Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Car Dependence

More Driving, More People Dying on America’s Streets

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 9, 2016 | 18 Comments

On Friday, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration released new data [PDF] showing that traffic deaths are up. Up quite a bit. During the first nine months of 2015, 26,000 Americans were killed in traffic collisions — a 9.3 percent increase over the same period in 2014. According to Autoblog, that would work out to the highest one-year percentage […]

Animation Explains How Bad Planning Makes Car Ownership Compulsory

By Angie Schmitt | Nov 12, 2015 | 131 Comments

This is a pretty great animation explaining how American cities were undermined by a slavish dedication to storing and moving cars. It’s by comedian Adam Conover from TruTV’s “Adam Ruins Everything,” who also made this great video explaining the screwed up origin of the word “jaywalking.” The best part may be the animated version of parking […]

Braves Stadium Relocation Shaping Up to Be a Disaster

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 30, 2015 | 348 Comments

When the Braves announced they were leaving Atlanta for suburban Cobb County in 2013, logistically it seemed to make some sense. After all, the new stadium site is more centrally located in relation to the highest concentration of fans who attend games. But it turns out that relocating a sports stadium to a sprawling, car-dependent area is […]

Why Creating Meaningful Transportation Change Is So Hard

By Daniel Hertz | Oct 21, 2015 | 8 Comments

Cross-posted from City Observatory. At his blog, The Transport Politic, Yonah Freemark pushed back this week on the idea that we’re seeing a revolution in the way people get around cities and suburbs, largely thanks to new transit-and-bike-friendly Millennials. In fact, he cites one of City Observatory’s posts as an example of a narrative he doesn’t […]

How America’s Staggering Traffic Death Rate Became Matter-of-Fact

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 14, 2015 | 41 Comments

How did more than 30,000 annual motor vehicle deaths become something that most Americans accept as normal? A new paper by Boston University professor Itai Vardi tries to answer that question. Vardi reviewed American attitudes toward the problem of traffic deaths, starting in the early era of automobile growth, when there was a great deal of “moral panic” about […]

How to Make Big Box Stores Less Terrible for Walking: 8 Expert Tips

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 8, 2015 | 76 Comments

It’s no coincidence that the most dangerous streets in many communities are the ones in front of big box stores. As a rule, big boxes generate a lot of motor vehicle traffic — and they tend to be a nightmare to navigate without a car. Even though the industry is shifting and some mega retailers have started […]

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