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Study: Fewer Cars on the Street = Healthier Kids
Fewer cars means more walking and healthier kids. Image: jeweledlion via Flickr. Could reducing traffic near children’s homes help America combat its obesity epidemic? A new study conducted by UC Berkeley professor Michael Jerrett strongly suggests the answer is yes. Obesity rates are steadily increasing — more than one-fifth of New Yorkers are now obese, … Continued
February 5, 2010
With Congestion Pricing, Saving Time Trumps Reducing Pollution
A prime target of the early environmental movement was car tailpipes. And for good reason. Put a human in a garage with a running auto in the old days, and he or she would pass out within minutes and be dead in an hour. Run a few million vehicles daily in New York or Los Angeles, and the toxic air would kill thousands each year and sicken many more.
January 6, 2010
Report: Tame Traffic, and More People Will Choose to Walk and Bike
It may seem obvious that speeding traffic discourages walking and biking. But the evidence is scarce and scattered. A new paper by Peter Jacobsen, Francesca Racioppi and Harry Rutter aims to improve the understanding of how traffic affects cyclist and pedestrian behavior by collecting the existing research in one place.
January 5, 2010
Bush DOT Chief Backs Transport Tech Funding
Former Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who served for eight years in George W. Bush's DOT, sat down with Streetsblog Capitol Hill this week to urge that Congress add a dedicated funding stream of $1 billion each year for transportation technology to the next long-term infrastructure bill.
October 9, 2009
How Much Would Most People Pay For a Shorter Commute?
As Washington conventional wisdom has it, raising gas taxes or creating a vehicle miles traveled tax to pay for transportation is impossible during the current recession. After all, who would want to squeeze cash-strapped commuters during tough economic times?
September 10, 2009
Time-Polluting Daily News Honcho Goes Public
In Utah, they flip off forest rangers and wheel their ATV’s onto delicate wilderness trails. In the Virginia exurbs they lounge in air-conditioned trophy homes and write checks to stop carbon taxes. Here in NYC, they find their “Network” moment in a 25-cent bump in MTA bridge tolls, then ferret out toll-free routes into Manhattan and crow about them in the Daily News.
August 18, 2009
Streetfilms: Carmaggeddon Averted as Broadway Comes to Life
When New York City opened up new pedestrian zones in the heart of Midtown this summer, naysayers predicted a traffic nightmare. Nearly two months later, we're still waiting for the much-feared Carmaggedon.
July 20, 2009
Congestion Study Sparks Clever Headlines, But Little Transit Talk
The latest edition of the Texas Transportation Institute's influential urban mobility report was released yesterday, prompting a flurry of media coverage focused largely on a faux-ironic theme that would do Alanis Morrissette proud -- the bad economy is giving us less traffic!
July 9, 2009
New Report on Roads Uses Old Assumptions
A new report on the costs of aging roads [PDF] has gotten a lot of attention over the past week, with both Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the Washington Post touting its conclusion on the danger of "deficient roadways."
July 6, 2009