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
Protected Bike Lanes Could Be Coming to Detroit’s Main Drag
| | No Comments
Surely and steadily, biking is on the upswing in Detroit. Thousands of people turn out for “Slow Roll” social rides, a cultural event that exposes more people to the possibilities of cycling in the city. And the city has been adding bike lanes at an impressive clip. David Sands at Network blog We are Mode Shift reports that Detroit may get a new feather […]
Parking Madness Elite Eight: Washington vs. Federal Way
| | No Comments
The parking crater pretenders are gone and the competition is heating up as we enter the second round of Streetsblog’s fourth annual Parking Madness tournament. Eight echoing voids remain in the running for the Golden Crater. Today’s match features two very intense but very different parking disasters. Let’s dig in. Federal Way This is Federal Way, Washington, a city of about 90,000 residents between Seattle […]
If You’re Requiring Parking by Transit Stations, You’re Doing It Wrong
| | No Comments
The city of Waterloo, Ontario, is in the process of building a new 12-mile light rail line called Ion Rapid Transit. Now the most pressing question is how to make it a success. Mike Boos at TriTag says the transit line should have no trouble meeting ridership forecasts, with bus routes along the corridor already carrying nearly as many passengers as initially […]
Parking Madness: Louisville vs. Troy
| | No Comments
So far Streetsblog readers have voted on seven head-to-head matchups in our 2016 Parking Madness tournament. Soon we’ll be down to the Elite Eight of parking craters. (You can still vote in the Long Beach vs. Muncie poll, which we’re extending to account for the holiday weekend in California.) But first, there’s one more pair of asphalt horrors in the running […]
How Long Will Dallas Take to Make a Better Bus Network?
| | No Comments
A lot of cities and transit agencies have been inspired by Houston’s recent effort to overhaul its bus network with a grid of high-frequency routes. One of those cities is its neighbor to the north, Dallas. According to Brandon Formby at the Dallas Morning News’ Transportation Blog, DART is planning to redesign its bus network, with many of the same goals: transforming from […]
Parking Madness: Long Beach vs. Muncie
| | No Comments
We’re approaching the end of the first round of Parking Madness, and boy, have we seen some catastrophic damage. After today, there are two more parking craters to reveal in this year’s bracket. In our last matchup, parking-cratered downtown Wilkes-Barre bested shopping mall parking lots in the northeast Bronx. Today, a coastal California parking crater goes up […]
Parking Madness: New York City vs. Wilkes-Barre
| | No Comments
If there’s one thing to take away from Parking Madness, it’s that surface parking disasters have struck cities great and small, victimizing boomtowns and economically struggling places alike. Nowhere is immune. Yesterday the parking lots around the Cotton Bowl propelled Dallas over the downtown Duluth waterfront. Today we have a David vs. Goliath pairing with Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, taking on New […]
True Story: Buying Transit Passes Is Cheaper Than Building Garages
| | No Comments
Downtown Columbus, Ohio, is facing a parking crunch. But parking prices aren’t high enough in this city to make garage construction a viable private investment. Faced with this situation, a lot of cities would pour a bunch of money into a big subsidized garage or two. But in Columbus, several officials have hit on a smarter idea: providing […]
Parking Madness: Dallas vs. Duluth
| | No Comments
Had enough of ugly parking craters? Too bad! We’re barely halfway through the first round of Parking Madness. As such, Streetsblog will continue to assault your eyes with a surface parking horror show for days on end. Yesterday, the moonscape of downtown Niagara Falls annihilated a quaint-by-comparison crater in Ann Arbor. Today, perennial contender The Big D […]
The Meaning of Rob Ford
| | No Comments
Former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford died yesterday at the age of 46. He had been battling cancer. Ford was a high-profile, polarizing figure who built a political career playing off tensions between the urbanizing central city and Toronto’s working-class outer neighborhoods. Most famous to Streetsblog readers was Ford’s almost comical hatred of bike lanes. “Cyclists are a pain in […]
Parking Madness: Niagara Falls vs. Ann Arbor
| | No Comments
We’ve seen some tough competition in the first round of the 2016 Parking Madness tournament. Yesterday, the parking lots of Federal Way, Washington, knocked out the parking lots around Montreal’s central rail station to advance. Today’s matchup looks fierce, with a crater in the tourist destination downtown of Niagara Falls, New York, facing off against a crater in the university town of Ann Arbor, […]
Retired Fire Chief: Make American Firetrucks Fit City Streets, Not Vice Versa
| | No Comments
It’s a sad irony that fire departments, while essential to public safety, are often a major obstacle to safer streets in American cities. When cities try to redesign streets to reduce traffic injuries and get drivers to travel at safer speeds, the local fire department often steps in to prevent changes that it believes will hinder the movement of its enormous trucks. Fire departments […]