Communities

New research shows that prioritizing building "form" over their use leads to more sustainable cities.

Zombie road widening - that would be illegal for California cities to require today - still plagues downtown L.A.

The post Eyes on the Street: Road Widening in Downtown L.A. appeared first on Streetsblog California.

Roads are supposed to connect us. So why do so many highways tear our social networks apart?

When it comes to gauging support for changes on our streets, it's easy to get the impression at community meetings that a handful of vocal critics represent significant opposition. But as preliminary survey results from a recent Inner Sunset meeting on improvements for the N-Judah show, public forums can often be a poor reflection of the actual level of community support for re-allocating street space to improve transit, walking, and biking.

Six years ago today, I struck up a conversation with Therese as we walked through the fare gates into Powell Station to wait for the N-Judah. I'd seen her there before, since we both regularly took the train after our late-night retail shifts in Union Square through the holiday shopping season. Last weekend, while waiting for the N at the same place on nearly the same day, I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. She still has the Muni transfer from the day we met (pictured right).

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Mission, an energetic crowd filled a room with about half a dozen bikes propped up on stands. Among the crowd was Juana Teresa Tello, who was there to get some pro bono guidance on how to fix up a two-wheeler that will help her get to work, to school, to the grocery store, and around San Francisco.

The BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico provides a fitting backdrop for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29. Who better to connect the two disasters than longtime New Orleans community organizer Malik Rahim, who helped found Common Ground Relief in the aftermath of the 2005 catastrophe? Rahim, who calls himself a "novice cyclist but veteran activist," is tackling the 2010 spill with a 1600-mile bike ride along the Gulf and up the eastern seaboard to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of the need to wean ourselves off fossil fuel dependence.

Disney's Magic Highway USA is one of the more extraordinary examples of the myopic devotion to automobility and its infrastructure I've ever seen. It's probably also required viewing at the Reason Foundation and among Senator James Inhofe's staff in Washington DC.

With everyone under the sun boasting their carbon reduction initiatives, including laughable entries by oil giants like Chevron and ExxonMobile, it's nice to see an event that walks the walk, or pedals the pedals, as it were.