Every day, The Overhead Wire collects news about cities and sends the links to their email list. At the end of the week they take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to Streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. They are national and international links, sometimes entertaining or absurd but often useful.
Rethinking e-bike regulations: New York State wants to regulate the “Class 3” e-bikes that can go up to 28 miles per hour and treat them like mopeds, which require a license and registration. Part of the problem with regulations, however, is that there are too many classes, and bikes all look similar. Europe has just two levels of e-bikes: the ones that go over or under around 15 mph. Standard levels and rules would go a long way toward making regulation, enforcement and safety easier. (Lloyd Alter | Carbon Upfront!)
100-year anniversary of killing the walk: University of West Virginia historian Peter Norton writes about the anniversary when everything in transportation changed from walking, biking and transit to car-centric rules and regulations in the City of Los Angeles. On January 24, 1925, Los Angeles introduced a law that gave motorists priority on city streets. That law became a model for the rest of the country, and our cities can trace their autocentricity back to that fateful day. (Peter Norton | Streetsblog USA)
A web of governance weak by design: In contrast with East Coast cities with strong-mayor systems, the Los Angeles region is a web of 88 cities in one large county of over 10 million people. The lack of a central leader seemed to be a conscious choice to avoid the machine systems that dominated East Coast cities. A county executive will be first elected in 2028. But the current disconnection was made apparent during the fires that have engulfed different parts of Los Angeles County in and around the city proper. (Adam Nagourney | New York Times)
Is small thinking the new American way?: A new National Bureau of Economic Research paper questions why housing construction productivity has lagged while productivity in so many other industries has improved immensely. From 1935 to 1970, housing construction productivity increased more than many other industries, including automobiles. But the years after 1970 coincided with growth in local land-use regulations, which led to every home becoming a bespoke local product that isn’t likely to be mass produced. (Christy DeSmith | The Harvard Gazette)
Next big thing in low-cost housing: Washington State moved forward with regulations to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as part of a package of reforms to alleviate the housing shortage in 2024. But a new building type, the mobile dwelling unit or MDU, sometimes referred to as tiny homes on wheels, could be next; a new bill would legalize them in the state. MDUs can co-exist on properties with other homes and be built faster and cheaper than conventional homes or even ADUs. (Kol Peterson and Dan Bertolet | Sightline Institute)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re back at the Mpact conference in Philadelphia. Ruth Miller of Jawnt shares her superhero origin story and how employer transit pass programs like the Southern Pennsylvania Transit Authority’s Key Advantage Program support employees, agencies and the region overall.
Quote of the Week
“Initially, everyone thought it would cause gridlock. But people adapted. Now we can’t imagine the highway ever being here.”
— Seoul, South Korea, resident Park Byung-chul discussing the transformation of the Cheonggyecheon from urban highway to urban waterway.
Photo at top by Basile Morin – CC BY-SA 4.0