Author: Jeff Wood

Jeff Wood

Jeff Wood

Jeff Wood is an urban planner focused on transportation and land use issues living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jeff's news archives can be found at The Overhead Wire and he tweets @theoverheadwire. You can also listen to his Talking Headways podcast episodes at Streetsblog USA

Check out the sand and salt about to be washed directly into the Chain of Lakes

National Links: A Tramway for Paris

• December 30, 2025

Paris prioritizes speed and equity with aerial transit, while quiet, walkable, salt-free streets prove that livable, people-centered urban design boosts both value and joy.

Rendering of a new building in Northeast Minneapolis that will provide affordable housing.
A new development in Northeast Minneapolis that chose to pay a fee toward affordable housing. Photo: Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development.

National Links: TXDOT’s Realization

• November 17, 2025

Texas rethinks transit, global cities weigh road needs, voters boost housing, Millennials reshape small towns, and Seattle unveils a reimagined, post-viaduct waterfront.

Riders greet one of San Francisco Muni's Boat Trams at Market and 4th in San Francisco on January 29, 2020. The Boat Tram, which operates on a limited basis, made a special appearance to commemorate the closure of lower Market Street to private automobiles. Photo: Henry Pan
Riders greet one of San Francisco Muni's Boat Trams at Market and 4th in San Francisco on January 29, 2020. The Boat Tram, which operates on a limited basis, made a special appearance to commemorate the closure of lower Market Street to private automobiles. Photo: Henry Pan

National Links: Single Stairs, Tram Trains, Colored Crosswalks

• November 10, 2025

Cities rethink stairs, trains, and malls: housing reforms, tram-train innovation, rainbow crosswalk fights, and climate-ready malls headline this urbanism roundup.

Photo by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

National Links: New Data

• November 4, 2025

Community land trusts keep homes affordable, transit advocates push better storytelling, Waymo faces accountability questions, and Norway proves EV success needs long-term policy.

Campus Martius in Detroit - A Great Urban Park

National Links: A Large Urban Park

• October 27, 2025

Mayor, carbon, safety, and parks: Houston’s controversial leader, city meat emissions, vehicle safety warnings, and a massive Mexican park restoration.

manually operated signalling tower, this is one of the later ones. By this time they had dispensed with signs and flags and were using lights exclusively,

National Links: Signal Timing

• October 10, 2025

Cities face transit delays, housing-linked sleep issues, climate and air challenges, halted Phoenix growth over water rights, and renewed BRT expansion.

Bicycles parked at café, Shoreview, mn
People increasingly want to live around others who want a similar healthy lifestyle. They want local eateries that do well serving a variety of quality healthier portion-appropriate food options rather than a token healthy option among huge servings of unhealthy heart killing gook and giant donuts (reasonably small sweets are quite welcomed though). One realtor once told me that there’s nothing that sells Shoreview like a customer seeing lots of people walking and bicycling on Shoreview's paths. More recently another said “lots of bikes parked outside of a local café is turn-on for prospective residents while a place filled with overweight people eating large portions of unhealthy food is a turn-off”.

National Links: Care Infrastructure

• October 6, 2025

Care infrastructure, income and access, and unexpected variations in language and distance are all touched on in this week’s National Links.