Have regional planning efforts in Morris County, New Jersey played a key role in stopping sprawl? And can they provide a model for communities around the country? Those are the questions being asked today by Streetsblog Network member Hugh Bartling, who cites an article in the Morris County New Jersey Daily Record about the cessation […]

Today the issue of pedestrian safety has popped up a couple of times on the Streetsblog Network. First, the folks at WalkBike Jersey report that a bill giving pedestrians more protection in the crosswalk has passed the State Assembly and is moving to committee in the Senate: Photo by tomswift46 via Fickr. Under the bill, […]

I’ve been thinking a lot about slowness lately. Part of my inspiration has been from necessity: I recently found an old tandem bike on Craigslist and have been using it to get around Brooklyn with the kid. It weighs roughly one ton. It has only one speed, and only one pace: stately. When riding it, […]

Today on the Streetsblog Network, member blog Worldchanging has an interview on the future of American transportation with Nancy Kete, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and the managing director of EMBARQ, the WRI’s Center for Transport and the Environment. A bullet train is not necessarily a silver bullet. Photo by rikdom via […]

Whenever anyone asks me why I like Twitter so much, I tell them it’s about the information. If you follow the right people (and who that is obviously depends entirely on you) you can tap into an amazing amount of great stuff from around the Internet (and real life too). It’s like having a custom-made […]

Last week, several of our Streetsblog Network member blogs picked up on a recent policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), "The Built Environment: Designing Communities to Promote Physical Activity in Children." It examines how sprawl harms the nation’s children by reducing physical activity, and how denser development, traffic-calming measures and more parks […]

We talk a lot on this blog about the way that government policy can help to create livable streets. But we don’t often discuss the role that individual property owners can play when they’re inspired to create a more pedestrian-friendly space. The owner of this property in Miami has decided to convert a parking lot […]

This morning, Jeff Wood at The Overhead Wire points us to a newly released measure of CO2 emissions from the Center for Neighborhood Technology (which just won a 2009 MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, BTW). He says maps like these help to show why the need to change land-use patterns is vital […]

So, we all love a good street party, yes? But at some point, the party is over… right? Or is it? That’s what Joan Pasiuk over at the Streetsblog Network member blog Transit for Livable Communities, in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, is asking. Noting the popularity of festive street-closure events in cities around the […]

Coming off a weekend in which New York City gave one of the most famous stretches of street in the world to pedestrians, we’re going to San Francisco to take a walk with Streetsblog Network member Pedestrianist. They’ve got a post on the inadequacy of that city’s sidewalks — and a few very simple suggestions […]

Earlier this week, Brad posted a piece about a recent pedestrian death pedestrian critically injured by an SUV on 14th Street, asking "Is Death an Appropriate Penalty for Jaywalking?" in which he included some fascinating historical information about how jaywalkers have been demonized over the years. Photo by Poppyseed Bandits via Flickr. In Savannah, that […]

As the reauthorization of the federal transportation bill draws nearer, the need for clear, simple explanations of why reform is important grows greater. The folks at Transportation for America have stepped forward to make the case with Route to Reform: A Blueprint for a 21st-Century Transportation Policy, a 100-page document that lays out the most […]