Cities and Countries

Across London, 20 mph zones combine a lower speed limit with physical street engineering and camera enforcement to create pockets of safety across the city. According to the British Medical Journal, serious traffic injuries and fatalities have fallen by 46 percent within the zones; 27 fewer Londoners are killed or seriously injured each year because of the zones. Now, street safety advocates are looking to join those neighborhood-sized zones with signage-only 20 mph speed limits on connecting streets.

Three years ago Streetfilms brought you a comprehensive look at Bogotá, Colombia's TransMilenio, the world's most advanced Bus Rapid Transit system. TransMilenio changed the way Bogotá residents think about public transportation, becoming indispensable to the 1.7 million people who use the system daily. If anything, the bus network became a victim of its own success, handling more passengers and crowding than its planners anticipated. Today, ten years after TransMilenio launched, we revisit this groundbreaking transit system and examine how it must improve as it matures.

Adding to an impressive slate of cyclist and pedestrian improvements, Hoboken plans to stripe 10 additional miles of Class II bike lanes, toward a bike network that will cover close to 80 percent of the city's streets.

Last week Streetsblog LA talked with UCLA Professor and parking guru Donald Shoup about ExpressPark, the new parking pricing system coming to downtown Los Angeles.

In 2007, in order to route cyclists away from a challenging 7-lane crossing on busy Hiawatha Avenue, Minneapolis built the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge.

For the last two days, transit experts from around the country have been hunkered down in Detroit to devote their collective expertise to making the Motor City a better city for transit.

Few groups speak more loudly in debates over the reallocation of street space than local businesses. In New York, there are merchants who vocally favor a better environment for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit, but all it takes are a few firm believers in easy car access to dictate the terms of the public debate. Case in point: In 2009, merchants in Greenwich Village and along Grand Street were able to get mayoral candidate Bill Thompson on the record against bike lanes.

Since 1998, Bogotá, Colombia has built more than 300 kilometers of protected bikeways. Streetfilms recently had the chance to explore the city's bike network with the man responsible for building it, former mayor Enrique Peñalosa.