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Posts tagged "Transportation Policy"

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Touring Utrecht’s Disappearing Roadways with BicycleDutch

As you may know I have been editing a monster Streetfilm on Utrecht debuting soon. It will likely be at least ten minutes in length!

But I just hate when really, really good stuff gets left on the cutting room floor and I only get to see it. So a lot of times I release bonus videos or extended shorts of my journeys and I have done many from my Netherlands visit in June.

Usually the extras come after the debut of the initial anchor Streetfilm, but I wanted to get this wonderful personal tour from Mark Wagenbuur out as a sort of teaser. Better known to most as "BicycleDutch" on Youtube, Mark has been a prolific documenter of all things bike and The Netherlands for a very long time. If somehow by now you have never seen his work, you must head over to: bicycledutch.wordpress.com

Anyway, as I was getting to, Mark will probably only be featured for 60-90 seconds in the busy final film, but I wanted to show much of what he talked about road removal and the ideas around keeping drivers out of the city center. So enjoy this!

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Los Angeles: The Great American Transit Experiment

Los Angeles is in the midst of building an unprecedented number of rail transit projects. Some are slated for potentially high ridership parts of LA’s urban core. Others are more dubious.

Today, transit use is down. Bus ridership is falling sharply. Rail use is flat despite strong ridership on the Expo Line, the city’s newest rail transit. L.A. is taking steps to reorganize its bus routes, but needs a variety of major street and service policy changes to make buses more attractive.

Also missing in L.A. are efforts make the city more walkable and more dense that correspond in scale to the massive rail building program. The city and region also still heavily cater to cars when decisions about transportation priorities need to be made.

“What we as a region have not yet done is have the sort of political fights that really make a transit system effective. Which are not fights over money but fights over space,” says UCLA professor Mike Manville.

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Clusterf*ck on Varick Street: The Case for Congestion Pricing

“If you’re looking for the place that shows the failure of New York City to have any sort of traffic management policy, this is the spot.”

That’s Doug Gordon, a.k.a. Brooklyn Spoke, who recently joined Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson Jr. in Lower Manhattan to document the lunacy at the intersection of Varick, Carmine, and Clarkson streets, where drivers converge to inch and honk their way toward the Holland Tunnel.

There’s a toll on the inbound Holland Tunnel, but driving outbound is free. The main distortion stems from the free rides across all the East River bridges, along the length of Manhattan, and the east-bound Verrazano Bridge.

Put it all together, and New York’s network of free roads and one-way tolls turns this neighborhood into a perpetual funnel for drivers who pay nothing to travel through the congested heart of the region. There are neighborhoods like it everywhere streets feed into free crossings into or out of the Manhattan core.

Says Doug: “This is what happens when you don’t charge people anything to drive through Manhattan.”

By putting a price on driving in the most crowded parts of the region, congestion pricing would thin out these car trips and divert a lot of this traffic to highways, where it belongs.

But after establishing his own panel to come up with a congestion pricing plan, Governor Cuomo chose not to put any muscle behind its recommendations this year. Assembly members like Lower Manhattan’s Deborah Glick, who represents this area, continued to sit on the fence as their constituents suffer from crushing gridlock.

Thanks to do-nothing state electeds, New Yorkers who drive and the car-free majority both continue to be subjected to chaotic, dangerous, stressful conditions like the clusterfuck on Varick Street.

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Even More From The Netherlands: Ride from Assen to Groningen!

By now if you haven't seen our Streetfilm "Groningen: The World's Cycling City" you should check it out. Like, now! It has broken every single Streetfilms viewing record - it had nearly 40,000 plays in just its first week!

One of the folks you'll see featured in that video is David Hembrow who has been reporting on cycling in the Netherlands for many years via one of the smartest transportation blogs out there "A View from the Cycle path". It's full of great knowledge you will want to devour. He also leads group bike tours of many cities in the Netherlands.


I was very fortunate to get to spend some time with him and we got along famously. Above is a video with some anecdotes and biking montages during our 20 mile bike journey from Assen to Groningen. It's only a small taste of what you'll experience in the Netherlands, but I think it will leave you craving more.

