Streetsblog Network

One of the biggest sacrifices we've made in the United States to prioritize the movement of automobiles over active transportation is the health and safety of children. Biking and walking to school has become increasingly rare while childhood obesity is on its way to becoming the norm.

Everyone has an opinion about roundabouts. Studies show they're safer and more environmentally friendly. But they tend to inspire a lot of kvetching because a lot of Americans don't know how they work.

While some legislators in the United States want to keep cyclists off the roads, a city in Bolivia is taking the opposite tack. Cochabamba, population 700,000, is actually considering a law requiring that residents make use of bicycles to help preserve the environment and improve public health, according to reports.

As our Chicago readers are well aware, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made bike infrastructure a key part of his economic strategy. Since Emanuel took office, Chicago has been adding protected bike lanes perhaps faster than any city in the United States. The famously sharp-tongued Emanuel has even pledged to attract businesses from other cities, notably Seattle, with top-quality bike infra.

Transit riders in the city of Pittsburgh were alarmed last week when the Post-Gazette reported a plan to make the city's downtown "bus free."

No one's going to accuse Florida of being a safe streets pioneer. But yesterday, the Sunshine State took a "baby step" forward, as one advocate put it, becoming 42nd state to pass a law making texting and driving illegal.

All summer, the city of Portland, Maine, has been chipping away at the space it devotes to asphalt. With a reduced lane here, a curb extension there, an added landscaped median, the city is creating a safer, more inviting environment for pedestrians, reports C. Neal at Network blog Rights of Way.

Many American cities, at this point, are waking up with a sort of hangover from the "Interstate Era" that demolished urban neighborhoods to build life-sapping highways. Heck, some really proactive cities are demolishing their underused, elevated, antiquated urban freeways.

Ever encountered a transportation agency that says it's not worth the money to install bike access on an urban bridge, because bikes aren't "real transportation?" Point them to the case of Portland's Hawthorne Bridge.