Recent Posts
- Sustainable Transportation in Freiburg
- Cool Planning in Boulder
- Another City is Possible: Cars and Climate
- Boulder Biketopia at the ULI Salon
- A Goss Grove Neighborhood Greenway?
- Making Boulder into one of Jan Gehl's Cities for People
- Preventing Bicycle Fatalities at US-36 and Violet
- Bikes and Bus Rapid Transit
- The High Cost of Free Parking in Boulder
- Revisiting Junction Place, the TVAP and Multi-Way Boulevards
Linkstream
- Quantifying the Cost of Sprawl
Sprawling single-family suburban development is more expensive than compact land use. There's more infrastructure per capita and per unit area (pavement, power lines, water and sewage lines, etc), in conjunction with much lower tax revenues per unit infrastructure. This is true if you look at either the capital (up front) costs or the ongoing operational costs. Most subdivisions aren't actually prepared to pay their own way when the bill comes due. - The Fight Against Small Apartments in Seattle
A bizarre account of the NIMBYs fighting against tiny apartments in Seattle. They fear that small living spaces must necessarily end up filled with sketchy-ass meth-heads. But it turns out they're more often young professionals, retirees, and other completely normal folk who either don't want or can't afford the canonical American Dream of yesteryear... and would rather live downtown and have access to the city. - Break out the Bikes for the next Hackfest
Boulder's QuickLeft is hosting a Bicycle Hackfest, the evening of Tuesday, May 14th, from 6-9pm. Unfortunately, I can't make it, but it would be great if someone could work on getting our Mark-A-Spot Open311 testbed built out... contact me if you're interested! - Portland Retailers Love Bike Corrals
On street bike parking (bike corrals) have become very popular with local street-level businesses in Portland, Oregon. I think it's time for Boulder to regularize our bike corral program. We need to get some decent non-diagonal racks in there with higher capacity, like the Portland racks, and also create a process through which businesses can request the racks, and get them. Portland has nearly 100, by population, Boulder ought to have something like 16. - A Profile of Freiburg, Germany
A good short profile of the city of Freiburg, Germany, and their many sustainability initiatives. Freiburg is a little more than double Boulder's size -- both in population and area, so it has a similar average population density. It's also a university town with a strong tech sector locally. The whole city was re-built post WWII, but they chose to build it along the same lines as the old city, with a dense core, and well defined boundaries. Today about half of daily trips are done by foot or on bike, with another 20% on public transit. They have a
- Quantifying the Cost of Sprawl
Boulder Bikes
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: design
The Fight Against Small Apartments in Seattle
A bizarre account of the NIMBYs fighting against tiny apartments in Seattle. They fear that small living spaces must necessarily end up filled with sketchy-ass meth-heads. But it turns out they’re more often young professionals, retirees, and other completely normal … Continue reading
Sustainable Transportation in Freiburg
I recently came across an interesting article by Ralph Buehler and John Pucher about the city of Freiburg, Germany and its transportation system and planning since WWII (when it was 80% destroyed by Allied bombing raids). The city isn’t so … Continue reading
Posted in journal
Tagged design, freiburg, germany, planning, policy, politics, transportation, urban
Leave a comment
Another City is Possible: Cars and Climate
Last week I taught a class at the University of Colorado for a friend. The class is entitled Another City is Possible: Re-Imagining Detroit. She wanted me to talk about the link between cars and climate change. As usual, I … Continue reading
Shifting Suburbs
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has put together a study of suburban densification strategies called Shifting Suburbs: Reinventing Infrastructure for Compact Development. I haven’t read it yet, but based on my experience of Belmar in Lakewood (which is one of … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged density, design, development, planning, retrofit, suburbia, suburbs, ULI, urban
Leave a comment
The Recipe for a World-Class Bicycling Network
The Dutch know how to build bike infrastructure like nobody else. Their network of bikeways is made up of 3 main street typologies. One is quiet, low-speed (<20mph) residential streets that offer through access to bikes and pedestrians, but not … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged bicycle, design, dutch, holland, infrastructure, lane, path
Leave a comment
The Zen of Affordable Housing
A good list summarizing the ways in which density is good for affordability, ending with this zinger: Income inequality is the core reason why housing affordability is such an intractable problem in the United States. In pretty much every other … Continue reading
Suburbs == Ponzi scheme
Charles Marohn of Strong Towns on Grist, explaining the way in which American suburbs are a giant Ponzi scheme. Essentially, since WWII there have been several rounds of up-front financing for suburban expansion, including federal dollars, and debt leveraging supposed … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged cities, design, economics, strong towns, suburbia, urban
Leave a comment
Making Boulder into one of Jan Gehl’s Cities for People
A couple of months ago I finished reading Jan Gehl’s book Cities for People, and I’ve seen Boulder differently ever since. I’m both more frustrated with it as it is today and more excited about what it could be in … Continue reading
Posted in journal
Tagged architecture, book, cars, cities, design, jan gehl, policy, review, transportation, urban
9 Comments
Melbourne Urban Density Study
The city of Melbourne, Australia did a study of various types of urban density (it’s a PDF) to inform their own planning for the development of the Southbank area. The study as presented here is a little bit cartoonish, but … Continue reading
How far will we walk?
How far will we walk to go somewhere depends on the quality of the walking experience. An obvious conclusion maybe, but one that bears repeating. In central Paris or Rome, folks will regularly walk 5 miles a day, and enjoy … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged cities, density, design, pedestrian, planning, transportation, urban
Leave a comment
