Recent Streetsblog LA posts about Streetsblog.net

A new study out of Toronto confirms what cyclists in many U.S. cities have found out the hard way: Streetcar tracks can be a serious safety hazard. The study comes from Canadian public health researcher Kay Teschke, who specializes in bike issues. Michael Andersen at BikePortland reports: Among bike-related injuries in Toronto that resulted in emergency-room trips, the study […]

The federal government hands states about $40 billion a year for transportation, money they can basically spend however they want. The result in many places is a lot of expensive, traffic-inducing highways that get clogged with cars soon after they’re finished. Can measuring the effect of all this spending lead to better decisions? U.S. DOT is developing a metric to assess how […]

The Twin Cities’ Orange Line bus rapid transit project ought to be a slam dunk. According to Sean Hayford O’Leary at streets.mn, it will provide frequent service and travel times similar to the region’s successful light rail lines, which carrying tens of thousands of passengers daily. At just $150 million to construct, the Orange Line will be a bargain. But dysfunctional regional politics may cut off $45 […]

Even though the Democratic Party’s strongholds are in cities, we probably won’t hear much about urban transportation and development policy at the Democratic National Convention this week. City issues seldom get much play when political parties are focused on scooping up swing votes in the suburbs. But Hillary Clinton’s VP choice, Tim Kaine, is the former mayor of Richmond, Virginia, […]

When Portland launched its bike-share system last week, it became the biggest American city to go live with a “smart bike” model. The system allows users to drop off bikes anywhere within the service area, as opposed to the more prevalent “smart dock” model, where users pick up and return bikes only at fixed stations. James Sinclair at Stop and […]

Earlier this week tech entrepreneur Elon Musk released his updated “master plan” for Tesla, including some thoughts on how autonomous mini-buses will supplant today’s transit and “take people all the way to their destination.” Like every Musk pronouncement, this one got a lot of buzz — but it also drew some healthy skepticism. One reason to doubt Musk’s plan […]