On Tuesday, we wrote about the Defense Department’s new rules for the design of their bases and installations. These rules make smart growth the law of the land on hundreds of vast military installations in the U.S. and abroad. There’s more to the story: In this post we examine how a smart growth development model […]

Distracted driving killed 3,331 people on American streets in 2011, yet car manufacturers continue to outdo each other to add more infotainment distractions in their vehicles. These systems are expected to increase five-fold by 2018, according to AAA. Carmakers seek to show their commitment to safety by making their distractions – onboard dinner reservation apps […]

Ari Maron had no friends. When he moved back to Cleveland after college, all his friends had moved away. “They’d all gone to New York and Chicago and San Francisco,” he said. “And none of them lived in cul-de-sacs. None of them drove SUVs. They all lived in mixed-use buildings, they were all connected to […]

This story falls into the unusual but persistent overlap between pedestrian advocacy and vandalism. In Vallejo, California, last week, one man saw the need for a crosswalk at a dangerous intersection, and decided it was his job to make it happen. Anthony Cardenas, 52, grabbed some white paint and got to work at dawn to […]

Yesterday was a momentous day for sustainable transportation: New York City launched its Citi Bike system, logging a record-breaking 6,050 trips and 13,768 miles on its first day. Already the biggest bike-share system in the country, it’s on track to expand to nearly twice its current size. Somehow it feels like New York popped the […]

In a searing reminder that the nation has to do a better job of keeping its infrastructure in safe working condition, the I-5 bridge between Burlington and Mt. Vernon, Washington, collapsed last night. Thankfully, no one was killed, and the three people whose vehicles fell into the water were hospitalized with only minor injuries. Interstate-5 […]

A recent survey of Washington’s Capital Bikeshare members found that the average annual subscriber drove 198 fewer miles per year. That added up to about 4.4 million fewer miles of driving annually in the DC region. Members also saved an average of $800 a year per person. At about the same time the survey was […]

[Due to Chicago’s fickle spring weather, we celebrate Bike to Work Week a month later than most of the country. However, to get you excited for next month’s events and about encouraging friends and family to try urban cycling, here are some interesting stats about the benefits of biking. – JG] Happy Bike to Work […]

When we saw that Washington’s news-traffic-weather radio station, WTOP, was holding a “Commuter Idle” contest for the worst commute in the DC area — and rewarding it with $1,000 in gas money — we couldn’t resist. We went looking for the best “Commuter Idyll” — the trips to work that made people happy, got them […]

Before I became your editor here at Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I was a reporter for WTOP, the DC area’s “most-listened-to” radio station. Its traffic reports “on the 8s” helped feed my ire toward auto-centrism – they wasted one out of every 10 minutes of airtime on an unintelligible litany of route numbers and exits. Meanwhile, […]

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy called for a federal transit funding plan. Two years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson took baby steps toward starting that program, but Johnson’s true transportation legacy was signing the bill that created the Department of Transportation, bringing all modes under one roof. Nixon oversaw the creation of Amtrak. Ford […]