pedestrians
kkrisberg | June 20, 2014Building safe ways for children to bike and walk to school is more than just a way of encouraging kids to go outside and get active. According to a new study, it’s also an investment that reaps millions of dollars in societal gains. In other words, smart walking and biking infrastructures for kids make good economic sense.
Published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the study examined the cost-effectiveness of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) infrastructure in just one city — New York City. SRTS was initially enacted in 2005 as part of a massive federal transportation…
lborkowski | May 29, 2014The National Complete Streets Coalition, a program of Smart Growth America, has released Dangerous by Design 2014, a new report that ranks major metropolitan areas according to the Pedestrian Danger Index and presents recommendations for reducing pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
The report authors note that between 2003 and 2012, more than 47,000 people were killed while walking, and pedestrian fatalities disproportionately claim the lives of older adults, people of color, and children. The areas with the worst PDI scores (pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 people divided by the share of…
lborkowski | September 19, 2012The New York Times has a terrific graphic that plots the number of auto fatalities per 100,000 people and the vehicle miles driven per capita from 1950 to 2011. Overall, we're driving far more vehicle-miles per capita and seeing far fewer auto deaths than we were six decades ago, but this hasn't happened in a linear fashion. Rather, as Hannah Fairfield explains, change occurs unevenly:
Plotting the two most important variables against each other — miles traveled versus deaths per 100,000 population — yields a pattern that looks like a plateau followed by a steep drop. It evokes the theory of…
lborkowski | October 18, 2011by Kim Krisberg
Mark Martin isn't inclined to sit down and shut up -- well, unless it's on the seat of a bicycle."More people need joy in their lives and there's a real simple way to get it: ride a bicycle," Martin told me. "It's a joyous thing to ride a bike."
The Baton Rouge, La., bicyclist hasn't owned a car in 20 years -- "I just love my bike," he said. In fact, he loves biking so much that he said he was driving people crazy talking about the need for better biking and pedestrian infrastructure in his community. Somebody ought to do something about it, he thought, and so he did.…
lborkowski | December 9, 2010Yesterday I mentioned sewer systems as an indispensable part of urban infrastructure, and today I want to focus on the more visible issue of transportation. The efficiency with which people and goods move into and within cities has a huge impact on both energy use and air quality. And the availability of non-driving modes of transportation can improve people's lives in a lot of ways.
I read a few blogs that address transportation issues (Greater Greater Washington is indispensible for DC-area transportation nerds), and I'd like to address an assumption that I see a lot of commenters making:…