Creating the first comprehensive urban agriculture plan for New York City, that is a new project by Design Trust for Public Space and Added Value, the Five Borough Farm project. Here’s more from UrbanOmnibus, part of the intro to an extremely in-depth…
2011 Sustainable Transport Award Winner: Guangzhou, China
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy recently announced the 2011 Sustainable Transport Award winner, which, as you can see, is Guangzhou, China. Its new bus rapid transit (BRT) system, which integrates bike lanes, bike share and metro stations was…
Walking The New Broadway
In the Spring of 1904, the world’s first electrified advertisement appeared on a bank in New York at the corner of Broadway and 46th Street, in what was soon to be called Times Square. In many ways, this event anticipated…
World Urban Rail Systems [Map]
Since I’ve been writing about transit a lot lately, I thought I’d share this super cool map of world rail systems (from 2008). I actually ran across it looking for a photo last week for a post on the world’s…
European Cities Limiting the Car, Improving Quality of Life
Europe, as we know, has a much different urban fabric — because most of its cities were developed long before cars arrived. They have narrower streets, are more walkable, more bike-friendly, and more pleasant. Nonetheless, Europe went the same route…
Cities Could Imitate Nature, be More Sustainable
“Urban sprawl literally defines the modern city,” Dickson Despommier of What Matters writes. Truthfully, even here in Europe, most cities are sprawling out to accommodate the car. Despommier continues on: “We can all understand that this kind of growth is the…
Dutch Improving Cycle Networks, Building Fast Cycle Lanes
The Dutch are already well-known for having the best bicycle facilities in the world (well, there is a bit of competition between the Netherlands and Denmark, but the two nations are clearly on top of the world when it comes…
Atlanta Must Get Moving on Public Transit.. Will It?
There’s a great piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the need for Atlanta to get moving on better public transit and catch up to other cities it was once leading on this topic. Of course, Atlanta’s low density is one…
El Paso: Smart Growth Model?
If you’re looking for a good example of thoughtful, place-based planning for transit-oriented development (TOD) in a location not yet known for it, you could do a lot worse than Connecting El Paso, a 264-page tour de force vision for parts of…
Why Republicans Try to Kill Public Transport (Despite its Economic Benefits)
Republicans, many of them, would have public transportation funding cut despite the clear economic, financial (for citizens), quality of life, and environmental benefits. Why? Yonah Freemark of the Transport Politic finds some answers and shares them in Understanding the Republican…