Streetsblog USA

Two leading Washington lawmakers assured reporters Wednesday that a long-term transportation bill is coming, but provided little in the way of details.

The New York Police Department stopped using the term "accident" to refer to car collisions because it conveys the "connotation that there is no fault or liability." In the press, however, "accident" remains standard practice, even when a driver rams another person on purpose.

Karoliina Korppoo, the lead designer for the new city building game Cities: Skylines, joins me on the pod this week to talk about the game and what makes it so fun to play. Among my questions for her: Why aren't there any tramways or bike lanes in the game? And do the game designers realize what type of impact these city building games have on future city planners?

The lack of good data on walking and biking is a big problem. Advocates say current metrics yield a spotty and incomplete picture of how much, where, and why Americans walk and bike. The U.S. Census only tells us about commuting -- a fairly small share of total trips. The more detailed National Household Transportation Survey comes with its own drawbacks: It's conducted infrequently and doesn't provide useful data at a local scale.

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the imperative for Streetsblog to generate more revenue from our website. With so many unsold impressions, ads were a clear opportunity to put Streetsblog’s sizable reach to use strengthening our bottom line. Today I’m pleased to announce that we’ve retained BlankSlate to help us sell ads and make good on that potential.

Vision Zero -- the idea that we should no longer accept traffic deaths and serious injuries -- is gaining momentum as a framework for thinking about city streets and transportation, as more American cities adopt the goal of ending traffic fatalities.

The links between transportation, development patterns, and people's access to healthy food are under increasing scrutiny from policy makers trying to address America's obesity epidemic.

Clifton Lemon and Steve Lawton of LightPlace Advisors join me this week to talk about how lighting is going to change in cities with the advent of the LED. We learn about what fire and light means to humans and why the street light might become one of the most valuable assets a city has.