Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Streetsblog.net

In cities considering a light rail project, it’s common for transit opponents to suddenly cast themselves as big believers in bus rapid transit. They don’t really want to build BRT, they just want to derail the transit expansion. The light rail advocates then have to make their case not only on the merits of the project, but also in relation to […]

City leaders from around the world are meeting right now in Quito, Ecuador, for the summit known as Habitat III — convened by the United Nations to map out a strategy for sustainable urbanization as more people flock to cities. Demographers forecast enormous populations shifts to urban areas in the coming decades. The nature of this growth will have profound effects […]

Rents continue to rise in cities across the U.S., and Pittsburgh is no exception. Noting the escalating housing costs in walkable neighborhoods, Alex Shewczyk at Bike Pittsburgh looks at how transportation and housing policy can coordinate to make places more affordable. We know from resources like the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing+Transportation Index that transportation costs are a large household expense […]

WMATA, the DC region’s transit agency, is in crisis. DC is a rarity among major American cities, with transit mode share declining over the last decade. In the past year, the federal government took over WMATA’s safety oversight authority after a number of embarrassing failures, culminating in the whole Metro being temporarily shut down. Confidence in the agency is in short supply. On […]

Since Mayor Bill Peduto assumed office in 2014, Pittsburgh has been a city that doesn’t shy away from changing its streets. Most recently, two more protected bike lanes are now slated for downtown, and of course Peduto made a splash partnering with Uber to test autonomous vehicles on city streets. Paul Mackie at Mobility Lab (a think tank headquartered in Arlington, Virginia) recently […]

Employees at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have to accumulate 13 years of service time before they get an on-site parking permit. To get a sense of how much employees become invested in this system, check out this YouTube video of one man’s elation the day he gets his parking privileges (and notice how towering parking garages dominate […]