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
The 4 Biggest Sins Committed By Reporters Covering Pedestrian Deaths
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Each year, motorists on American streets kill nearly 5,000 pedestrians. The loss of life is enormous — equivalent to 12 jumbo jets crashing with no survivors — but the steady drumbeat of pedestrian fatalities doesn’t register as an urgent public safety crisis. Maybe it would seem more urgent if the press covered pedestrian deaths as the preventable […]
When Commuter Rail Has the Potential to Be Something More
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American commuter rail lines tend not to draw many riders. That’s what happens when service is limited and the line is set up to shuttle suburban park-and-ride commuters to an urban center in the morning and back home in the evening. But there’s a lot of untapped potential in commuter rail lines. A new report from the Transportation Research Board examines how railways like Cleveland’s Blue […]
LA County Bike Coalition’s Tamika Butler on Planning While Black
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Too often, says Tamika Butler, the people responsible for planning cities don’t look like the people who live in cities. In her keynote address from this week’s NACTO Designing Cities conference, she considers some of the ramifications. Butler is executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and a national leader in the field of active transportation and racial justice. Her talk begins […]
It’s Not Good Transit If the Streets Nearby Aren’t Good for Walking
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All transit stops aren’t created equal. The street environment around the station — especially safe, convenient pedestrian access — has a major influence on how people use transit. Edward Russell at Greater Greater Washington compares two stops that offer very different walking environments — one in San Diego and one in Washington: The 1.1-mile walk from the Grossmont Trolley station […]
Portland Cracks Down on an Old Urban Scourge: Drive-Throughs
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Drive-through services at restaurants and stores can be a real headache for pedestrians. They generally require multiple curb cuts across the sidewalk and generate a lot of conflicts with motor vehicles. Many chains also forbid people without cars from using the drive-through windows, citing liability concerns. Now Portland is tackling both of those issues in a new […]
Adieu, Cars: Paris Riverfront to Be Permanently Returned to the People
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After years of experimentation, the Paris City Council this week committed to the permanent conversion of two miles of the Georges Pompidou expressway along the River Seine into a waterfront park. The 1960s expressway carried two lanes of traffic and about 43,000 vehicles a day along the Right Bank of the river. But beginning in 2011, the highway […]
Why Are American Traffic Fatalities Rising So Quickly?
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Summer is barely over but this much is already clear: Traffic safety on American streets is taking a big step backward in 2016. During the first five months of the year, traffic deaths rose 9 percent over 2015 levels, reports Bill Holloway at the State Smart Transportation Campaign. It’s even worse if you compare to 2014 — traffic deaths have increased […]
Seattle City Council Approves 20 MPH Speed Limit on Residential Streets
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20 is plenty for Seattle. The City Council voted unanimously yesterday to lower speed limits on residential streets to 20 miles per hour. On all other streets, the default speed limit will be 25 mph, though speed limits may vary on major roadways. The change is part of the city’s Vision Zero effort, aimed at eliminating […]
City Streets in State Officials’ Hands Can Be a Recipe for Disaster
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Cities shouldn’t have to fight with state departments of transportation to ensure streets are safe for their residents. But too often that’s exactly the case, and when cities lose, the result can be deadly. A tragic story from Pittsburgh illustrates the problem. Just a week after Pennsylvania DOT debuted a car-centric redesign of iconic Carson Street, a […]
White House: Make Cities Affordable By Building for Walkability, Not Parking
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The Obama administration is taking on the crisis of rising rents in American cities, releasing a series of recommendations today to spur the construction of more affordable housing. Among the many ideas the White House endorses: allowing more multi-family housing near transit and getting rid of parking minimums. Since 1960, the share of renters paying more […]
More Evidence That Speed Cameras Work
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The evidence is clear: Speed cameras save lives. Here’s the latest success story — an update from Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland on the city’s first speed camera, which was installed on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway last month: Here are some facts about the BHH camera released by PBOT today: Before the cameras were installed, an average 1,417 vehicles a day […]
Why a Struggling Industrial City Decided Bikes Are the Way Forward
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Reading, Pennsylvania, isn’t your stereotypical biking mecca. It’s a low-income, largely Latino, post-industrial city of almost 90,000 people. But without much of anything in the way of bike infrastructure, Reading has the third-highest rate of bike commuting in Pennsylvania and is among the top 15 cities on the East Coast. Some civic leaders in Reading have seized on the […]