Louisville is currently implementing such a system, what the city’s bike department, Bike Louisville, is calling “Neighborways.” The city hopes these new bike boulevards will encourage and enable bicyclists and pedestrians to take advantage of alternate-route options for moving safely around the city—and eventually lead to an uptick in biking overall. — brokensidewalk.com

Beavercreek, Ohio, nabbed its own infamous place in civil rights history last year, when the Federal Highway Administration ruled that the suburb had violated anti-discrimination laws by blocking bus service from nearby Dayton. [...]

The Beavercreek case illustrates larger, more widespread problems with America’s transportation system [...]. The Kirwan Institute is producing a one-hour documentary exploring the Beavercreek case and how racism can influence transportation decision making. — usa.streetsblog.org

...there's an awful lot that U.S. cities should learn as soon as possible about the way the French design their transit networks. Whereas American light rail systems have had modest success and modern streetcar lines have questionable transit value, France operates 57 tram lines in 33 cities that together carry some 3 million passengers a day and create a fantastic balance of mobility options for urban and suburban residents alike—all built in the last 30 years. — CityLab

The reasons for designing and flying vehicles that are capable of global reach in the time taken to read the morning newspaper are technically attractive and militarily obvious. The economic and social justifications are perhaps less easily pinned down, but are nonetheless compelling. What will be the impact of treating Sydney as a commuter suburb for Beijing, or of being able to visit Antipodean gran for Sunday roast – with a serious prospect of being home in time for dinner and telly? — Washington Post

A new engineering report assessing the damage caused to the Amtrak-owned Hudson River and East River tunnels in New York City by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012 recommends a phased process of maintenance works, which will require taking individual tunnel tubes out of service for extended periods. — railjournal.com

After Qatar Rail appointed UNStudio as principal architect, the Dutch firm revealed their designs for the new Doha Metro Network, a major component of the Qatar Integrated Railway Project (QIRP). In an effort to motivate more Doha locals to use public transit, UNStudio's design of the Metro Network consists of traditional Qatari-inspired elements and four transportation lines — with an estimate of 35 stations for Phase 1, followed by around 60 stations for Phase 2. — bustler.net

Residents of Beijing can use one of the city’s 34 newly installed recycling machines to trade empty bottles for phone card rebates or free public transit passes.

Those who choose the phone card rebate just need to type in their phone numbers or scan their cards and the rebate will be automatically applied.

The value of the rebate will correspond to the value of the type of bottle that was recycled. — pangeatoday.com

Urban densities are not trivial, they severely limit the transport mode choice and change only very slowly. Because of the large differences in densities between Atlanta and Barcelona about the same length of metro line is accessible to 60% of the population in Barcelona but only 4% in Atlanta. The low density of Atlanta render this city improper for rail transit. — usa.streetsblog.org

Most American cities paved over their streetcar tracks decades ago, deeming the services slow, rickety and inconvenient. Commuters have long preferred cars and buses. But streetcars—sometimes known as trolleys or trams—are making a comeback. Services are rolling out in at least 16 American cities, with dozens more in the works [...] The relationship between streetcars and development is not clear, say researchers funded by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). — the Economist

Marshall, Garrick and Piatkowski are talking about a different set of health concerns: not communicable diseases like cholera, but lifestyle diseases like diabetes. "The literature suggests," they write, "that the shift in industrialized nations toward a more sedentary lifestyle is linked to increasingly auto-dependent lifestyles, which in turn is linked to lower density developments and auto-friendly land uses." Maybe we're designing places, in other words, that make it harder to be active. — washingtonpost.com

I see nothing wrong with replacing the hegemony of cars with the hegemony I am proposing, of bikes. Those who need buses would be no worse off than they are now. But a problem would come if a city like Amsterdam had a bike modal share of 90 percent, as could achieved if end-of-trip strategies were built into all buildings to eliminate the problem of bike theft, and if shelter removed the inequity of cycling being the one mode remaining where people get wet. — cycle-space.com

Central Atlanta Progress, a nonprofit corporation of Atlanta business leaders, has released the documents from a recent assessment of Downtown Atlanta parking. They include reports on the existing parking situation and recommendations for “improving the customer parking experience in Downtown Atlanta.” [...]

The first sting was felt when I read this nugget from the report:

A person’s first and last impression of a city begins and ends with parking.

Ouch! I beg to differ. — ATL Urbanist

With so many crossovers in private operations, public data, and private uses, our future transit agency would blur the line between public and private sectors in a way we haven’t yet pioneered. The challenge is one of governance, bureaucratic turf, organizational development, planning, and public policy, not simply one of technology. Technology is just a tool, and our human institutions can either make use of it or try to ignore it. — urbanomnibus.net

It’s been named one of the top “Freeways Without Futures” in the nation and described as a “perfect example of obsolete infrastructure.” [...]

Now, nearly half a decade later, the project to remove a large portion of the Terminal Island (TI) Freeway in West Long Beach has officially gone out to bid in an RFP with an estimated bid value of $225K. It marks a major event in Southern California’s urban design history, being the first freeway removal project [...]. — longbeachize.com

Houston’s Bayou Greenways plan is perhaps the largest active transportation project in the country right now — if residents can actually use it for transportation when it’s completed.

Jen Powis of the Houston Parks Board has described the greenway project as a cross between the Atlanta Beltline and the Portland Bike Master Plan, which “re-envisions transportation” in the city. — usa.streetsblog.org