He currently has up a blog post full of all sorts of references and links to other posts that will give you a wealth of information about Groningen. Good stuff!

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Groningen: The World’s Cycling City

It's no secret that just about anywhere you go in the Netherlands is an incredible place to bicycle. And in Groningen, a northern city with a population of 190,000 and a bike mode share of 50 percent, the cycling is as comfortable as in any city on Earth. The sheer number of people riding at any one time will astound you, as will the absence of automobiles in the city center, where cars seem extinct. It is remarkable just how quiet the city is. People go about their business running errands by bike, going to work by bike, and even holding hands by bike.

The story of how they got there is a mix of great transportation policy, location and chance. You'll learn quite a bit of history in the film, but essentially Groningen decided in the 1970s to enact policies to make it easier to walk and bike, and discourage the use of cars in the city center. By pedestrianizing some streets, building cycle tracks everywhere, and creating a unique transportation circulation pattern that prohibits vehicles from cutting through the city, Groningen actually made the bicycle -- in most cases -- the fastest and most preferred choice of transportation.

It does feel like bicycle nirvana. When I first got off the train in Groningen, I couldn't stop smiling at what I saw around me. In an email exchange with my friend Jonathan Maus from Bike Portland, he described it as being "like a fairy tale." This jibed with my first thought to him -- that I had "entered the game Candyland, but for bikes!" In fact, for our teaser I originally titled this Streetfilm "Groningen: The Bicycle World of Your Dreams," before I talked myself out of it. Although there is a magical quality about being there, in reality there is nothing dreamy or childlike about it. With political will and planning, what they have done should - and can be done - everywhere.

In our Streetfilm you'll see the 10,000 (!) bicycle parking spaces at the train station, some of the incredible infrastructure that enables cyclists to make their journeys safer and quicker, and you'll hear from many residents we encountered who go by bike just about everywhere they travel. But as one of my interview subjects, Professor Ashworth, wanted me to point out: the three days I was there were bright and sunny, and the hardy people keep up the bicycling through the cold winters. As with many bicycling cities, there area also big problems with cycle theft, and residents are always yearning for more bicycle parking.

I think most of us would trade some of those problems for a city with 50 percent mode share (and up to 60 percent in the city center!!).

 

 

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Bike Report from Pittsburgh: Cool Bicycling Bridges & ProWalk/ProBike/ProPlace Coming in 2014!

Last week I was in Pittsburgh on a panel for the Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place 2013: Moving People Forward Summit. It's a warmup for the much larger 2014 conference which will be also held there. Put it on your calendar.

It's no secret that Pittsburgh is a great city of bridges. And while they may currently lack a comprehensive on-road network for bikes,  pedestrians and bicyclists do have ample space and comfortable access to just about all their bridges.

Last time I visited in 2010, I fell in love with the elegance of the Hot Metal Bridge, which crosses the Monongahela River and provides an intergral link in the Great Allegheny Passage which connects all the way to D.C. One evening, I spent over an hour soaking in the atmosphere and the observing the people using it. It's peaceful, clean, and has great views.  I'd put it amongst my Top Five U.S. bike bridges.  I knew this time back I had to put together a montage, I hope it conveys my experience.

The conference ended with a group bike ride which showcased some of Pittsburgh's new bicycle amenities. One relatviely new facility really shows why we need to make top notch connections for bikes and peds that are not only functional, but incorporate art wherever  possible.   Check out some footage of the Shady Liberty Pedestrian Bridge.

Okay, let's get back to the conference, Pittsburgh City Council Member Bill Peduto delivered a great speech to help kickoff the event and charge residents for 2014. He's won the Democratic Primary for Mayor and now is the overwhelming favorite to win the post in less than 2 months.  As I found out later when I met him for dinner, he has a very impressive grasp of transportation issues from Bus Rapid Transit to PARKing Day, and has been a huge fan of Streetfilms for years. Understanding just how important livability is to a city in the bike/ped/transit realm he can hit the ground running on transportation and I think the next four years in Pittsburgh has a chance to be groundbreaking. Here's a few minutes of his remarks I grabbed.

