St. Louis “Beat Congestion” and Now Commute Times Are Longer
St. Louis is every highway planner's dream. Consistently ranked among the least-congested cities in America, the region's car commuters spend a smaller share of their trips to work sitting in traffic than all but two other cities.
February 2, 2016
Designing City Streets to Suit 47 MPH Drivers Is a Recipe for Failure
Gravois Avenue is an important commercial street in St. Louis that also happens to be designated a state highway. It’s currently slated for a redesign, providing a huge opportunity to make the street work better for walking and biking.
February 1, 2016
Caption Contest: TxDOT’s Shiny Happy People Sucking in Highway Exhaust
This rendering of State Highway 45 Southwest in Austin -- one of 12 highway boondoggles singled out by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group this year -- inspired some mockery on Twitter:
January 22, 2016
Commuter Rail and Inequality Within Transit Systems
In theory, transit is a big melting pot where people from all walks of life rub elbows. That may be close to the truth in some places, but in others the reality is often quite different. People riding city buses to work probably aren't as affluent as the people riding the commuter rail line into downtown.
January 22, 2016
Make No Mistake, Millennials in DC Drive Less Than Their Parents
In a series of recent articles, the D.C. press have been throwing cold water on the idea that younger people don't drive as much as their parents. The impetus was a recent study of millennials in the D.C. that found 60 percent still drive to work alone. This is sort of like the "if the earth is warming, how come it's snowing outside?" argument.
January 21, 2016
What Will It Take for Houston to Eliminate Traffic Deaths?
In 2014, 227 people were killed in traffic collisions in Houston. Per capita, that means the city's streets are more than three times as deadly as New York City's.
January 20, 2016
Chris Christie Sticks It to Pedestrians for No Discernible Reason
In 2014, 170 people were killed while walking on New Jersey streets, accounting for 31 percent of total traffic deaths in the state (about double the national share). In addition, 13 people were killed while biking that year.
January 20, 2016
Will Toronto Get Cars Out of the Way of the King Street Streetcar?
Despite running through some of Toronto's most densely populated areas, King Street is designed like a suburban road. Cars have dominion while the city's streetcar has no dedicated right-of-way despite high ridership -- so it sits in heavy traffic. But it looks that's about to change.
January 19, 2016
Free Parking Is a Terrible Investment for Transit Agencies
Does it make sense for cash-strapped transit agencies to spend millions of dollars on park-and-ride facilities and then give those parking spaces away for free?
January 15, 2016
Study: Sharrows Don’t Make Streets Safer for Cycling
Sharrows are the dregs of bike infrastructure -- the scraps cities hand out when they can't muster the will to implement exclusive space for bicycling. They may help with wayfinding, but do sharrows improve the safety of cycling at all? New research presented at the Transportation Review Board Annual Meeting suggests they don't.
January 14, 2016