September 2005

Sister and Brother Become Sustainable Developers By Accident

September 23, 2005

Kudos to CNN for their second new urbanism/walkable neighborhoods article that I have read this week. A brother and sister duo bought 40 acres of land in the Colorado community of Buena Vista, intending to develop it as a whitewater park along the Arkansas River. Instead, they wound up developing a walkable neighborhood called South [...]

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RAGBRAI

September 22, 2005

You may have heard of RAGBRAI in the past. RAGBRAI stands for Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It is put on every year by the Des Moines Register the last full week in July. The ride commences and ends in different towns and follows a different route each year. The ride is so [...]

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CNN Highlights Seven New Urbanist Communities

September 20, 2005

New urbanism is not the most popular concept when it comes to community design. But one positive that comes out of new urbanist design is that they are generally very walkable places. A recent article on CNN highlights seven “retro” new urbanist communities around the country, and most of them will be very familiar to [...]

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Gated Communities: Essentially Like Zoos?

September 15, 2005

Heavy Trash is a Los Angeles project that “exposes” gated communities using a very interesting approach: they put up viewing platforms so that people can look over the walls of a gated community. It kind of reminds you of looking at animals in a zoo. I think that this project makes a strong point, but [...]

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International Walk to School Week – October 3-7

September 11, 2005

The week of October 3-7 is International Walk to School Week, encouraging children (and parents!) to walk or bike to school. And, October 5th is International Walk to School Day. In 2004, more than 3 million children, parents, and community leaders from 36 countries around the world participated in International Walk to School Week. I cannot stress enough the importance of these events.

I helped coordinate a workshop earlier this year (in a city that shall remain nameless) that focused on an area where an estimated 600 kids per day would be crossing a busy six-lane highway. This was because a school district had stopped funding buses and there were no other options for these mostly disadvantaged children. The situation was so dangerous that even I was very nervous crossing the highway. I was so angry after the workshop because I felt deep down that someone would be killed crossing the intersection. Luckily, composure was kept during the workshop and some real strides were made that day. Perhaps there is nothing more tragic than cutting the life short of a child. >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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We Can Have Car-Free Development in the US… Almost

September 8, 2005

We can have car-free development in the US… almost. With the exception of developments in Manhattan, almost every single development in the US would require some sort of parking arrangement to be successful, even when designing the best places for pedestrians. Whether that parking is in the form of street parking or garage parking with ground-level commercial/office uses it does not necessarily matter, as long as there is enough for the residents, tourists, or shoppers. For pedestrian-friendly developments, surface parking lots between the streets and the buildings or main features of the development are not an option.

One of my favorite weblogs, CoolTown Studios, had an interesting article today about a development in China that appears to be car-free and very cool. While I cannot verify by the picture in the article that there is no parking near the development, I do believe that this type of development can be done in the US by satisfying this main criteria (in a simplistic state): >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Light Rail is Trendy

September 5, 2005

I am a big fan of light rail systems and am excited that Sacramento is dedicated to expanding its light rail system through its Transit for Livable Communities land use planning project. However, the recent fare increases are cause for concern, especially considering the majority of riders on the system are poor. I do occasionally ride the Sacramento light rail, and my girlfriend rides the system to her job every weekday (There is currently no service to the city I work in, but there are plans for expansion to it as well as the Sacramento Airport. I cannot wait!). I would ride more often, but I enjoy the exercise from walking too much. Sacramento this past week broke ground on its first major transit oriented residential development project called the Upper East Side Lofts at the Folsom/65th Street stop. I hope this trend continues because residents are demanding more of this type of development. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a light rail system is, visit the Light Rail Transit Association website for an explanation. >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Davidson, NC: An Extreme Walkable Community

September 4, 2005

Davidson, North Carolina has tagged itself as a walkable community. Following the recent increase in gas prices, perhaps there is no community doing more to live up to this tagging. According to a Lincoln Tribune article, it seems that all government employees are walking, biking, or using public transit to get to work. “I have [...]

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Bring on Peak Oil and Higher Gas Prices

September 1, 2005

I feel bad writing about rising gas prices during the middle of a national tragedy, but there is so much discussion about it in the media that I got upset and had to offer a counter argument. There was a great article published recently in the Lansing City Pulse about how some people are welcoming the higher gas prices in hopes that America will invest in more walkable places and mass transit, and this was before Hurricane Katrina devastated the South. Already Lansing, Michigan is seeing a large increase in public transportation ridership because of the gas price increases. The article also has a striking graphic on how much other countries pay per gallon of gasoline in comparison with the US. Both the UK and the Netherlands pay over $6 per gallon of gasoline! An interesting note on the picture above: I shot this photo last year in California to show to people back East how expensive gas was. Now, with prices over $3 a gallon in California, people would be lined up for blocks for those prices… >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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