Congestion
The Worst Commutes in America
The Daily Beast has released a list of the 75 worst commutes in America. Top of the list: L.A.'s Hollywood Freeway.
Fighting Mumbai's Demand for Car Ownership
The demand for personal transportation is quickly growing in Mumbai. This post from The City Fix looks at what the city will need to do to prevent the negative impacts of what could be a growing storm of car ownership.
Clearing 30,000 Cars From Vancouver's Streets
When it hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics next year, Vancouver will need to clear more than 30,000 vehicles off its roads everyday to avoid total gridlock. Doing so will require much cooperation from locals.
Stockholm's Congestion Pricing Cuts Traffic, Boosts Clean Vehicle Sales
Stockholm's congestion charge is not only reducing traffic and greenhouse gas emissions, it's also increasing sales of alternative fuel vehicles.
The Social Life of Traffic
Traffic is essentially "an engineering issue," says author Tom Vanderbilt. "But there's also a layer of culture." That layer of culture determines, to a large extent, how traffic can become a problem. This idea is explored in Vanderbilt's 2008 book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), a Planetizen Top Book of the year. He recently expanded on that idea for a discussion about traffic put on by Zocalo Public Square in (where better?) Los Angeles.
Accessibility-Based Planning
Should society encourage parents to drive children to school rather than walk or bicycle? Should our transportation policies favor driving over walking, cycling, ridesharing, public transit and telecommuting? Probably not. There is no logical reason to favor automobile travel over other forms of accessibility, and there are lots of good reasons to favor efficient modes, so for example, schools spend at least as much to accommodate a walking or cycling trip as an automobile trip, and transportation agencies and employers spend at least as much to improve ridesharing and public transit commuting as automobile commuting.
Partial Closure Planned on San Francisco's Market Street
San Francisco's notoriously congested Market Street will soon see a lighter load of traffic, as officials roll out a pilot project that will ban private vehicles from the roadway.
Friday Funny: DOT Advises Drivers to Solve Traffic By Honking
The Department of Transportation has released a new report urging drivers to combat traffic congestion by honking -- a method estimated to relieve 90% of traffic.
Free Bus Rides Coming to New York?
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced an idea to speed up buses in Manhattan by eliminating crosstown bus fares.
Win $50,000 by Solving Congestion
A new contest challenges planning professionals and ordinary people to submit their solutions for improving congestion in the United States.
Ignoring Cars in Toronto
The City of Toronto prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists and transit over cars. Some in the city are concerned that the city is ignoring a car congestion problem that is only growing.
Fewer Airports Could Mean Less Air Congestion
Freakonomics argues that eliminating one New York airport would allow the others to operate more effectively.
Congestion, Pollution and Freeways
A common argument in favor of building sprawl-generating roads and highways is that if we just pave over enough of the United States, we can actually reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by reducing congestion. For example, a Reason Foundation press release cited a report by two University of California/Riverside engineering professors, “Real-World CO2 Impact of Traffic Congestion” (available online at http://www.cert.ucr.edu/research/pubs/TRB-08-2860-revised.pdf ). But if you read the report carefully, its policy impact is a bit more ambiguous.
Inside L.A.'s High-Tech Traffic Control System
Streetfilms goes behind the scenes at Los Angeles' Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control office, which monitors and actively controls L.A.'s signalized intersections.
Beijing Extends Car Restrictions
A slightly watered-down version of the traffic reduction methods the Chinese city of Beijing instituted in Summer 2008 to reduce congestion and pollution during the Olympics has been extended for another year.
Transportation Concurrency and Sprawl
Transportation concurrency is the subject of a bill that has passed one house of the Florida legislature. "Concurrency" is the Florida term for "adequate public facilities controls," indicating that facilities need not necessarily be in place at the time of project approval but that they must be scheduled to become available "concurrently" with demand from proposed development.
America's Most Congested Cities
Forbes has released its list of the most congested cities in America. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Washington D.C. top the list.
Big Dig Moves Congestion to Suburbs
Since its completion, Boston's Big Dig freeway project has succeeded in reducing congestion downtown, but new figures show the congestion has merely moved out of the central city into suburban areas.
Chicago Region Loses Billions Each Year Thanks to Traffic Congestion
A new report from the Metropolitan Planning Council pegs the annual cost of congestion to the Chicago region at $7.3 billion.
Moscow Tops List of World's Most Expensive Cities
Moscow tops an annual ranking of the world's most expensive cities. The survey examines housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment for corporations and government agencies determining living costs for expats.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
