Angie Schmitt
Recent Posts
How Much of Your City Is Really Urban?
| | No Comments
Many places that get categorized as “suburbs” are actually pretty urban. They may not be located in a central city, but they are compact, walkable places. But the inverse is also true: Large portions of nearly every American city are pretty spread out and suburban in character.
How to Spend a Fortune on Roads and Make Potholes Worse
| | No Comments
Simply spending a lot on infrastructure is no guarantee of better transportation conditions. It can easily make things worse.
4 Ways Trump’s Transportation Plan Is Ripe for Corruption
| | No Comments
While the vast sums we spend on infrastructure have always been vulnerable to various forms of corruption, the potential for Trump to game the system goes far beyond typical “highway to nowhere” graft. Here’s a closer look at why.
Protected Bike Lanes Are Sprouting Up in Arkansas
| | No Comments
Can protected bike lanes get people biking for transportation in northwest Arkansas? The Walton Family Foundation wanted to see. The foundation, which is supported by the Walmart family fortune, has been studying the way people get around in the Bentonville area, including the cities of Rogers and Bella Vista, which is world headquarters of the Walmart corporation. The foundation […]
The Future of Transit Fares: Less Cash, More Trust, Faster Service
| | No Comments
TransitCenter recently hosted an event where officials from transit agencies leading the way on next-generation fare payment shared lessons from their experience.
Cycling Is Getting a Lot Safer in American Cities Adding a Lot of Bike Lanes
| | No Comments
American cities still have a long way to go before they’re considered safe for people of all ages and abilities to bike. But many of them have made a lot of progress recently, especially the ones building protected bike lanes.
If Not for Trump, Last Night Would Have Been Great for Transit
| | No Comments
Last night had the makings of a historic election for transit. Voters in cities as varied as Raleigh, Indianapolis, and Los Angeles turned out to support ballot measures to dramatically expand bus and rail service. But the election of Donald Trump and the retention of GOP majorities in both houses of Congress cast a pall of uncertainty over transit agencies [...]
How the Accommodations We Make for Cars Impose Huge Costs on Cities
| | No Comments
Drive-thrus and parking lots are bad news for a city’s tax base. Image via Streets.mn
Wide highways, big parking lots, dangerous intersections designed for speed — there are a lot of downsides to all this car-centric infrastructure, including the way it saps the fiscal health of cities.
Bill Lindeke at Network blog Streets.mn lists seven, from the erosion of the local tax [...]
To Open Up Cities, Make Single-Family Zones More Flexible
| | No Comments
As the number of jobs in Seattle explodes, the city is grappling with how to make room for all the population growth that’s expected to follow. The city’s “Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda” maps out a strategy to do so, focusing mainly on infill development in denser areas near transit. Most of the city, however, is zoned for single-family [...]
How American Cities Can Protect Cyclists From Deadly Trucks
| | No Comments
Side guards save lives. Photo via Vision Zero Network
Heavy trucks kill. They account for as much as 32 percent of cyclist deaths in New York City and 58 percent in London, far out of proportion to their share of traffic. Across the U.S., 1,746 bicyclists and pedestrians have been killed in collisions with commercial trucks over the last [...]
Private Toll Road Backed By $430 Million in Federal Funds Goes Bust
| | No Comments
From the beginning, there were plenty of reasons to suspect that Texas 130 — a private toll road between San Antonio and Austin — was a bad idea.
Photo: Flickr/Ken Lund
For one thing, the state of Texas looked into extending the highway in 2006 and concluded it wouldn’t generate nearly enough toll revenue to pay for construction.
Nevertheless, when two [...]
Sprawl Is a Global Problem
| | No Comments
Even in the places with the best transit systems, there’s a steep drop in transit access once you venture outside the central city. Graphic: ITDP
Sprawl isn’t just a problem in car-centric America. Even cities with the world’s best transit systems are surrounded by suburbs with poor transit access, according to a new report by the Institute for Transportation and [...]