Cities and Countries

In 2008 Mick Cornett, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City -- ranked as one of the fattest cities in the country -- stood in front of the elephants at the zoo and announced he was going on a diet, and taking the rest of the city with him. Oklahoma City lost a million pounds, 37 of which were his.

Like a lot of cities, Seattle has seen a much-hyped "bikelash" against efforts to make the city safer for cycling. But it turns out that this bikelash might be just that: hype.

As planning advances for Chicago's first full-fledged Bus Rapid Transit routes, public officials and advocates are starting to make the case that new, high-quality bus service is about more than getting people from point A to point B quickly and reliably. Those mobility benefits will be significant, but if BRT succeeds at improving transit trips for Chicagoans, it can also bring about a range of other benefits, spurring development and adding new housing choices where people can live without the financial burden of car ownership.

The idea of removing the northern section of Highway 280 near Mission Bay in San Francisco is gaining more traction as planners look for ideal ways to usher in high-speed rail and transit-oriented development in the city's core.

Here's a transportation funding idea that aligns incentives nicely: taxing parking lots to pay for transit.

When it comes to urban transportation policy, Americans often look longingly across the Atlantic. Paris pioneered big-city bike-sharing, London showed New York that congestion pricing works, and Sweden set the goal of eliminating traffic deaths. But here's a case where New York is leading a peer city overseas.

On Friday, state legislators in the Michigan House of Representatives made a momentous decision to approve a regional transit system for metro Detroit.

Via BikeBlogNYC, the Miami Bike Scene recently posted this post-game clip of Dwyane Wade in which the All-Star Heat guard shares his fondness for going on bike rides with thousands of other people. On Friday, it seems, Wade and teammates LeBron James and Mario Chalmers warmed up for the next day's match against the Brooklyn Nets by going on a 20-mile Critical Mass jaunt through the streets of Miami.

This morning, as lawmakers inside the Michigan statehouse heard testimony on the creation of a regional transit system for greater Detroit, supporters held a musical demonstration outside, singing "Ain't no mountain high enough to keep us from getting a regional transit authority." The singers, who hailed from the city proper and its suburbs, are hoping the divided metropolitan region can finally enact the transit unity that has long eluded it.