Polluted stormwater runoff is one of the greatest threats to clean water in the nation. EPA-New England launched its “Soak up the Rain” outreach program to raise public awareness about these threats, and help communities understand how green infrastructure (GI) strategies can help mitigate runoff damage. GI uses natural processes (vegetation and soil infiltration) to absorb and treat runoff at its source while offering additional benefits that can include flood mitigation, economic protection, habitat preservation and quality of life improvements. This video shows citizens from several communities using GI to mitigate their stormwater problems; people including school principals, municipal DPW officials, residential property owners and landscape professionals. The video also illustrates how Soak up the Rain actively promotes community efforts to reduce runoff and showcases specific GI projects.
View this complete post...Archive for the ‘Urban Planning’ Category
U.S. EPA: New England is Using Green Infrastructure to “Soak Up The Rain”
Friday, June 19th, 2015Chicago, IL: Cycling the New Bloomingdale Trail
Thursday, June 18th, 2015Take a ride on the Bloomingdale Trail from the western trailhead at Ridgeway Avenue in Humboldt Park to the eastern trailhead at Walsh Park in Bucktown.
View this complete post...Road Diet Case Studies
Wednesday, June 17th, 2015UNITED 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.
Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans
Friday, June 12th, 2015AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION
Sustaining Places: Best Practices for Comprehensive Plans is the result of a four-year effort by the American Planning Association (APA) to define the role of comprehensive plans in addressing the sustainability of human settlements. The comprehensive plan, also called the general plan or community master plan, is the official statement of a local government establishing policies for its future long-range development.
Boston, MA: Complete Streets Design Guidelines
Wednesday, June 10th, 2015In 2010, the City of Boston’s Department of Transportation wanted to introduce planners, designers, engineers, and the wider public to an innovative new policy approach to urban street design known as Complete Streets.
View this complete post...Can We Have Sustainable Transportation without Making People Drive Less or Giving up Suburban Living?
Monday, June 8th, 2015ACCESS 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.
Dallas, TX: Freeways Without Futures
Friday, June 5th, 2015Patrick Kennedy, founder of A New Dallas, talks to attendees about how the movement to take Interstate 345 off the grid got started. He was joined by Loeb Fellow Peter Park and Ian Lockwood from the Toole Design Group. Some of the words were too powerful and logical to not share with the rest of the universe.
View this complete post...Smart Mobility: Reducing Congestion & Fostering Faster, Greener, & Cheaper Transportation Options
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015DELOITTE 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.
Mayors Speak Up: Great Biking Means Great Cities
Friday, May 29th, 2015Mayors from around the USA speak up on behalf of bike lanes, discussing the many ways that cycling infrastructure has benefitted their communities.
View this complete post...Connected 2045: Long-Range Transportation Plan for the St. Louis Region
Monday, May 25th, 2015EAST-WEST GATEWAY COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS
Connected2045 is the long-range transportation plan for the St. Louis region. Based on input from regional citizens, stakeholders, and guidance from elected officials, it guides transportation decision-making in the region over the next 30 years.
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