Blogosphere: LRT Investment Return, Private Florida HSR, Bike Helmet Debate, Economic Segregation, Benefits Sprawl Reduction
August 3, 2012
More News & Resources:
| Blogosphere - In this section you'll find commentary, opinion and editorials from blogs and newspapers around the country. The opinions expressed in these blogs do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Reconnecting America. |
| TRANSPORT |
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Blogosphere: The Bottom Line On The Transit Crisis Houston Tomorrow The bottom line is this: property values - and the tax base - along the Main Street light rail line increased much more from 2003-2010 than they did in the City as a whole. In fact, that area added more than $4 billion in value during that time.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Private Florida HSR Deserves Support Orlando Sentinel It's been a year and a half since Rick Scott killed a plan for high-speed rail between Orlando and Tampa. Florida's governor insisted the project was too risky for taxpayers, despite a promise of $2.4 billion in federal funding. Fortunately, a plan for passenger rail service linking Orlando and Miami is a train of a different color. As proposed, it wouldn't leave taxpayers on the hook. That's a switch.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Is Bike Helmet Debate A Distraction Treehugger There is some solid evidence that mandatory helmet laws can save lives, don't impact the number of cyclists on the roads, and that many of the other arguments against helmet laws are not true. Still, bicycle activists like Ashok Sinha have been angered by Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins' call for helmets following a tragic accident outside Olympic Park.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Not Every Bike Lane Is A Victory GRID Chicago In order to to be a worthy expansion of the cycling network, bike lanes should be installed (with appropriate contextual modifications) on streets where such an addition makes the roadway more conducive to comfortable cycling.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Toronto's Streetcar Track Bike Hazards Now Toronto It's a feeling many Toronto cyclists know all too well - the iron grip of streetcar tracks as they catch your front wheel and send you vaulting over the handlebars and down hard onto the street, into the path of passing cars.... Read On |
| URBANISM/HOUSING/CITIES |
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Blogosphere: The Rise Of Economic Segregation Atlantic Cities Income inequality has been on the rise in America for several decades now (for complicated reasons that we'll let Richard Florida explain), and the trend has been starker in some regions of the country, and in some cities, relative to others. Now, however, we are also beginning to see - all the way down to the neighborhood level - that America's growing gap between the rich and poor is also affecting where (and with whom) we live.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Walmart's (Not Very) Sustainability Index NRCD Switchboard Architect/thinker Steve Mouzon, whose very interesting perspective on neighborhood walkability was the subject of my article on Monday, is on a roll, and I'm not saying that just because he has become a friend. Yesterday Steve skewered Walmart's "Sustainability Index," which has been getting some good press lately. His point: having a sustainability index doesn't make your business sustainable.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Simulating Benefits Of Sprawl Reduction Metro Trends Blog A recent post at Atlantic Cities, reporting on an article in the Journal of the American Planning Association, suggests that reining in urban sprawl may produce more costs than benefits. "Smart growth" advocates have vigorously attacked the article for not clarifying the assumptions behind its simulation model of growth and its impacts in 30 English cities. Less has been said, however, about whether and how the simulations should matter to policymakers on this side of the pond. ... Read On |
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Blogosphere: The Growth Of Urban Argriculture The Dirt At the Greater & Greener: Reimagining Parks for 21st Century Cities conference in New York City, Laura Lawson, ASLA, Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University, described how urban agriculture has experienced explosive growth in recent years.... Read On |
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Blogosphere: Trees On Wheels Double As WiFi Hotspots Grist It doesn't seem fair that car-owning people can use parking spots (or rent them at extremely low rates) to store their cars, but the car-free don't get to use them to store our stuff. We have 50 cents, and we live here too! Fortunately, Milanese designer Matteo Cibic has found an easy way for the car-free to share this public space: We can use it to park our wifi hotspot trees on wheels.... Read On |
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Video: Skateboarding And Urban Architecture Atlantic Cities Is there any other sport more defined by the city than skateboarding? Enabled by its infrastructure and enhanced by its architecture and design, skateboarding finds its arena on sidewalks and staircases and plazas and building facades. But like so many relationships, this one is complicated.... Read On |
