Cities and Countries

Toronto is facing a critical decision about the aging elevated Gardiner East Expressway. Will Canada's largest city go ahead with the plan to replace the one-mile-long concrete relic with a surface boulevard and walkable development? Or will it cling to yesterday's infrastructure?

In 2009, Vancouver converted a southbound car lane on the west side of the Burrard Bridge to a protected bikeway using concrete dividers, freeing up the sidewalk for pedestrians. On the east side, the city converted the existing sidewalk into a bike path.

London is surging ahead with big plans for protected bikeways that span the city. By comparison, New York's bike plans, while moving forward incrementally, feel piecemeal. Has safe cycling infrastructure become an afterthought in the city's Vision Zero program?

This month, Boston is demolishing a monument to 1950s-era car infrastructure: The Casey Overpass, a short elevated road built in 1955 to whisk drivers over the Forest Hills MBTA station in Jamaica Plain without encountering any pesky things like intersections or pedestrians.

Los Angeles, with its expanding transit network, is supposed to be in the process of shedding its cocoon of car-centricity and emerging, in the words of a recent Fast Company headline, as America's "next great walkable city." The city's streets, however, didn't change a whole lot under former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. When Eric Garcetti was elected mayor in 2013, advocates thought he could provide the leadership to finally prioritize walking, biking, and transit on LA's streets.

A coalition of Dallas residents trying to build a more walkable, people-friendly city gained some momentum in Tuesday's election, picking up at least two City Council seats. At stake is the potential replacement of a downtown highway segment with mixed-use development and parks. The balance of power in the council now comes down to a June runoff.

Of U.S. cities with more than a million residents, the one where people bike the most is Philadelphia. In 2012, the U.S. Census estimated Philadelphia’s bicycle commute rate at 2.3 percent [PDF], higher than Chicago (1.6 percent) and New York (1.0 percent).

Cross-posted from the Safe Routes to School National Partnership

Salt Lake City is on track to implement America's first protected intersection for bicycling this summer.