Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about Streetsblog Network

Remember the uproar over the HOT lanes on I-405 outside Seattle? Republicans in the state senate fired transportation commissioner Lynn Petersen to register their displeasure with priced roads. The political furor isn’t over. Bill Bryant, a GOP candidate for governor, continues to use the HOT lanes as a wedge issue against incumbent Democrat Jay Inslee. Look at the […]

Contrary to all those cranky newspaper columns about how every last inch of asphalt needs to be allocated to motor vehicles, bike lanes can actually move more people with less street space than general traffic lanes. Here’s a good example from Toronto. Biking Toronto reports that while bike lanes take up just 19 percent of College Street, cyclists now account for […]

When you’re riding the bus or the train, an unexpected delay is the last thing you need. If transit agencies want to know how well they’re doing and how they can improve service, they have to track how reliable their service is for riders. But not all reliability metrics are created equal, writes TransitCenter. Some agencies track their performance in a […]

There’s a good deal of empirical evidence that narrower travel lanes are safer for everyone because they slow motorist speeds. On a perceptual level, narrow streets just feel more inviting, writes Katie Matchett at Network blog Where the Sidewalk Starts. Matchett looked at Jewel Street in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, which varies in width. She shows how, as it transforms from […]

When advocating for a street redesign that will take some space away from cars, it’s common to run up against this classic brush-off from your local transportation agency: The federal government won’t allow it. Well, the Federal Highway Administration recently went on the record to shoot down that excuse. The FHWA doesn’t require states and local governments to speed cars through streets, […]

When cyclists and pedestrians are injured in traffic crashes in D.C., there’s a big legal obstacle standing in the way of justice. That obstacle is a legal standard called “contributory negligence.” Now the City Council is poised to strike down that rule and replace it with the more widely used and fairer “comparative fault” standard, report Tracy Hadden […]