Many U.S. cities are including bicycle and pedestrian facilities in their transportation planning. However, these same cities often find existing design guides do not provide the set of options they need for non-motorized infrastructure, complicating project implementation and reducing the effectiveness of the end product. This gap began to be filled in 2011, when the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) released the first edition of its Urban Bikeway Design Guide. The group updated the guide this month.
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Highway congestion highest on Friday afternoon
Car commuters in most large metro areas face the highest level of highway congestion on Friday afternoon, according to Inrix data provided to Governing magazine. However many metro areas have relatively minor changes in commuting times. And one quarter of commuters in metro areas with the highest Friday congestion times opt out of traffic by walking, biking, using transit, or working at home.
New Chicago plan aims for zero traffic deaths in ten years
In a new transportation plan Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein laid out their vision of no traffic fatalities within ten years. While the safety goals received much of the recent press, abitious performance measures for sustainability, transportation choice, customer service, and economic development are also part of the plan.
Did previous TIGER grants allocate too much to bike-ped projects?
Some alternative transportation advocates believe legislative language could effectively ban bike and pedestrian projects from the 2012 TIGER Program. Along with the possibility that Transportation Enhancements, Recreational Trail, and Safe Routes to School dedicated funding …
Biking for short trips equals significant health benefits
A new study conducted at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has discovered that there are significant health benefits to commuters who replace short car trips with biking. The study concluded that if Midwesterners ran half of …