According to a YouGov survey, Americans believe that housing isn’t affordable, but they disagree on why. More than any other reason, people believe mortgage rates or the costs of building materials are culprits. I know from renovating spaces recently that labor costs are one of the big reasons things, at least here in the Bay
This week we’re Han Solo but we’re sharing news about fire departments and their impacts on cities, how Boston and Denver are considering putting housing together with other public services like libraries and police stations, and a bill that would allow transit agencies to get projects environmentally certified in state. And much much more!!! Below
This week we’re joined by Tony Jordan, President of the Parking Reform Network at the Mpact Transit + Community conference in Portland. We talk about getting rid of our cars, the arbitrary requirements for parking around the country, and Donald Shoup’s legacy. Listen to this episode at Streetsblog USA. Or catch this and all other
The City of Toronto has plans for 20km more bike lanes, pushing back on Premiere Ford’s wishes to rip them out to appease car drivers. To get around any prohibitions and limits, the city will reduce car lane widths in order to give bikes more space, technically within the mandate that the number of vehicle
This week on Mondays at The Overhead Wire we’re Han Solo, but we’ve got some interesting news from the world of transportation and urban planning to share. We talk briefly about tram trains, the NAVI electric vehicle program, Chicago’s big win, and much much more! Below the fold are the show notes with all the
This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re joined by Olivia Plotnick, Founder of Wai Social in Shanghai China. We discuss her summer trip to over 30 different Chinese cities to experience different retail, the impacts of high speed rail, and the social e-commerce ecosystem. We also discuss how competition has made Chinese retail sharper, electric
In a recent Eno Center for Transportation series on re-imagining USDOT, the items got me thinking about what a complete revamp might look like if we thought outside of the box on transportation. Early on in this newsletter’s history I was asked if I would ever just focus on transportation, and while tempting I ultimately
Something I think about a lot is how our transportation system actually interacts with natural systems. In his book Crossings, Ben Goldfarb shares the many ways that our obsession with road building blocks off animal movements and in some instances even reduces the gene pool for some. While he talks about creatures big and small, he
This week we’re joined by Cortni Desir, Executive Program Manager for Public Transportation at the Connecticut Department of Transportation at the Mpact transit + community conference in Portland. We discuss her international influences, upgrading bus stops, customer experience, homelessness and transit, and being curious. To listen to this episode, visit Streetsblog USA or find it
This video from the Flying Moose is from several months ago, but it’s the best explainer I’ve seen on Hong Kong’s rail + property model of developing the MTR subway network. What they are clear about is that you can’t just prop up this type of system overnight, it takes decades of planning and lessons
