How Two Cities Actually Reduced Driving, by Angie Schmitt, Streetsblog, Feb 8, 2019 27 Photo: The Urbanist Two American cities have finally cracked one of the hardest codes in city planning: Even with low gas prices, even with population growth, even with Uber and Lyft circling 24/7, Minneapolis and Seattle have reduced the amount of driving in their cities. Vehicle miles traveled are down 2 …
Can road pricing make transit more equitable if income is used for free transit, walk and bike infrastructure improvements?
Can road pricing be used to make LA’s transportation system more equitable? By Rayla Bellis, SSTI, February 11th, 2019 Tags: equity, road pricing California nonprofit TransForm and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently released a new report and toolkit with guidance for bringing equity into the implementation of congestion pricing. While conversations about congestion pricing and equity often focus on minimizing the negative—reducing disproportionate impacts to …
Aircraft start beating bullet trains in costs and travel times over distances greater than 620 miles
Vox.com Feb 2019 …Aircraft start beating bullet trains in costs and travel times over distances greater than 620 miles. That’s just a bit more than the distance between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. So even with a high-speed rail network across the US, there will still be a market for air travel, and no one is proposing to get …
Lack of adequate public transit service exacerbates environmental and economic disparities as well as climate change
By Basav Sen, Inequality.org, February 7, 2019 | https://popularresistance.org/lets-honor-rosa-parks-by-continuing-her-struggle-for-transit-equity/CREATE! The lack of adequate public transit service exacerbates environmental and economic disparities as well as climate change. Only 5.2 percent of commuters nationwide use public transit to get to work, but 11 percent each of Black and Asian-American commuters and 7.7 percent of Latinx commuters use transit. People of color are clearly more dependent on transit. This is …
Climate Mobilization Emergency Resolutions passed by local governments and 10 year decarbonization plans
Hoboken, NJ and Montgomery County, MD have led the way by passing resolutions brought by TCM organizers unanimously. You can download the full resolution texts. Download their resolutions below, and use them as a jumping off point for drafting your own. HOBOKEN, NJ RESOLUTION MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD RESOLUTION BERKELEY, CA RESOLUTION RICHMOND, CA RESOLUTION HOBOKEN, NJ RESOLUTION OAKLAND, CA …
Tailpipe pollution here is going up, not down in California: alternatives short of a combustion vehicle ban
Reuters excerpt, Feb 3 2019 …Tailpipe pollution here is going up, not down, despite billions of dollars spent by one of the most environmentally progressive governments on earth. “The strategies that we’ve used up until now just haven’t been effective,” Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, told Reuters. That failure has less to do with energy …
L.A. may charge drivers by the mile, adding freeway tolls to cut congestion
By LAURA J. NELSON, LA Times JAN 22, 2019 Morning commuters face heavy traffic on the express lanes on the 10 Freeway. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s focus on congestion pricing could lead to similar lanes on other freeways across Los Angeles County. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) For years, Southern California lawmakers have tried to steer clear of decisions that make …
In an Unequal America, Getting to Work Can Be Hell: Welcome to the world of transit deserts and extreme commutes, where your income can determine if and how you reach your job
By Joseph P. Williams in The Nation, Jan. 29, 2019, This feature was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. https://www.thenation.com/article/transit-deserts-extreme-commuters-inequality/ A woman waits at a lonely bus stop. (Skitterphoto, Creative Commons) They don’t know each other; they live 60 miles apart; and, at least on the surface, Carrie Blough and Karen Allen don’t have much in common. But ask them about their journeys …
TransitScreen, MobilityData form open transit data platform
Jason Plautz@Jason_Plautz on Smart Cities Dive Jan. 11, 2019 Washington, DC-based software company TransitScreen and nonprofit MobilityData announced they are collaborating on an open data platform that will share global public transit and mobility information. The partners have acquired TransitFeeds, the mobility data commons that serves 6 million data requests a year, to build the new OpenMobilityData platform. OpenMobilityData will fully integrate with transit …
Latest from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute
“The Best Tool for Reducing Traffic Deaths? More Transit!” (https://bit.ly/2QgB6yZ ). This StreetBlog column uses research from the report, “A Hidden Traffic Safety Solution” (https://bit.ly/2DS23z6 ). “A New Traffic Safety Paradigm” (www.vtpi.org/ntsp.pdf ), provides additional information on the traffic safety benefits of more multimodal transport planning. “Why the Transportation Energy Intensity of Buildings Matters” (https://bit.ly/2E9B455 ), by Alex Wilson and Paula Melton. …