Streetsblog USA

Back in the day, we beheld the future, and in it, we were zipping about in electric cars. Yes, on that day way back in the aughts, we beheld a future in which a passel of problems were about to become passé: crippling gas prices, entanglements with oil-rich frenemies, dirty air, and climate-changing emissions would all disappear through the magic of automotive engineering. Chevy’s Volt, Nissan’s Leaf, and next generation EVs would mitigate car culture’s costs. And we would still get to drive all over kingdom come.

Here's another obscure but significant obstacle to building walkable places in America: the Institute of Transportation Engineers' shoddy traffic generation models for mixed-use development.

This story falls into the unusual but persistent overlap between pedestrian advocacy and vandalism. In Vallejo, California, last week, one man saw the need for a crosswalk at a dangerous intersection, and decided it was his job to make it happen.

"Improvement." "Upgrade." "Level of Service." The traffic engineering profession is full of buzzwords laden with meaning -- and, for the most part, the embedded meaning is something to the effect of "cars are king."

The Better Block project, founded less than 10 years ago in Dallas, Texas, is not only changing streets for the better -- in many ways, it's changing the urban planning process.

Poor Ford.

The answer to that question is: Probably not. Reps. Daniel Lipinski, a Democrat from Chicago, and Michael Grimm, a Republican representing Staten Island and a little slice of Brooklyn, announced their new transit-focused Congressional caucus just last week, and this week the House has been in recess.

At the local level, business has been a key force in cementing transit victories. But at a national level, the business voice has been largely absent from heated, high-stakes debates about transit. With a new report called “Bosses For Buses,” Good Jobs First investigates the disparity between local- and national-level organizing efforts by employers.

Let’s get one thing clear: People of color ride bikes. They commute to work on bikes. They ride for pleasure. It saves them money and time, and it keeps them healthy.