Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Walking

More Walking and Biking, Better Health: New Evidence From American Cities

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 17, 2014 | 4 Comments

New data from the Alliance for Biking and Walking’s 2014 Benchmarking report bears out the notion that people tend to be healthier in cities where walking and biking are more prevalent. The Alliance compiled active commuting rates in the 50 largest American cities as measured by the U.S. Census. Then it compared that data with health information […]

Local Climate Doesn’t Exert Much Influence on Biking and Walking

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 16, 2014 | 6 Comments

Which state has the highest share of people who walk to work? It’s not temperate California. Actually, Alaska, the coldest state in the U.S., has the highest rate of active commuting. About 8 percent of workers there commute by foot and another 1 percent by bike. That illustrates something that researchers have noticed for a […]

5 Things You Should Know About the State of Walking and Biking in the U.S

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 16, 2014 | 6 Comments

The Alliance for Biking and Walking released its big biannual benchmarking report today, a 200-page document that measures the scope, status, and benefits of biking and walking across the United States, using 2011 and 2012 data to update its previous reports. Streetsblog will be running a series of posts looking at the Alliance’s findings over the […]

Dramatic Shift Away From Driving Continues in California

By Melanie Curry | Mar 17, 2014 | 1 Comment

In the first major travel survey since 2009, evidence grows that Americans are changing their transportation habits rapidly. The news from Caltrans’ 2012 California Household Travel Survey is dramatic: Californians are making far more trips by walking, bicycling, and transit than they were in 2000. The survey found the percentage of trips by these modes […]

Two Maps Show How We Designed Walking Out of the Suburbs

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 24, 2014 | 32 Comments

Having a finely grained street grid is incredibly important to walkable communities, as the above graphic from the Sightline Institute demonstrates. These side-by-side maps show how windy, disconnected, suburban streets make it difficult-to-impossible to get around on foot. This is why Happy City author Charles Montgomery noted in Slate that “cul de sacs are bad for […]

The Suburb Where Everybody Can Walk to School

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 17, 2014 | 44 Comments

Lakewood, Ohio, population 51,000, doesn’t have any school buses. It never has. Because of the way its schools were designed and sited, this inner-ring Cleveland suburb doesn’t need buses — every child in the district lives less than two miles from their classroom, and most are within one mile. Lakewood calls itself a “walking school […]

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