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 Grassroots Triumph Over a Ruinous Highway Plan for Charleston
| | No Comments
Highway opponents in Charleston, South Carolina, “beat Goliath.” That’s how the Post and Courier described the finale of a long grassroots campaign to stop the extension of I-526 into Johns Island and James Island. Local officials made it official earlier this month: There will be no highway through the historic island communities outside Charleston. They conceded as much after learning the […]
Blaming Jaywalkers and Drunk Pedestrians Lets the Real Culprits Off the Hook
| | No Comments
New Mexico was recently named the deadliest state for walking by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Something’s got to change, but what? Well, the Albuquerque Journal ran a front page article blaming the state’s terrible safety record mostly on “jaywalking” and “drunk pedestrians.” Khal Spencer at Network blog Los Alamos Bikes responds: It’s as if the Journal […]
Eyes on the Street: London “Cycle Superhighway” Teems With Bike Traffic
| | No Comments
Good Morning, London. This is what London’s Blackfriars Bridge looks like #cyclesuperhighwaypic.twitter.com/byAMWq1QLz — Sustrans London (@SustransLondon) May 17, 2016 In case you’re looking for a good visual to show how bike lanes can be extremely efficient transportation infrastructure, check out this short video from the UK-based advocacy group Sustrans. It shows rush hour on the Blackfriars Bridge […]
Bike-Share Systems Test Out Cheaper, Single-Trip Fares
| | No Comments
A new payment option rolled out by Capital Bikeshare in DC last week makes it easier to grab a bike if you just want to make a single trip. The pilot program offers a base fare of $2 to check out a bike, with additional fees after the first 30 minutes. Previously, you would have had to commit to at least […]
Americans Can’t Afford the High Cost of Parking Requirements
| | No Comments
Building a single parking spot can easily cost more than many Americans’ life savings. In the latest issue of Access Magazine, retired UCLA economist Donald Shoup brings this point home to illustrate the huge financial burden imposed by minimum parking requirements, especially for poor households. The average construction cost of structured parking, across 12 American cities, is $24,000 for an above-ground […]
Finding the Political Will to Fix “Four-Lane Death Roads”
| | No Comments
A driver struck and killed a woman last week in St. Paul on what Bill Lindeke at Streets.mn calls a “four-lane death road.” The victim was 32-year-old Erin Elizabeth Dunham, who was dropping her kid off at the bus. She was walking in the crosswalk on Maryland Avenue, a four-lane, high-speed road running through an urban area. Local officials know Maryland […]
Will U.S. DOT Get Serious About Climate Change? Here’s Cause for Optimism.
| | No Comments
Last fall, national environmental advocates sat down with officials from U.S. DOT to talk about how federal transportation policy can address climate change. There is wild variation between state transportation departments when it comes to green transportation policy. Some of the more sophisticated agencies, like California’s and Oregon’s, are starting to factor greenhouse gas emissions into their transportation plans. Most […]
When “Trends Suck,” Don’t Make Transportation Plans That Follow the Trend
| | No Comments
Sometimes the worst transportation plan is having no plan at all, and northeast Ohio could be the poster child for what goes wrong when regions aren’t intentional about investments in transportation infrastructure. While the regional planning organization, NOACA, always had a long-term plan, it was little more than a list of projects without any overarching vision. The agency may never have explicitly intended […]
Why Helmets Aren’t the Answer to Bike Safety — In One Chart
| | No Comments
Better street design and getting more people on bikes — not blind faith in helmets — are the keys to making cycling safer, recent research has shown. Want a good visual to get the point across? The Toole Design Group made this for you. Of these countries, the U.S. has the highest rate of helmet usage among cyclists — around […]
A New Partnership to Help Cities Make Smart Transportation Tech Decisions
| | No Comments
There’s a rush in cities to apply new transportation technologies like ride-sharing apps and real-time transit data, as exemplified by U.S. DOT’s $50 million “Smart City Challenge,” which is currently down to seven finalists. Public and private entities in Columbus, for example, recently pledged $90 million to help advance the city’s bid to U.S. DOT. But are cities well-equipped to navigate […]
State DOT Engineers Say They’ll Do Better on Walking, Biking, Transit
| | No Comments
In a welcome sign from an industry group that has been slow to embrace street designs that prioritize walking, biking, and transit, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) released a statement last week saying it intends to “better address multi-modal issues.” AASHTO’s street design manuals are highly influential and lay out standards that many engineers […]
More Urban Developers Question the Wisdom of Building Parking
| | No Comments
A San Francisco developer made headlines a few weeks ago when it offered tenants $100 a month toward Uber and BART in an attempt to reduce the usage of on-site parking. Brandon G. Donnelly at Network blog Architect this City says this type of arrangement will be increasingly common in cities where building parking attached to housing makes less and less sense: When I was […]