Carolyn Szczepanski
Recent Posts
“Really, Dude? Opposition Is So 70s”: Local Officials Talk Bike Policy
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Carolyn Szczepanski is the Bike League’s communications director. A version of this post was originally published on the Bike League Blog. Last year, at the National Bike Summit, Douglas Meyer from Bernuth & Williamson unveiled new research on the perceptions of bicycling on Capitol Hill. Tuesday morning, at the 2014 Summit, Meyer was back with intel from […]
Do You Have Car-Free Streets? A New Resource for North American Ciclovias
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Pop quiz: Where was the first ciclovia? I bet you said Bogotá. But, surprisingly, you’d be wrong. Sure, the Colombian city is widely credited with popularizing the concept of ciclovias, which temporarily close streets to cars to liberate the roads for people. For several hours every Sunday, more than a million citizens in Bogotá take […]
How a Twin Cities Community Fought For Transit Equity — And Won
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For many neighborhoods, a shiny new light rail line can be a blessing and a curse. Yes, it provides access to affordable transportation options that can be the avenue to jobs and economic opportunity. But it can also bring higher housing costs and drive up retail rents, exiling area residents and local businesses. And so […]
How Salt Lake City Became a Leader in Transit-Oriented Development
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In 2004, Salt Lake City faced a challenging question: How do you fit 1.4 million additional residents into a region hemmed in by mountains on the east and water on the west? In the course of solving that problem, the city ended up answering several other head-scratchers, like: How do you get buy-in for smart-growth […]
Five Ways Market Research Paints Bright Future for Public Transit
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At the Tuesday morning plenary of the Rail~Volution conference, William Millar made a bold pronouncement. The president of the American Public Transportation Association suggested that, beyond the 1,200 attendees of the annual gathering, there are billions of public transit advocates — they just don’t know it yet. Millar may have meant the comment as inspiration, […]
DC, Arlington Officials Cite Seven Potential Transit Pitfalls
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Fifty years ago, when the rest of the country was building highways, the District of Columbia and Arlington County invested heavily in transit — and it paid huge dividends. The economic development and tax base that sprung up along the spine of the subway system revived the declining first-ring suburb and gave new life to downtown […]
The Last Mile: How Bike-Ped Improvements Can Connect People to Transit
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Whether it’s just a short walk down the street or a five-mile bike ride, the journey between home and station is a major factor in people’s decision to take public transit. For the transit officials and livability advocates gathered at the Rail~Volution conference this week, that key piece of the journey is known as the […]
LaHood: Communities Should Embrace Next-Gen Bikeway Design Guide
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If Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has anything to say about it, every transportation planner in the country should have a shiny new engineering guide on his or her bookshelf. It’s been six months since the National Association of City Transportation Officials released the Urban Bikeways Design Guide in an online format. Yesterday, LaHood was among […]
From Minneapolis: Ten Street Design Solutions to Transform Your City
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Only 11 cities in the U.S. have earned the title of Gold-Level Bicycle Friendly Community from the League of American Bicyclists. In May, Minneapolis joined the select ranks and, last week, the city got a chance to show off its bike progress to a national audience of active transportation advocates and officials. When Mayor R.T. […]
SRTS Conference 2011: NYC Student Activist Inspires National Audience
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Only two speakers at this week’s Safe Routes to School National Conference in Minneapolis earned a standing ovation. For former Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar the crowd stood out of honor and gratitude. For Kimberly White, the audience shot out of their seats with sheer awe and inspiration. A resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a sophomore […]
One More Push Can Preserve Federal Safe Routes to School Funding
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This week, the Safe Routes to School National Conference convenes in Minneapolis, a progressive city determined to become the most bicycle friendly in the nation. But even here, far from the nation’s capital, in a region celebrated for its massive greenway system, drama inside the Beltway has instilled an air of urgency to the event. […]