Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Yesterday the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program released its signature report, The State of Metropolitan America. The study is a comprehensive examination of a range of data indicators on America’s 100 largest metro regions. According to the project’s website, the...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
The degree to which our streets connect with each other has a major impact on how our communities feel and function, and a major effect also on their walkability. Generally speaking, the more connections (more frequent intersections, smaller block sizes)...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
Washington Post columnist and architect Roger Lewis has published a terrific, concise summary of why we should do more to promote walking as a transportation mode and what a community needs to become more walkable. I hope that policy advocates...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
“You’ve probably had your last really good Pass Christian oyster for a while,” Captain Louis Skrmetta of Ship Island Excursions told the (South Mississippi) SunHerald. “We’re looking at financial ruin from this. We’ve pretty much realized that...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Thanks to Streetfilms and the National Association of City Transportation Officials, here is a neat video on a great new facility in Chicago's Millennium Park. It provides all sorts of services to bike commuters, other cyclists, and tourists. I really...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Has the automobile era jumped the shark? The Walkable and Livable Communities Institute thinks the answer just might be ‘yes.’ In an unsigned Facebook post (authored perhaps by walkability guru Dan Burden?), the Institute says: “I am ready to...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Here are just a few tidbits from a new national poll conducted by Transportation for America, Public Opinion Strategies, and Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates: An overwhelming majority (82%) of Americans believe the country would benefit from improved public...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Warren Karlenzig, founder and president of the consultancy Common Current, believes that many cities’ current sustainability efforts are misplaced. In particular, he asks, “should efforts such as focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency [to power buildings] deserve the highest...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Eric Britton, the founder of the New Mobility Agenda and editor of the World Streets online newspaper covering international sustainable transportation recently posted a really nice étude while, fittingly, listening to one of Chopin’s nocturnes. Although we...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
Amazingly, there are some well-meaning transportation advocates who would like the phrase “avid cyclist” banned from the lexicon. Their argument goes something like, “this phrase marginalizes all who bicycle and causes people in policy positions to discount cycling as...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
As a member of the Complete Streets Coalition, NRDC believes that streets should be for everyone: walkers, cyclists, drivers, transit users, merchants, offices, even nature. Streets comprise the most important public spaces in our communities, and as such they should...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
The Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology today dramatically expanded its “location efficiency” mapping and analysis to 337 metropolitan areas across the country. This impressive resource details the housing and transportation costs associated with specific neighborhoods, along with neighborhood-based, per-capita driving...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Here’s an insight from relating human behavioral science to transportation: people who use a particular form of transportation such as driving or taking transit sometimes misunderstand the motives of those that use a different mode. We generally have a...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
James Howard Kunstler is not a man given to understatement. He makes Al Gore seem subtle. Heck, he almost makes Al Sharpton seem subtle, but that’s a closer call. No, Kunstler is more the kind of guy who wants you...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
The city planners of Anchorage, Alaska, are attempting to bring that city’s land-use regulations into the 21st century. In particular, they are proposing a variation on form-based zoning that would encourage mixed uses, orientation of development to the street,...
