Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Urban Planning

Leinberger: Walkable Urbanism Is the Future, and DC Is the Model

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 13, 2012 | No Comments

Chris Leinberger wears too many hats to count – real estate developer, George Washington University professor, Brookings fellow – but he has one message: “Walkable urbanism is the future.” For years now, Leinberger has been preaching the gospel that the postwar era of automobile-oriented “drivable suburbanism” is over – and urbanism is the new wave. […]

CNU Hones Its Transportation Agenda in Long Beach

By Gary Kavanagh | Sep 12, 2012 | No Comments

Preceding the start of the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference this week, the Congress for the New Urbanism met at the Renaissance Hotel across from the Long Beach Convention Center to convene their annual CNU Transportation Summit. At the summit, CNU develops its transportation agenda, including new and existing projects. Having caught the new urbanist bug in Florida […]

The Projections Fallacy

By Charles Marohn | Jul 23, 2012 | 12 Comments

Cross-posted from Streets.MN. We spend billions every year in this country on our transportation network, large percentages of it based on traffic projections. This despite the fact that we have a long record of not being able to accurately project traffic. The answer isn’t better projections but a better transportation system, one that is robust […]

Arizona DOT Study: Compact, Mixed-Use Development Leads to Less Traffic

By Angie Schmitt | May 18, 2012 | 14 Comments

Does walkable development really lead to worse traffic congestion? Opponents of urbanism often say so, citing impending traffic disaster to rally people against, say, a new mixed-use project proposed in their backyards. But new research provides some excellent evidence to counter those claims. A recent study by the Arizona Department of Transportation [PDF] found that […]

FRA Guidance on Pedestrian Safety Still Misses the Real Problem

By Tanya Snyder | Apr 30, 2012 | 13 Comments

The Federal Railroad Administration doesn’t call people walking near railroad tracks “pedestrians.” It calls them “trespassers.” True, a person walking on railroad tracks is often, by definition, breaking the law, since the tracks are private property. But the nomenclature gives the impression that the agency might be somewhat less sympathetic than they should be about […]

LOS and Travel Projections: The Wrong Tools for Planning Our Streets

By Gary Toth | Feb 7, 2012 | 14 Comments

Gary Toth is director of transportation initiatives with the Project for Public Spaces. This post first appeared on PPS’s Placemaking Blog. Would you use a rototiller to get rid of weeds in a flowerbed? Of course not. You might solve your immediate goal of uprooting the weeds — but oh, my, the collateral damage that you would do. […]

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