Cities, Counties, and Countries

Space is at a premium on Delhi’s streets. Photo: DaveBleasdale/Flickr Delhi, home to over 12 million people and the seat of India’s national government, is widely considered to have the most dangerous traffic in the world. As the Guardian wrote recently, traffic safety in Delhi basically consists of “good horns, good brakes, good luck.” Nationally, … Continued

Riding the 28-19th Avenue northbound towards the Richmond on a recent weekday afternoon, Pamela Moye has almost nothing but good things to say about Muni.

StreetUtopia is a new community organizing effort centered in North Beach. Launched by Hank Hyena and Phil Millenbah at an inaugural event in early January, they drew upwards of 150 people to an empty historic storefront at 1 Columbus Avenue, where they showed Streetfilms, had a small art exhibit, and conducted a survey of the folks who turned out. Hank Hyena explained his motivation in terms of European cities which are often greener, more bike-friendly, and with more pedestrian-centers than US cities. Along with several other parents of children at Yick Wo Public School, including co-instigator Phil Millenbah, a San Leandro city planner, they staged an inspiring evening of art, film, and conversation.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has released its 2009 Bicycle Count Report (PDF), which shows an 8.5 percent increase in the number of cyclists on the streets last year compared to 2008, and a 53 percent increase since 2006. That marks the third consecutive year of growth for bicycling in the city - every year since the MTA began conducting the annual counts in 2006. Though not as explosive as the 25 percent increase recorded between 2007 and 2008, it's a solid figure for a year in which many of the nation's top cycling cities saw growth in bike trips slowed down by a weak economy and depressed gas prices.

Miami's conversion of HOV lane space to new high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes as part of the federal Urban Partnership program, which also prompted New York City's congestion pricing push, is cutting travel times for local transit and boosting use -- but overall bus ridership in the corridor has stayed static, according to a new report from the U.S. DOT.

I wrote that passage in my novel a few years ago, set in San Francisco 150 years in the future. Imagine my pleasure when I found out that an ornamental portal to the Wiggle is the first project envisioned by some activists along our much-loved route. A week ago I sat down on the Wiggle at Bean There Café with Morgan Fitzgibbons, one of the instigators behind the new Wigg Party, whose mission is to have the folks who live and ride and eat along this route “become the leading community in America in the transformation to sustainability.” Recognizing what more and more people are coming to grips with, that we’re on the cusp of a dramatic change in how we live in cities, and on earth, the Wigglers want to lead the way, taking action one community at a time, anchored in place. Given the high mobility and transience of so many young San Franciscans, a focus on a local neighborhood as a site of transformation is immediately encouraging.

I just completed another visit to Mexico, once again starting in Guadalajara, but then doing a 9-day driving trip through the heart of the country. This new year is Mexico's bicentennial and centennial (independence from Spain and the revolution, respectively), and signs denoting the historic routes of the country's history have sprouted up all over the place.

San Francisco's first green bike box, painted by a smiling group of electeds and bike activists earlier this month, was heralded as an important first step toward finally advancing some "innovative design treatments" in the city's long-stalled Bicycle Plan. But nearly three weeks later, the MTA has yet to paint any kind of bike symbol in the box, and many San Francisco drivers, and even some bicyclists unfamiliar with the concept of bike boxes, are still not getting the message that it's for bikes only.

Among the many strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and attendant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from private vehicles, Bay Area smart growth advocate TransForm has developed a new certification called GreenTRIP to encourage architects, developers, and municipal officials to build transit-oriented development and implement transportation demand management (TDM) solutions for future tenants [PDF].