Talking Headways Podcast: The Streets Revolution Will Be Televised in Purple

This week’s guest is Streetfilms’ own Clarence Eckerson Jr. Clarence tells us about his start working in video with the BikeTV cable access show, what goes into making Streetfilms, and the best way to approach people on the street for interviews. Listen and you might also catch a few stories about Veronica Moss and the Zozo.

Podcast: Designing City Streets for People

This week Corinne Kisner and Matthew Roe of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) tell us about their influential series of street design guides — manuals that give transportation engineers “permission” to reorient streets so walking, biking, and transit come first. Listen in and learn how the guides are put together and how cities are using them to change their streets to prioritize people instead of cars.

11:30 PM Tuesday Night Times Square

A few photos from my recent trip to NYC:

It's so busy, nobody ever goes there anymore...



Don't forget in the daytime



Apartments for cars near the Streetsblog offices



Your friendly bike lane taker uppers



Reminds me of the Netherlands. Needs less fire escape

Designing Oakland Streets for Streetcars

They were built for Streetcars, why not bring them back?

Image courtesy of Greg Thompson.

Elizabeth Avenue

Elizabeth Avenue in Charlotte is getting reconstructed. Instead of ripping it up again later for the streetcar, they are putting in the tracks now. It cost $5 million extra to do it but it's well worth it. Today they are done with the first section of the street, and the businesses are worried because the second section will affect them but they understand that once its done, they'll be better off.

Unconventional Streets Wisdom

For those who watch the numbers, it should be no surprise that San Francisco's Sunday Streets would be a success for merchants at Fisherman's Wharf. However, the merchants still stuck in auto mode were complaining about the embarcadero shutdown today. However their fears, as many predicted, were unfounded. There was also a little help from demonstration E-Line service which hopefully will come online as full time sooner rather than later. Via the MSR blog:

Plenty of riders came out to take part in the free demonstration service, especially later in the morning. And it's a good thing that the E cars were on the line because, north of the Ferry Building they were needed to reduce the crush loads on the F. Muni added three shuttle buses on top of the regularly scheduled vintage shuttles, and everything was packed. Apparently, the Mayor's Sunday Streets idea worked to get more people to the Wharf, instead of fewer, as Wharf merchants had feared. The closed northbound traffic lanes of The Embarcadero were filled with skaters, walkers, and bikers.

Community Investments

There are a lot of problems with comparing costs across modes. You never know what is going to be included in the estimate and often times critics will take total costs and point out their expense. For example, the City of Houston has to approve Metro to build light rail in their streets. But in addition there need to be other mobility improvements including sidewalks and bike infrastructure.

In this instance it will be provided by the City of Houston, but in the case of Minneapolis and the Central Corridor, the street reconstruction costs are added into the rail line's total costs. The Central Corridor will end up costing $1 B for 11 miles. At first blush you think, wow that's expensive, until you realize that includes reconstructing the whole street and sidewalks.

University Avenue reconstruction, to include the mill and overlay of travel lanes and the reconstruction of 85 percent of the curbs, gutters and sidewalks. Central Corridor planners stated that the City of St. Paul and Ramsey County are considering funding the remaining 15 percent as part of the project.

In terms of pure people carrying capacity though this is important because when compared to highways, it's all throughput, but there aren't any walkers and bikers on a freeway. They also don't need a place to park at their end destination (bikes need space but take up less space for sure). So when we look at costs we should be careful to see all what is involved in the project. There might be more going on than the other side cares to acknowledge.

National Transit Blogging

I love reading blogs and have been reading ever since the 2004 election. I just keep finding more good ones with better stories. The national transit blogosphere is getting bigger as more people contribute making it more exciting as well. Here are a few of the many blogs I like to read, the others are in the blog roll at the bottom right.

RT Rider: Life Saving Value of Transit

Want to stop the war? Ride the bus.

OK. That's a bit of a stretch, but everyone can agree that if America were to reduce its reliance on foreign petroleum supplies, national security would benefit.

In January of this year, the American Public Transportation Association released "Public Transportation and Petroleum Savings in the U.S.: Reducing Dependence on Oil," a study prepared for the association by ICF International, a global consulting firm that specializes in the connection between transportation and energy.

Sacramento Regional Transit's local system is part of a national effort that, according to the report's executive summary, "reduces U.S. gasoline consumption by 1.4 billion gallons each year.

Transit Miami: Stupid Legislators

Republican Patrick McHenry, an ignoramus congressman from North Carolina is attempting to hamper efforts of other congressman who are writing a provision to encourage increase bicycle use. Apparently McHenry openly opposes the paltry $1 million proposition yet he openly favors wasting Billions more in Iraq, you know, "fighting the war on terror..."

The U.S. infrastructure is falling apart McHenry, quit wasting our money building a new one in Iraq...Bikes aren't a solution, but, they are part of the puzzle...Here is an e-mail I received word for word from a loyal TM reader:

Last Saturday the House of Representatives passed Energy Independence legislation that amends a section of the IRS code to include "bicycles" in the definition of transportation covered by the qualified transportation fringe benefit.

Introduced earlier this year by Congressman Earl Blumenauer as H.R. 1498, the provision calls for a $20 monthly benefit for riding a bike to work.

However, according to Blumenauer, even this modest amount sparked some heated opposition — even ridicule — from other House lawmakers.

Urban Planning Overlord: Light Rail in Downtown Milwaukie

There's a tussle breaking out over the preferred location of light rail tracks in downtown Milwaukie. The original plan would use a grede-separated right of way along the existing train tracks. But the Waldorf School (next to the tracks) doesn't like the noise and wants the MAX line to use two downtown streets. The merchants don't like that idea.

Jan Gehl: Urban Mastermind

He's the anti-Robert Moses and has led cities such as Copenhagen and Melbourne to pedestrian and cycling greatness. Now he's been hired by the Bloomberg Administration to retool New York City. From Streetsblog:

Asked during questions what he would do specifically for the city, Gehl said he would make pedestrians more comfortable in the city by adding street furniture, widening sidewalks and creating "oasises" for them. In addition, he would put immediate emphasis on better conditions for cyclists. And finally, he said attention should be paid to the mass transit system. Good mass transit and good pedestrian environments, he said, "are brothers and sisters," each depending on the other.