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
- 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 - An ultra-low energy neighborhood in Germany
The German university town of Heidelberg is developing a near zero energy neighborhood, housing 5000 people and providing jobs for 7000. All the buildings will meet the ultra strict Passivhaus energy efficiency standard. It's in the center of town, and will be extremely well served by transit, with easy bike and pedestrian access to the rest of the city. This would be a great thing to see in, say... the Diagonal Plaza. More info on the development here. 93% of the unites are already sold...
- The Fight Against Small Apartments in Seattle
Boulder Bikes
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: policy
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
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 … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged cities, efficiency, energy, germany, KfW, passivhaus, policy
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
Orange County toll roads’ under review by California
Orange County’s toll roads are unable to pay their own way, leading the state of California to investigate whether their administrative agencies are viable as a going concern. Obviously the situation is complicated by the fact that there are public … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged cars, economics, freeway, policy, subsidy, tolls, transportation
Leave a comment
Tax Land, Not Buildings
The Land Tax is revived in Minneapolis, at least in concept. Taxing land, rather than the improvements upon it (or at least taxing them at different rates, with the land more heavily taxed than the improvements), discourages speculation in valuable … Continue reading
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
To Encourage Biking, Cities Lose the Helmets
The NY Times looks at the trade-offs between requiring or encouraging helmet use, and actually getting people to ride bikes. American Bike Advocate Sacrilege, perhaps, but I agree: if we want cycling to be mainstream everyday transportation, the helmets and … Continue reading
Cutting dependence on cars isn’t anti-car, it’s common sense
The problem with cars in an urban context isn’t (just) related to sustainability… It’s a problem of space, and the best way to allocate it in the pursuit of a high quality of life. Even if you don’t care about … Continue reading
Land Value Capture and City Finance
A long post about urban infrastructure finance via “Land Value Capture” from Next American City. The general idea is that the provision of public goods — roads, sidewalks, transit lines, sewers, utility lines, etc — adds value to the property … Continue reading
Posted in linkstream
Tagged cities, finance, government, land value capture, planning, policy, taxes, urban
Leave a comment
Between the Lines
Yet another article about the Shoupistas, this time in Los Angeles magazine. Have we reached some kind of cognitive tipping point? Will urban parking policy start changing? Will our downtown business districts be transformed? We can hope…
