Streetsblog USA

Did your city implement a road diet this year that really knocks your socks off? Is there a street near you with a new light rail line, or a protected bikeway, or fresh red transit lanes and bus bulbs? How about a stoop-to-stoop rebuild that created more space for people to enjoy the sidewalks?

Twenty years ago, Japan’s electoral reform redistributed power, giving urban constituencies a greater voice. One result: Japan eliminated its version of the Highway Trust Fund, which urban voters saw as satisfying the interests of the construction lobby, not their own.

Bailey Mareu, 30, and her husband were looking for ways to save money after she left her job to help run the family business in Lawrence, Kansas, two years ago.

If there's one thing American planners fear, it's that someone, sometime, somewhere, won't be able to immediately find a parking space. Gigantic manuals have been devoted to avoiding this "problem," and laws have been passed in nearly every community in the nation to ensure that no one ever lacks for parking.

It's standard practice to build parking lots to accommodate the maximum number of vehicles expected on the busiest shopping day of the year.

The driver who rammed his way through a crowd protesting the non-indictment of Darren Wilson yesterday afternoon in Minneapolis, injuring a 16-year-old girl, has not been charged with any crime.

In Ohio, lawmakers are now poised to outlaw traffic safety cameras, needlessly obstructing efforts to save lives. Similar bills were taken up this year in statehouses in Iowa, South Dakota and Missouri. According to the Governor's Highway Safety Association, 12 states have laws that forbid speed cameras under most circumstances.

As policy director at the New York City Department of Transportation from 2007 to June, 2014, Jon Orcutt shepherded the nation's largest bike-share system through the earliest stages of planning, a wide-ranging public engagement process, and, last year, the rollout of hundreds of Citi Bike stations.

As TransitCenter and the Frontier Group reported last week, the federal government pays a huge $7.3 billion subsidy to people who drive to work by making commuter parking expenses tax exempt. There are countless reasons for Congress to scrap this poorly-conceived, congestion-inducing subsidy. While policymakers consider the big picture, they also ought to examine how their own parking benefits are administered.