These U.S. Cities Have More Parking Lots Than Housing - They paved paradise again and again and again.
by Frank Jacobs, Big Think May 17, 2024
"...On average, about one-fifth of all land in city centers is dedicated to parking. But what’s the actual harm being done by all that parking space? For one, city centers that are more “parkable” become less walkable. In other words, fewer things are casually accessible.
...Americans’ attitude toward driving is changing. The share of high school seniors with a driving license has dropped from 85.3% in 1996 to 71.5% in 2015. The rise of shared, multi-modal, and (soon, they keep promising us) autonomous mobility will further reduce the need for driver’s licenses, individual cars, and massive parking facilities in city centers.
Perhaps it’s time for American cities to become denser, more lived-in, more walkable—and less “parkable.”
The passenger station & #train depot will function as assembly, repair, maintenance & operational center for long-delayed & anticipated – #FirstEver#RailLine of its kind in the southern metropolis.
#IslandLink#bus company has expanded its service to northern #VancouverIsland, taking its fleet past Campbell River for the first time.
“The company now has Vancouver Island covered,” owner Phillip Morgan said Friday.
Riders can catch the bus from #PortHardy at 8:30 a.m. and arrive in Victoria by mid-afternoon. The northern run from Victoria will arrive in Port Hardy by 5:30 p.m., Morgan said.
“I’m wondering if something subliminal has happened after reading Bicycling Monterey. I’ve been riding the Rock Island Greenway Trail for the last week and a half. Just a wonderful and beautiful ride! It’s not Monterey, California, but a real gem for Peoria, Illinois.”—Richard Coers
First lesson: the farmer's market here has no bicycle racks, and the folks in charge have ZERO idea what to do with them, despite the "NO BIKES" sign. They clarified and said bikes are fine, as long as you walk them. "NO ONE HAS ASKED US THAT BEFORE" is what they told me. They ended up letting me stash my bike next to their info booth while I walked around. #BikeTooter#Transportation
Second #BikeTooter badge checked off, also took a bicycle on a city bus. The bus driver was less than amused at my attempts to cram two folded and worn dollar bills into the fare collector and said "gimme those, I'll do it!" LOL He also seemed to be trying to whip around corners and hit pot holes, LOL (the bike did not go anywhere it shouldn't have, the racks work). #bus#transportation
I don't want to undermine the importance of having public transit be safe, but media needs to stop covering "violence on the Metro" as if pubtrans is more deadly than car travel.
Sure, you're not the one driving the Metro so you don't feel as in control. But I suspect the numbers would show a lot more violence per day in car travel than pubtrans.
Let's work for violence prevention on pubtrans, but also stop stoking middle class fears of pubtrans. #Transportation#PublicTransit
Big mega transportation projects primarily benefiting people who drive just roll along and get most of the money but the projects for non-drivers are often crumbs we’re expected to cheer for and even bigger projects are easily cut when money is tight. Thanks Kimberly for this framing.
Thousand Oaks Transit: 🚲🚍Ventura County transit operators are celebrating Bike to Work Day by offering free rides to anyone boarding with a bike on May 17! Seamlessly connect your bike route by riding any bus within Ventura County for free. http://goventura.org/free
“It’s absurd for ODOT to claim that their proposed $1.9 billion 10-lane highway is in compliance with the city’s existing plans for #climateAction, sustainable #transportation investment or neighborhood development. We filed this lawsuit because state law requires ODOT to follow the city’s #cleanAir and climate goals. ODOT shouldn’t be allowed to advance a project that brazenly violates the city’s adopted plans.” -- #NoMoreFreeways#ODOTGTFOpdx#Portland
For brothers Pierre and Granville Pullis, photographing the sprawling system was intrepid, precise work—not unlike the construction itself - by Jessica Leigh Hester March 6, 2020
"...The...images are technically proficient, but also artistic & tenderly humane. Many of the photographs were bound into books...as reference documents, or as evidence... (it was, after all, an era when construction was staggeringly dangerous and injuries were commonplace).
They were also impeccably timed snapshots of urban life & work. [They] captured signs & businesses & moments of striking symmetry, such as people frozen in mid-stride as they wandered between buildings. “What makes these full of personality [in a way] that other photographs of this type usually [aren’t] is that you can tell [they] ...waited for just the right moment to click the shutter,” says Shapiro..."
Grim news from the Burnside Bridge design team about the costs of any connection to the esplanade from 55+ft above. The nine (9) southbound freeway lanes right next to that seem to be a complication in getting structure onto anything seismically sound. #noMoreFreeways#MarquamBridgeIsFallingDown#Portland#transportation#ODOTGTFOpdx
"as part of a project for PSU’s Master of Urban and Regional Planning program. Students... are working with local nonprofit @bikeloudpdx to investigate the potential of adding a major bikeway to Sandy when it gets repaved by the #Portland Bureau of #Transportation in 2026."
"The way to fight #crime is not with stops based on hunches and pretext, but by investing proactively in communities and with #policing targeted at people for whom there is suspicion of serious criminal conduct.
On the other hand, there is a real #trafficSafety problem in this country… #transportation officials should focus their efforts... better lighting… #protectedBikeLanes & pedestrian crossings; self-ticketing cars with speed limiters, … [#transit]" 🚎 🚲