You Won’t Soon Forget These Photos of Ghost Bikes. That’s Exactly the Point.
You’ve seen them, locked to signposts on the side of the road. Maybe you’ve helped install one. Maybe you’ve cried at the sight of them.
September 11, 2015
Surgeon General’s Warning: Unwalkable Places Are Hazardous to Your Health
Physical activity is essential to people's health, but dangerous streets and spread-out, sprawling communities prevent Americans from getting enough of it, says the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy.
September 9, 2015
Shoes Off, Laptops Out, All Aboard!
Rail travel has many advantages over flying, like the view out the window, or arriving at a downtown location. Perhaps most importantly: You don’t have to get to the train station an hour early to go through security checkpoints like you do in airports. But last month’s attack on a Paris-bound train has amplified calls to beef up rail security.
September 4, 2015
The Appalling Rollback of Truck Safety Provisions in the DRIVE Act
A battle is brewing over the Senate transportation bill’s approach to truck safety. Though large trucks are involved crashes that kill nearly 4,000 people a year -- a number that has grown by 17 percent over the past five years -- the DRIVE Act actually rolls back what few protections exist.
August 28, 2015
Highway Safety Group Tells Pedestrians to Be Safe on Roads Built to Kill Them
The Governors’ Highway Safety Association wants you to know it's working really hard on pedestrian and bicycle safety. The coalition of state road safety agencies just put out another report in a series of well-intentioned but a off-base attempts to draw attention to the issue.
August 27, 2015
Indianapolis Brings Street Life Downtown With a Flurry of Quick Changes
Indianapolis is building public support for a major street redesign the same way DIYers and tactical urbanists do: by testing out temporary changes.
August 25, 2015
Louisiana Raids Its Maintenance Fund to Pay for Road Expansions
This year, Louisiana will raid $21.6 million from its road maintenance fund to pay for road projects, including some expansions, that have been on the books since 1989. The state will have to keep stealing from the fund for the next 27 years to pay for them.
August 7, 2015
The Key Human Factors That Can Lead Any City to Transform Its Streets
How did Portland get to be a national model for sustainable transportation and walkable development? Yes, Mayor Neil Goldschmidt stopped the Mount Hood Freeway from being built in 1974 and began negotiations that eventually led to the implementation of the urban growth boundary. But Goldschmidt didn’t do it alone.
August 4, 2015
Transit Union Slams DRIVE Act
Yesterday, the Senate passed both a three-month transportation extension and a six-year reauthorization bill (albeit with three years of funding), which the Senate hopes to workshop with the House in the fall. The bill’s name itself -- the DRIVE Act -- raised the hackles of transit advocates. Looking deeper, it seems those advocates have more to worry about than just semantics.
July 31, 2015
With New Rule, Feds Forget Their Own Best Ideas on Street Design
Antiquated, car-oriented road design guidance is losing its vise grip on our cities. Other manuals are challenging the dominance of the "design bible" issued by AASHTO, the coalition of state DOTs. But the federal government might be missing an important opportunity to enshrine street safety for all modes.
July 30, 2015