Read more...

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Strong Towns’ Chuck Marohn: Why Suburban Growth Is a Ponzi Scheme

Chuck Marohn cofounded the non-profit Strong Towns in 2009. Since then he has steadily built an audience for his message about the financial folly of car-centric planning and growth. The suburban development pattern that has prevailed since the end of World War II has resulted in what Marohn calls "the growth Ponzi scheme" -- a system that isn't viable in the long run because it cannot bring in enough revenue to cover its costs.

Last year, interest in the Strong Towns message surged and Marohn, in high demand, traveled to towns and cities all over the country delivering "curbside chats" about the need to build places differently. In this Streetfilm we provide an overview of his thinking about street design, land use, and transportation funding. For more Chuck Marohn, visit the Strong Towns blog and check out their podcast.

One of my favorite pieces of commentary from Chuck is this video walk-through of a "diverging diamond" interchange in Springfield, Missouri. As usual he pulls no punches, and he delivers the critique with a biting sense of humor.

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Mark Gorton’s “Rethinking the Automobile” Plays to crowds in Portland!

Friends, as you may know our major funder for Streetfilms, Mark Gorton, has a wonderful touring presentation called "Rethinking the Automobile" which he's been delivering at many gatherings throughout the country.  Recently he was in Portland, Oregon at the Active Transportation Summit a few weeks ago.

Dan Kaufman of PDXK Productions (and CrankMyChainCycle TV!)captured the entire speech and did a wonderful edit job putting this together for any of those who may have missed it.  See it below.  (There is also a shorter highlight version here.)

Dan also did a great guest editorial in The Oregonian which is a great read.

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Commissioners’ Panel – Raising the Bar: Building political capital to implement key design initiatives

This panel took place at NACTO's Designing Cities Conference, on October 26, 2012, in New York, NY, and was sponsored by IBM.

Political support for sustainable transportation initiatives is a precursor to success. The combination of agency champions, political champions and savvy advocacy groups is coming of age across the nation. Not all cities have all three and diverse agency structures determine the alliances needed to garner support. Visionary mayors and elected officials must be there to open doors and communicate your agency’s objectives to their constituents.

This session explores the political dialogue which governs local transportation initiatives. How can your agency build credibility and support without causing sticker shock? What are the key milestones of success and how can you work with the press to reinforce your accomplishments?

Moderator: Chris Hayes, Host, MSNBC’s UP w/ Chris Hayes  Featuring: Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation, Gabe Klein, Commissioner, Chicago Department of Transportation, Ed Reiskin, Director of Transportation, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Tom Tinlin, Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department and Rina Cutler, Deputy Mayor of Transportation and Utilities, Philadelphia.

Selected highlights from the panel are below:

09:00 - Ed Reisken "we need to make public transit accessible, reliable and enjoyable"
11:30 - Gabe Klein  talks about young people and transportation's vitality to a city
15:14 - Rina Culter on "Money Matters"
17:23 - Tom Tinlin "Mayor Menino has said, 'The car is no longer king in Boston' "
23:50 - Gabe Klein talks gas prices in Netherlands vs. U.S. and transportation infrastructure
31:03 - Janette Sadik-Khan - "We need to find partners in creating public spaces in NYC."
33:30 - Chris Hayes refers to cars as "speeding machines of death"!
36:56 - Janette Sadik-Khan: "in New York, two-thirds of New Yorkers get around without a car, less than half own a car"
48:21 - Chris Hayes asks the panel about public criticism from the media and giving advice to future commissioners.

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Build a Better Bridge: Why the Hudson Valley Wants Transit on the Tappan Zee

New York State is on the verge of one of the largest transportation projects in the nation - the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge. Hudson Valley residents, business owners, elected officials and environmental advocates participated in the State DOT’s ten-year, 280 meeting planning process. Through these meetings and millions of dollars of State studies, a consensus emerged that transit was a vital component of the Tappan Zee Bridge project.

According to the State’s own documents “Without major transit investments, already unacceptable levels of congestion are forecasted to occur in the corridor far into the future.”

