As spring tempts us to pick up the pace of our outdoor activities, it’s clear that not all places have equal footing. Those well-positioned to draw us out into health-boosting active transportation are enjoying all sorts of benefits. City planners across North America are trying hard to even the playing field. The 2016 Benchmarking Report for Bicycling and Walking in the United States came out earlier this month, and if you haven’t taken the time to read it yet, here are some of the important highlights in this biennial review published by the Alliance for Biking & Walking.
March 29, 2016 | 12:01 am
Benchmarks: Places on the move measure up
May 16, 2013 | 12:01 am
Ways to Fail at Form-Based Codes 04: Don’t Capture the Character
The other day, I was riding my bike from a deeply walkable, bikeable neighbourhood to a more auto-dominated environment, and I was struck again by the tactile response when you’re walking or biking through this change. In the walkable neighbourhood, fellow cyclists were in the streets or in bike lanes, mixing safely with the traffic-calmed cars and frequent pedestrians. But as I moved into the autocentric roads, otherwise law-abiding cyclists take to the sidewalks out of sheer terror at the fast moving cars that often fail to see them.
And pedestrians? They become scarce to nonexistent.
March 25, 2013 | 12:01 am
Healthy, or Unhealthy, by Design
A few months ago, we talked about how a great city can be like a great running buddy, calling us to venture outdoors into more active, satisfying lifestyles. The photo-essay accompanying that conversation was on the urbanity of Wilmington, North Carolina. Last week, we were in another North Carolina town, Fuquay-Varina, working to create just those sorts of tightly-gridded, walkable streets connecting convivial, complete neighborhoods. Then perhaps the temptation to walk, bike, and run can overcome the lethargy of our modern lifestyle.
October 25, 2012 | 12:01 am
Chicken or the Egg: Who takes the lead on incremental suburban retrofitting?
A proposed Trader Joe’s in Boulder, Colorado, brought up an interesting question this week in a spirited exchange on the Pro-Urb urban issues listserv: In auto-centric places where streets and infrastructure lack any sense of meaningful pedestrian amenity, who should take the lead on turning things around?
That is, should developers be required to build urban, pedestrian-oriented buildings fronting streets that are currently engineered as high speed arterials, in the hopes that, over time, a critical mass of new urban construction will foster the political will necessary to overhaul the infrastructure in further service of pedestrians and bicyclists? Or should the infrastructure be required to change first before any demands are placed on the private sector?
