Day: May 4, 2012

Safe bike lanes and pedestrian crossings should be top priorities in the redesign of Second Street. That was the major sentiment at a community meeting on Wednesday, where city staffers rebooting the faltered Second Street Improvement Project asked attendees how they would re-envision the corridor.

Though many transportation reformers, economists and environmentalists would say that gas prices aren’t nearly high enough to disincentivize single-occupancy-vehicle use and to pay for the external harms, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill take it for granted that gas prices are too damn high. In fact, it's one of the very, very few things that they do agree on these days. And it's a message that resonates with their constituents, who are suffering under a sluggish economy.

The transportation news has been flying out of Chicago lately. Last week, in a 41-9 vote, the City Council approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Chicago Infrastructure Trust, which will be used to build projects with private financing. Earlier this week, Emanuel and transportation commissioner Gabe Klein just unveiled a plan for a downtown bus rapid transit loop that will serve six different routes. Those bus lanes will open within two years. In the meantime, 2012 will see the inauguration of a 300-station bike share system and the city's first enhanced bus service on Jeffrey Boulevard.

There's a new sheriff in Washington, at least when it comes to parking.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill