Streetsblog Network

About a generation ago, many American school districts started shuttering and abandoning walkable neighborhood schools and building replacements in sprawling, undeveloped locations where the land was cheap.

How much car traffic will a new building generate? Engineers and planners are constantly trying to divine the answer to this question in the belief that it will tell them the "right" number of parking spaces to build, or how to adjust streets to accommodate more cars.

In many ways, Calgary, Canada's third-largest city, is very much like a sprawling American city. But in one way, it's very different: It's a huge transit city. Despite being composed mostly of sprawling single-family homes, in this Canadian energy boomtown, 50 percent of downtown workers arrive by transit and another 11 percent by bike -- way higher than what you see in its American counterparts.

What happens when you ask people point blank what they want from their local transportation system?

In a continuation of a long-term trend with devastating results for city residents, job creation in the Milwaukee region in the wake of the Great Recession has been focused in the suburbs. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that Milwaukee County has recovered only 35 percent of the jobs it lost in the economic downturn, meanwhile the surrounding suburban counties have recovered 70 percent. The report also found that new jobs in Milwaukee County tend to be lower paying, with a higher share of temporary positions.

Remember that time you attended a public meeting about redesigning a street, and when the issue of free on-street parking spaces came up, the discussion was so thoughtful and productive that you walked away feeling refreshed and full of optimism? Me neither.

If there's one region in the country that desperately needs better transit, it's Milwaukee. And there are a ton of places that badly need better transit.

In Atlanta, the regional planning commission recently created a “millennial advisory committee” in response to lackluster retention of young college grads. Bradley Calvert at Family Friendly Cities notes that the agency should be even more alarmed by the drop in the population of kids in the city:

A 7-year-old girl was critically injured in Springfield, Massachusetts, last night trying to cross the street to reach the library. Her 8-year-old cousin was also seriously injured in the collision. The younger girl is not expected to live, according to reports.