Monday’s Headlines on MLK Day

  • The U.S. needs a new place-based transportation policy focusing on sustainability and climate change. (Urban Institute)
  • Melting permafrost will damage thousands of miles of roads. (Jalopnik)
  • Shaming drivers is pointless as long as streets are dangerous for biking and carmakers keep selling ever-larger SUVs. (Treehugger)
  • Bike mechanics are petitioning Walmart to stop selling crappy bikes that break quickly and can’t be repaired. (Vice)
  • The White House is backing a ride-sharing oversight bill introduced by Rep. Chris Smith after a fake Uber driver killed a New Jersey woman. (NJ.com)
  • Vision Zero programs often don’t work because cities implement small recommendations and don’t do the big, expensive ones. (D Magazine)
  • Denver’s Regional Transportation District is proposing a major overhaul of bus routes that will cut service to the suburbs while refocusing on the riders who stuck with transit during the pandemic. (Colorado Public Radio)
  • Closed to traffic during the pandemic, Ocean Drive in Miami Beach is reopening to cars, but with new two-way bike lanes and a block that will remain pedestrian only. (City Lab)
  • Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority CEO Jeffrey Parker has died in an apparent suicide, stepping in front a train Friday night. (Saporta Report)
  • Utah is building a 15-minute city from scratch. (Streetsblog USA)
  • An Illinois bill would allow smaller cities outside of Chicago to levy a gas tax for the first time. (WREX)
  • San Francisco lowered speed limits on parts of seven streets to 20 miles per hour. (NBC Bay Area)
  • Milan is building a 466-mile network of protected bike lanes. (City Lab)
  • A citizen-drive plan in Berlin would create the largest car-free zone in the world. (Fast Company)

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Left: Cody Lannom, CC". Right: Courtesy Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

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In 2012, Jeff Speck’s Walkable City sparked a conversation about why pedestrianized places matter and became one of the best-selling books about the built environment in recent memory. Ten years later, though, so much about the world has changed — even as human-centered communities have become more important than ever.

City Streets for Sale in Providence

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Here’s a rather alarming update from Jef Nickerson at Greater City Providence, who alerts us to one of the not-so-imaginative responses to the current fiscal distress affecting many American cities. Providence is selling its streets: After Brown University and then RISD made agreements with the City to acquire parts of public streets for private parking in exchange for increased […]