National Links: Sprawl vs Density in Colorado
This week’s compilation of “National Links”: the financial impact of cars, why widening highways doesn’t work and a controversial climate project in Copenhagen.
Category: Cars
What Is Evie Carshare and Is It a Good Option for the Twin Cities?
The Twin Cities has spatial gaps in its transit service and social gaps in transportation equity. Car-sharing can connect people without cars to suburban areas, including their amenities and their jobs.
From ‘Car-Heavy’ to ‘Car-Lite’: An (Involuntary) Experiment
After comfortably living with three cars, being forced to use only one can reveal many of the pros and cons of living a “car-lite” lifestyle.
The Rite and Wrong of Driving
Contributor and transportation leader Mary Morse Marti responds to Ross Douthat’s recent column in the New York Times about driving, asking: Is it really a rite of passage?
National Links: Rethinking City Sounds
What if we rethought sound in busy cities? In Rotterdam, city officials believe that train bells and other noises are just background noise, but to many, it’s an unbearable hum. Still, some are looking for ways to extract and enhance new sounds to create new and valuable urban experiences.
It’s Not Equitable to Protect Cars on Summit Avenue
A recent editorial argued that bike advocates left out the marginalized in their advocacy for new bike infrastructure on Summit Avenue. What if we applied that analysis to cars?
National Links: Dark Stores and Geographic Gas Taxes
Around the country more dark stores and ghost kitchens are popping up in empty retail spaces. These stores, which promise 15-minute deliveries of food and goods, don’t have a front door and can’t be patronized on foot. Along with e-commerce, they are also wreaking havoc on local businesses and impacting the soul of cities in a way that will be hard to recover.
National Links: No More Demolition
For half a century cities like St. Louis felt that demolition was the best way to solve urban ills tied to out-migration and decay. But according to Tony Nipert, this can result in another type of displacement through neglect. And solutions that include rehabilitation only result in more demolition 10 years later if actions aren’t taken to get people into those homes. Other solutions are needed to revitalize neighborhoods in cities.
Summer 2022 Highway News Roundup
Google Maps Silliness Minnesota has about a hundred legally named highways and bridges, written into law in Minnesota Statute § 161.14. Some of the early ones like the Viking Trail and the Sioux Trail were possibly intended to mark motoring touring routes. But overwhelmingly the highways are named in memory of local politicians, veterans or […]
More On the Robert Piram Trail Story
Wolfie Browender highlights some of the features and history of the Robert Piram Bike Trail with project manager Mary Norton.