Every day, The Overhead Wire collects national and international news about cities and sends the links to their email list. At the end of the week they post some of the most popular stories to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to Streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region.
Human impacts on animal evolution: New research shows that human culture — including politics, religion and war — has influenced the evolution of wildlife in cities. The genetic structures of wildlife populations are ultimately changed because our social worlds are intertwined with surrounding ecologies. Zoning codes and policing, for example, impact animal territories and their behaviors. (Marcos Magaña | Los Angeles Times)
Do we really need more highways?: In his new book, “Overbuilt” (Island Press), University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor of Regional Planning Erick Guerra makes the case that the continued expansion of highways in the United States is exacerbating the errors from those roadways’ construction through neighborhoods and communities. Since we’ve overbuilt, there will be a need to decommission roads, he argues — though new solutions will become viable as travel behaviors adjust. (David Zipper | Bloomberg CityLab)
No zoning in Charlottesville, Virginia: A judge has ruled that Charlottesville’s recently adopted zoning code is invalid after a firm representing the city missed a filing deadline. Because the city had to repeal the old code to enact the new one, no zoning code currently exists. The Charlottesville zoning website states that city officials “are holding [zoning applications] in queue while we await further legal and procedural clarity.” (Charlottesville Tomorrow)
Transit important to the justice system: Forty percent of jurors in Philadelphia commuted to the courthouse by transit over a five-day period in May, according to a survey. The findings highlight the importance of transportation access to the courts and another reason for Pennsylvania to fund SEPTA, the regional transit authority. This is also relevant for diversion programs and community service. (Katayun I. Jaffari | City & State Pennsylvania)
How Salt Lake lost control of street design: During this year’s session, the Utah State Legislature took away Salt Lake City’s autonomy to design streets for better safety. The bill, which sneaked in at the last minute and initially fooled legislative Democrats, was supported by an AI-generated paper from two professors at the University of Utah working on their own time. Even though the paper was riddled with factual errors about traffic safety and street design, anti-urbanists used it to pass a preemptive bill. (Taylor Anderson | Building Salt Lake)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast, Bill Schultheiss of Toole Design talks about bike facility design guides. We look at the benefits of guides from both AASHTO (American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials) and NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) and discuss the importance of history and political will and the stress of serving as an expert witness in a trial.
Quote of the Week
“The reason for the Franklin corridor was essentially to speed traffic through downtown. Rather than leaving an urban world down there, they wanted to put an interstate through SoBro — suburban logic applied to an urban context. We used to laugh at the fact that the fastest way to get from East Nashville to Vanderbilt was to cut right through the center of downtown because there was less traffic than the interstates.”
— Former Nashville Scene writer Christine Kreyling discussing the project that sparked creation of the Nashville Design Collective
Photo at top by Trac Vu on Unsplash