Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about Streetsblog Network

Last week, the Austin City Council voted to allow “granny flats” — small accessory dwellings — in some areas zoned for single-family housing, and to reduce parking requirements along transit corridors. These types of reforms make housing more affordable and make neighborhoods more walkable and transit-friendly. Dan Keshet at Austin on Your Feet said the vote highlights new political […]

As the House and the Senate get to work on hashing out a multi-year transportation bill in conference committee, Congress is also putting together its annual spending package for transportation. The annual bill decides the fate of several discretionary programs, and earlier this year it looked like US DOT’s TIGER grants, which tend to fund multi-modal projects at […]

How often do state DOTs lie with numbers to justify building highways? There’s so much funny math buried inside air quality formulas or traffic projections, a better question might be: Do these agencies ever tell the truth? Here’s a case where a dishonest case for highways was flushed out into the open. David Bragdon, former chief of Portland’s regional planning organization, recently accused state DOT […]

Transitions where streets suddenly change are a tricky part of bike lane design. Here’s how street designers in Pittsburgh handled the transition where a two-way bike lane ends at a T-intersection — with a “merge lane” for cyclists turning right across motor vehicle traffic. Bike PGH is enthusiastic about the new design: Have you had a chance to […]

So far this year, nine people have been killed while walking in Columbus, Ohio. Predictably, pedestrians have been caught up in the police response, as the cops increased enforcement of jaywalking. It got even worse with comments from Sergeant Brooke Wilson made to the local NPR station. “It’s not just enough to be legally correct in […]

In a six-month pilot program, Boston’s MBTA is exploring the use of taxis as an alternative to large vans for paratransit service, which is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The program is “already earning praise from customers” according to the Boston Globe. Jarrett Walker at Human Transit explains why this could be very good news for […]