In the fall of 2011 Governor Cuomo reversed course, deciding that the bridge project would move forward without transit. The State now proposes to build a $5 billion bridge that is twice as wide as the current bridge and provides no relief to the increasing traffic congestion that threatens to constrain the region’s growth and diminish quality of life in the villages and towns along the I-287 corridor.

Local leaders are joined by over 20 environmental, good government and labor groups in calling on Governor Cuomo to put transit back into the Tappan Zee Bridge project. This video shows how they are fighting for this once in a lifetime opportunity to relieve congestion in the I-287 corridor and local roads, improve air quality, achieve sustainability goals, and reduce motorist travel time.

The state is accepting public comment on its Tappan Zee DEIS until March 15th. You can find more information on upcoming public hearings on this project and to tell the Governor to put transit back into the project at www.brtonthebridge.org.

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MBA: Congestion Pricing

In the fifth chapter of "Moving Beyond the Automobile," we demystify the concept of congestion pricing in just five short minutes. Here you'll learn why putting a price on scarce road space makes economic sense and how it benefits many different modes of surface transportation.

In London, which successfully implemented congestion pricing in 2003, drivers now get to their jobs faster, transit users have improved service, cyclists have better infrastructure, and pedestrians have more public space. More people have access to the central city, and when they get there, the streets are safer and more enjoyable. While the politics of implementing congestion pricing are difficult, cities looking to tame traffic and compete in the 21st century can't afford to ignore a transportation solution that addresses so many problems at once.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

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Students Take Action to Save Their MetroCards

New York City high school students traveled with community groups to Washington, D.C. to talk to lawmakers about how losing the free Student MetroCard would negatively impact their communities.  They urged representatives to support a bill that would provide more federal funding for public transportation.

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William Lind: A Conservative Voice For Public Transportation

At the 2009 Rail-Volution conference in Boston, Streetfilms was able to grab a few moments with the political conservative, transit advocate, William Lind.  Lind aims to provide "liberal transit advocates" the language to build bipartisan support for public transportation (okay, just rail) in terms that conservatives can relate to. Some of Lind's arguments don't reflect our views here at Streetfilms, especially his disdain for buses (which we don't cover in this video), but he makes a thought-provoking case for transit investment.

Lind argues that transit enhances national security, promotes economic development, helps maintain conservatives values, builds community, and gets people to jobs. Streetsblog readers won't want to miss his critique of highway spending as a massive government intervention.

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Carmaggeddon Averted as Broadway Comes to Life

When New York City opened up new pedestrian zones in the heart of Midtown this summer, naysayers predicted a traffic nightmare. Nearly two months later, we're still waiting for the much-feared Carmaggedon.

In this video, Streetfilms funder Mark Gorton takes us on a tour of Broadway's car-free squares and boulevard-style blocks, where conditions have improved dramatically for pedestrians, cyclists, and, yes, delivery truck drivers. As Mark says, the counterintuitive truth is that taking away space for cars can improve traffic while making the city safer and more enjoyable for everyone on foot. There are sound theories that help explain why this happens -- concepts like traffic shrinkage and Braess's paradox which are getting more and more attention thanks to projects like this one. While traffic statistics are still being collected by NYCDOT, there's already a convincing argument that Midtown streets are functioning better than before: To understand it, just take a walk down Broadway.

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D.C.’s DOT Director talks “Transportation Freedom”

Meet Gabe Klein who was appointed new director of Washington D.C.'s Department of Transportation (DDOT) in December 2008.  With an interesting background which includes four years working for Zipcar, Mr. Klein was brought in with the idea of looking at the job from a fresh perspective (check out: Potholepalooza!) and innovating solutions to many mobility problems D.C. faces.  Right off the bat, you'll love a lot of what he has to say:

"Cars are a part of our daily life here in D.C. ...but what we want to do is try to equalize the playing field.  Encourage people to walk, to bike, to bike share; or instead of owning a car - car share."

Washington D.C. already has one of the lowest household car-ownership percentages of any major U.S. city, so actively promoting these modes is essential to helping its citizens move about with - as Mr Klein points out - "freedom".