September 24, 2010

Parking Day Brookline
PARK(ing) Day in Brookline


Highlights

  • Space invaders (Boston Globe, Brookline TAB, Brookline Patch)
    In Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, citizens find perfect spots to raise environmental awareness
    By Eric Moskowitz -- In the parking spaces along Commonwealth Avenue in front of Boston University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences yesterday at 1 p.m.: Honda, Lexus, Lexus, Ford, patch of sod with people lounging on a couch. What? A professor and his former student beckoned passersby to check e-mail on a laptop, play board games, get their bikes fixed, or just hang out with them. “No Stopping’’ and “Tow Zone’’ signs nearby were tweaked to read “Stopping’’ and “Toe Zone.’’
  • Boston-Brookline line a tough one to cross (Boston Globe)
    Commuting cyclist wants safer route
    By Christina Pazzanese -- Amid the frequent pledges to make Boston a more bike-friendly city, reader Patrick Lally asks why a popular route for cyclists on the Boston-Brookline border isn’t made safer. “I am a bike commuter who travels from Jamaica Plain to the Longwood Medical Area at least eight months out of the year,’’ he writes in an e-mail. “My daily ride is generally pleasant as I follow the bike path from Jamaica Pond along the path that runs through very scenic Brookline, past the former Brookline Hospital for Women.’’ But things get dicey, he says, when he reaches Route 9.
  • Magic touch? New developers take over North Point (Boston Globe, Cambridge Day, Cambridge Chronicle)
    Ex-Lakers star’s fund to work on stalled site
    By Jenifer B. McKim -- A real estate fund comanaged by former Los Angeles Lakers superstar Earvin “Magic’’ Johnson is partnering with two other firms to invest about $1.5 billion over 10 years in the long-stalled NorthPoint development, company officials said yesterday. The Los Angeles financial group Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds plans to work with HYM Investment Group of Boston and Atlas Capital Group in New York to develop the 44-acre tract, a former Pan Am rail yard a few blocks from Kendall Square in Cambridge. Small pieces of the property also reach into Boston and Somerville.
  • VIDEO: The Taming and Reclaiming of Prospect Park West (Streetfilms)
    By Robin Urban Smith -- Up until this summer, speeding was the norm on Brooklyn's Prospect Park West. With three wide lanes inviting motorists to hit the accelerator, it was a street monopolized by car traffic. That changed in a big way in June, when NYC DOT converted one vehicle lane to a two-way bikeway separated from traffic by the parking lane. Physically separated bike lanes are making New York safer for cyclists and pedestrians wherever they're installed, and this one is no exception.
  • Washington's Capital Bikeshare Launches, Bringing Biggest-Yet System to the U.S. (Transport Politic)
    By Yonah Freemark -- When Washington’s SmartBike DC system began operating in 2008, the city was doing something no U.S. municipality had yet attempted: Betting that locals and tourists would excitedly jump onto public bicycles, encouraging the growth of a transportation mode that has too often been left behind by automobile-oriented planners. Unfortunately, that bet failed to come through: The system was never frequently used, with an average of only about one hundred daily riders. But the city’s progressive leadership learned its lesson and has launched Capital Bikeshare, a network that will soon feature 1,100 bikes that will be accessible from 114 stations in the District of Columbus and Arlington County, Virginia, just across the river.
  • VIDEO: Copenhagen Cargo Bikes (Streetfilms)
    By Clarence Eckerson, Jr. -- When you first visit Copenhagen, the first thing you'll notice after being mesmerized by the sheer number of cyclists on the roads is the eclectic kinds of bikes, especially ones that carry groceries, baggage, furniture or other people & children.  As Copenhagenize's Mikael Colville-Andersen happily points out: for many in his city, the cargo bike is equivalent to the SUV.

"Streets"

Walking

Bicycling

Transit

Cars/Parking

Transportation financing/Government

Parks

Development projects

Out-of-state

National trends

  • Time To Accelerate Freeway Teardowns? (Citiwire.net)
  • Study: Cash For Clunkers Was A Wash (NPR)
  • America's Crumbling Roads and Bridges (CBS News)
  • President Obama Promotes $50 Billion in Transportation Investments, Again Emphasizes Rail (Transport Politic)
    • Editorial: Banking on infrastructure is good policy, election or not (Boston Globe)
    • Infrastructure Bank Proposal Would Spur Economic Growth (BROOKINGS)
    • The Infrastructure Bank Is A Triple Win (The New Republic)
  • The Power of Density (The Atlantic)
  • Report Finds Driving Down, Roads In Good Condition (Planetizen)
  • USDOT: Traffic fatalities fell to record-breaking lows in 2009 (BikePortland, USATODAY, AP)
  • Internalizing positive transit externalities (Market Urbanism)
  • USA Today on infrastructure spending: what do Americans want? (T4America)
  • Bicycle Friendly Communities Announced (LAB)
  • Does Driving to Work Make You Crazier Than Taking the Bus? A Clinical Trail (Infrastructurist)

International news