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Archive for the ‘Smart Growth’ Category

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It’s Smart To Be Dense

Thursday, July 9th, 2015

Urban density is fundamental principle of sustainable development. Density supports economic and creative vibrancy, social integration, and a healthy, environmental sustainable development model. As the world’s population continues to urbanize, our cities have two options for growth: densify or sprawl. The private-car dependent sprawl model of the 20th century must change, and move away from a reliance on private cars, to accommodate a more populous, and more prosperous world.

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Posted in Environment, Land Use, Pollution, Public Transportation, Show Us Your Infra, Smart Growth, Sustainability, Transit, Urban Planning

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The WalkUP Wake-Up Call: Michigan Metros

Thursday, June 25th, 2015
Metropolitan Land Use Options in the United States

LOCUS
SMART GROWTH AMERICA
Walkable urban places are not just a phenomenon of coastal U.S. metropolitan areas. This report demonstrates that the market desires them in Michigan—and they are gaining traction. If this emerging trend in favor of walkable urbanism plays out in Michigan as it has in the other metro areas studied by George Washington University—Atlanta, Boston, and Washington, D.C.— it will mean an historic shift away from the drivable development patterns that have dominated development for the latter half of the 20th century. The state could return to the walkable urban development pattern that predominated before World War II.

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Posted in Aging Infrastructure, Competitiveness, Infra Views, Local, Public Parks & Recreation, Smart Growth, Urban Planning

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Road Diet Case Studies

Wednesday, June 17th, 2015
Road Diet Case Studies

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
A Road Diet is generally described as removing vehicle lanes from a roadway and reallocating the extra space for other uses or travelling modes, such as parking, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, transit use, turn lanes, medians or pedestrian refuge islands.
Road Diets have the potential to improve safety, provide operational benefits, and increase the quality of life for all road users. Road Diets can be relatively low cost if planned in conjunction with reconstruction or resurfacing projects since applying Road Diets consists primarily of restriping.

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Posted in Biking, Infra Views, Roads, Smart Growth, Urban Planning

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Can We Have Sustainable Transportation without Making People Drive Less or Giving up Suburban Living?

Monday, June 8th, 2015
Figure 1. Plan of Whole Town with Roads and Land Uses

ACCESS MAGAZINE
Written by Mark Delucchi and Kenneth Kurani
City planners, transportation analysts, and policymakers have struggled to reconcile the promises and problems created by suburban land use and automobiles. On the one hand, automobile use and suburban living are widely and highly valued; as people become wealthier, they tend to buy cars and live in bigger homes farther away from central cities. Many urban planners, however, blame automobiles and automobile-driven sprawl for a wide range of problems, including climate change, road fatalities and injuries, rising traffic congestion, ugly urban form, oil dependency, and increasing social fragmentation. Most approaches to these problems focus on curtailing automobile use and its impacts. Outside of densely populated cities, however, it is hard to reduce personal automobile use.

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Smart Mobility: Reducing Congestion & Fostering Faster, Greener, & Cheaper Transportation Options

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015
Smart Mobility

DELOITTE UNIVERSITY PRESS
For decades, governments have tried in vain to develop solutions to address congestion. High-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes and costly public transportation networks may have slowed the growth of congestion, but commute times continue to lengthen in America’s urban centers. Estimates suggest that only 15 percent in congestion savings can be achieved even with widespread deployment of such conventional measures to all major freeways…Clearly, a new approach is needed.

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Posted in Biking, Congestion, Infra Views, National, Policy, Public Transportation, Smart Growth, Transit, Urban Planning

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A Roadmap for Resilience: Investing in Resilience, Reinvesting in Communities.

Friday, May 15th, 2015
Figure 1: Overview of the RE.invest Process & Lessons Learned

THE RE:INVEST INITIATIVE
This report is designed to inspire a wide range of readers interested in addressing the challenge of creating a robust pipeline of investable resilient infrastructure projects. It captures how RE.invest reimagined the predevelopment process for resilient infrastructure to integrate early design and financing decisions and help cities make the leap from crafting a vision for resilience to generating a set of financeable large-scale projects.

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Posted in Aging Infrastructure, Funding, Infra Views, National, Policy, Private Investment, Smart Growth, Urban Planning

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Ferndale, MI: Embracing Community Voices

Wednesday, May 13th, 2015

Trans4M Odyssey Film Series: Embracing Community Voices in Ferndale

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Posted in Local, Public Parks & Recreation, Public Transportation, Show Us Your Infra, Smart Growth, Transit, Urban Planning

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Philadelphia, PA: SEPTA Cycle-Transit Plan

Friday, May 1st, 2015
FIGURE 1: LICENSED DRIVERS AS A PERCENTAGE OF THEIR AGE-GROUP POPULATION

SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
SEPTA’s ridership is nearing quarter century highs. In Southeastern Pennsylvania and across the United States, rates of both private auto ownership and use are down. The region’s three fastest growing demographic groups – “Millennials” (20-34 years old) , “Baby Boomers” (60-75 years old), and an influx of newly-settled immigrants of all ages – are less likely to own a car (or even a driver’s license) and are more likely to use transit. These emerging local demographic groups tend to not only rely on transit for commuting to work but also for other discretionary trips and often travel with luggage, strollers and bicycles.

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Posted in Biking, Infra Views, Local, Public Parks & Recreation, Public Transportation, Smart Growth, Sustainability, Transit, Urban Planning

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Scott Bricker, Director, America Walks

Wednesday, April 29th, 2015
Scott Bricker, Director, America Walks

Scott Bricker has worked for over fifteen years to make communities healthy and sustainable through bicycling, walking and urban design. Scott is proud to serve as the Director of America Walks, the only national organization dedicated to improving all aspects of walking in America.

…providing safe and accommodating walking routes for people effectively ensures that everyone has equal access to services and employment, education, recreation, where people play and pray, et cetera. It’s a fundamental aspect of equal mobility access. There’s also a fair amount of research that shows that communities that are walkable, that have places that are close to each other, are economically vibrant.

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Posted in Biking, Guests on The Infra Blog, Land Use, Local, National, Policy, Public Parks & Recreation, Public Transportation, Smart Growth, Sustainability, The Infra Blog, Transit, Urban Planning

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Evaluating Complete Streets Projects: A Guide for Practitioners

Monday, April 27th, 2015
TABLE 1: Recommended access measures and metrics

SMART GROWTH AMERICA
AARP
Across the country, government agencies are working to meet residents’ demands to be more responsive, transparent, and accountable in decisions and investments. Transportation agencies are not exempt from this call—and they face the additional challenges of dwindling capital and maintenance budgets. Performance measures, in the broad sense, provide a quantitative and, sometimes, qualitative indicator of potential or actual performance of a specific street, a corridor, or of the whole transportation network.

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