Angie Schmitt
Angie is a Cleveland-based writer with a background in planning and newspaper reporting. She has been writing about cities for Streetsblog for six years.
Recent Posts
Not Just a Phase: Young Americans Won’t Start Motoring Like Their Parents
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A raft of recent research indicates that young adults just aren’t as into driving as their parents were. Young people today are walking, biking, and riding transit more while driving less than previous generations did at the same age. But the vast majority of state DOTs have been loathe to respond by changing their highway-centric ways. A […]
Portland Shows How to Get More Bang for Your Traffic Safety Buck
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State DOTs like to justify hugely expensive highway-widening projects, like Milwaukee’s $1.7 billion Zoo Interchange, partly on the grounds of safety. But if we really want to get a big bang for our transportation safety buck, fixing city streets makes a lot more sense. Michael Andersen at Bike Portland reports that three local road diets completed […]
After Traffic Count Drops Off a Cliff, Albuquerque Rushes to Widen Road
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Given limited budget resources and competing demands, what makes some transportation projects rise to the top of a city’s wish list? Dan Majewski at Urban ABQ says that in his hometown of Albuquerque, there doesn’t seem to be much sense to it. For example, one of the projects in line for funding locally is the $7 million […]
U.S. DOT Releases New Guidance to Make Streets Safe for Cycling
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Last month in Pittsburgh, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx unveiled a new federal initiative aimed at reducing pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. Despite declining overall traffic fatalities, people walking and biking are being killed more often on American streets, a disturbing trend that U.S. DOT wants to reverse. Now we’re beginning to see what the feds have in […]
Ad Nauseam: Use Any App You Want While Driving — Because Safety!
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Here’s the latest in wishful thinking about distracted driving. A new application called “Drivemode” wants to make it easier for you to use all your mobile apps while you’re behind the wheel — but don’t worry it’s safe! Because, at least theoretically, you don’t actually have to look at your phone. That’s the marketing message […]
Progress on Parking Reform Could Make DC More Walkable and Affordable
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A few key changes to the DC zoning code could help make housing more affordable, streets more walkable, transit more convenient, and healthy foods more accessible. Years of debate and delay have watered down the reforms somewhat, but they still represent substantial progress. And now it looks like they will pass. Cheryl Cort of the Coalition […]
How the Lure of “Free Money” Leads to Highway Boondoggles
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Why do transportation agencies spend so much money building new highways while letting their existing roads and bridges fall apart? Jason Segedy, the head of Akron’s metropolitan planning agency (AMATS), shared a few thoughts on that question at his blog Notes from the Underground. A big problem, he says, is that regional and state agencies […]
Suburbs in the Twin Cities Feel Persecuted — Here’s Why They’re Not
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Suburban leaders in the Twin Cities region are angry. They believe too much money is being spent on transit in the city and not enough is being spent on highways in the region’s outer reaches. Political leaders from the five outlying suburban counties recently laid out these concerns for regional planners in what Twin City Sidewalks blogger […]
The 10 Best and Worst Cities to Catch a Bus to Work
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It’s been called “the geography of opportunity.” And David Levinson is trying to make a science of it. In a new analysis, Levinson, a University of Minnesota transportation engineering professor, and his colleague Andrew Owen have ranked the 50 largest U.S. metro areas based on job accessibility by transit [PDF]. Levinson and Owen used transit schedules and walking […]
St. Paul Sets Out to Make Streets Safer for Young and Old
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Now here’s a public works concept that holds a lot of promise. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman has proposed a $42 million “8-80 Vitality Fund,” the goal of which is to make local streets safe places for physical activity for people of all ages and abilities, whether they’re 8 years old or 80. Anne White at […]
Will Politicians Fund America’s Most Important Transit Project?
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Last week, Amtrak announced that because of damage suffered during Hurricane Sandy, its infrastructure connecting New Jersey and New York City below the Hudson River will have to be repaired. Each of its two tubes will have to be closed, in turn, for a year or more, which would reduce capacity by around 75 percent on […]
Shhh! $1.5 Billion Dallas Freeway Won’t Actually Reduce Gridlock
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There’s been a heated debate in Dallas the last few years about whether to build the $1.5 billion Trinity Parkway. While some early backers now oppose the project, key supporters like Mayor Mike Rawlings and North Central Texas Council of Governments transportation director Michael Morris have insisted that the road is absolutely necessary to prevent a complete […]