: 2009

At one point midway through yesterday's Brookings Institution forum on metropolitan planning, moderator Chris Leinberger quipped that Portland was deliberately not represented. It's not that Portland isn't a model of sustainability, he explained, but that "we all have Portland fatigue" -- that urban policy thinkers are eager to expand the models of local development beyond Oregon.

Toyota wants you to know that it's here for you. And not just as a car maker, as the company explains in this spot, ironically entitled "Community."

Note: We've posted an update and a profile of the bicyclist, Mary Yonkers.

Today from Biking in LA, some thoughts on how to sell the idea of bicycle boulevards to non-cycling homeowners:

MTA Ready to Do Something About ARCO Station/Fell Street Bicyclist Hazard (BIKE NOPA) More on the MTA’s Parking Meter Study from SFBG, SF Gate, BCN via CBS5, The Snitch MTC Committee to Discuss Raising Tolls on Bay Area Bridges (BCN via CBS5) Hybrid Cars Too Quiet for Peds to Hear, So Auto Makers Will Add … Continued

MTA Chief Nat Ford, at a reporters' round table today, released the long-anticipated parking study conducted by his agency to measure the traffic impacts of increasing parking meter hours on weekday evenings and on Sundays [Summary PDF] [Full Study PDF].

A generation ago, nearly half of all U.S. kids walked or bicycled to school. Today, less than fifteen percent do, with the majority arriving at school in private automobiles. It’s no coincidence, then, that studies show more than a quarter of San Francisco’s children are overweight. But a new program hopes to change that trend, while reducing greenhouse gas pollution and increasing fun.

Urbanists often find themselves falling into a pattern of thinking that boils down to the dictum that what's good for drivers must be bad for walkability, and sustainability, and all the things that they prize about well-designed cities. Drivers seem to believe this too, which is interesting because it often isn't true.