Ben Fried

Have you given to Streetsblog's spring pledge drive yet? If not, may I suggest that this is the week to do so. In addition to supporting livable streets journalism and putting yourself in the running to win a Dahon folding bike, you could take home a sweet collection of books and zines courtesy of eminent bike-ologist Elly Blue.

Thanks to everyone who's given to Streetsblog and Streetfilms so far in our spring pledge drive -- we're nearly a quarter of the way to our fundraising goal of $40,000. I can't emphasize enough how crucial it is for readers to chip in and help us reach our targets. Your contributions keep us going so we can deliver news and commentary about the transition to safer city streets that work for people, not cars. So keep those donations coming!

After a year of study and outreach, today Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Transit Authority, and the Chicago Department of Transportation announced plans for center-running Bus Rapid Transit on Ashland Avenue. Once implemented, the project could set a national precedent for high-quality BRT, improving transit speeds as much as 80 percent during rush hour, according to today's announcement.

Since the 1970s, the Netherlands and the United States have taken different paths when it comes to engineering streets. While the Dutch tackled traffic deaths and injuries by designing local streets where walking and biking are safe, convenient ways to get around, the prevalent approach in America was to apply highway design principles to local streets -- wider and straighter was thought to be safer. The superiority of the Dutch approach turned out to be dramatic: In 1975, the traffic death rate in the Netherlands was 20 percent higher than in America, but by 2008 it was 60 percent lower. About 22,000 fewer people would die on U.S. streets each year if the nation had achieved safety outcomes comparable to the Dutch, according to Gary Toth at Project for Public Spaces.

After setting up transportation news sites covering New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and national policy, next Tuesday Streetsblog will be expanding for the first time in four years with the launch of Streetsblog Chicago.