Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Sprawl

Obama: The Days of “Building Sprawl Forever” Are Over

By Ben Fried | Feb 10, 2009 | 14 Comments

Obama in Ft. Myers This is encouraging. On the stump in Fort Myers, Florida to campaign for the stimulus bill, President Obama took a detour from his well-worn "roads and bridges" infrastructure spiel to deliver some brief remarks on transit and land use. Obama’s answer came in response to a city council member who said […]

The Last Thing This Nation Needs

By Aaron Naparstek | Jan 21, 2009 | 21 Comments

I hate to nitpick at an outstanding and historic speech but it’s January 21 and time to start talking about the stimulus bill, so, well, I’ll let James Howard Kunstler do the nitpicking… “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars…” — Barack Obama’s inaugural address.“The last thing […]

Sprawlsville Steps Back From the Edge

By Ben Fried | Dec 12, 2008 | 7 Comments

A section of Tysons Corner slated for infill development. Image: Fairfax County/PB PlaceMaking [PDF] Last week the Federal Transit Administration finally approved the Silver Line, a long-awaited addition to the capital region’s transit system that will extend to suburbs in northern Virginia. There are still a few hoops to jump through to secure the necessary […]

PBS Exposes the Joys of Transit

By Ben Fried | Oct 10, 2008 | 12 Comments

NOW host David Brancaccio does an interview on the LA Metro. Click through for the full video. The latest episode of NOW is surely the most effective takedown of car-dependent planning ever broadcast in news magazine format. Adhering to the familiar contours of pocketbook journalism, "Driven to Despair" starts with a sympathetic portrayal of the […]

Streetfilms: Interview With the Transportation Engineer

By Ben Fried | Sep 26, 2008 | 8 Comments

In his storied career at New Jersey DOT, Gary Toth played an indispensable role changing the culture of the agency, promoting a place-based ethic instead of the auto-centric transportation planning dogma. Today Toth heads transportation initiatives at Project for Public Spaces, where he has written "A Citizen’s Guide to Better Streets." The book, which will […]

Northern Virginia Locked In to Congested Roads

By Ben Fried | May 9, 2008 | 11 Comments

Suburbanites in northern Virginia are finding their streets more clogged with traffic than ever, and, as the Washington Post reported earlier this week, they aren’t about to get bailed out by road-widening projects. Here’s the crux of the problem, told from the Post reporter’s decidedly windshield perspective: Thoroughfares like Rolling Road are the blood vessels […]

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