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
Getting More Out of Transit By Making It Easy to Walk or Bike to Stations
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The DC region is working on a plan to get the most out of its transit infrastructure by making it easier and safer to walk or bike to subways and commuter rail. The region’s Transportation Planning Board recently conducted a big audit to figure out which stations have additional capacity, and what barriers prevent people […]
New Organization Sets Out to Raise the Standard for “Vision Zero” Cities
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Vision Zero — the idea that we should no longer accept traffic deaths and serious injuries — is gaining momentum as a framework for thinking about city streets and transportation, as more American cities adopt the goal of ending traffic fatalities. But what actually constitutes a Vision Zero policy? What are the best strategies to dramatically […]
Let Food Trucks Operate Anywhere, Just Get the Parking Prices Right
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Tension between food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants is common in cities. That’s because food truck businesses are naturally attracted to the same areas as restaurants: places with lots of pedestrian activity. In Providence, the city has responded to pressure from restaurant owners by asking food trucks to stay away from business districts. James Kennedy at […]
How Sprawl Worsens California’s Terrible Drought
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California is in the throes of a drought that Governor Jerry Brown called “unprecedented in recorded history.” There are many factors behind the severity of the state’s drought, and one of them is land use. In a prescient post from last year, Jon Mendelson at Network blog Stockton City Limits warned that California’s water crisis was likely to get […]
Is the Lord For or Against a Texas County Road Bond? Opinions Mixed
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Things are really getting heated in Montgomery County, Texas, just outside Houston, over a proposal to issue $350 million in bonds to maintain and expand roads. Like fire-and-brimstone heated. Earlier this week, at a county commissioners meeting, volunteer Mary Hammer Menzel referred to road bond opponents as “tools of satan” in her opening prayer, reports the Montgomery County Courier. […]
The Stakes Are High for Transit as Congress Dithers Over Transpo Funds
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“Stand up for transportation” rallies are happening right now all over the country, demanding Congress put an end to the uncertainty surrounding federal transportation funding. In Washington, some Republican lawmakers are pushing the opposite tack — an approach known as “devolution” that would create more uncertainty by basically wiping out the federal gas tax, leaving states to figure out […]
Seattle’s Making It Easier for Families With Kids to Ride the Bus
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Traveling on transit with a toddler is challenging enough. But transit agency policies can make the situation a lot worse. Until very recently, Seattle had the kind of rules that made “any long outing with a small child involving buses… suck,” according to Seattle Transit Blog‘s Matthew Johnson, a new father. King County Metro required parents transporting a […]
Camden’s Waterfront Abyss Wins the 2015 Golden Crater
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From the Texas Panhandle to the Bay Area, from the shores of the Detroit River to the Gulf Coast of Florida — America’s cities are a pockmarked mess, blighted by asphalt parking expanses you can practically see from space. Streetsblog readers submitted two dozen horrendous parking craters for consideration in this year’s Parking Madness tournament, and the editors picked 16 to […]
The Critical Difference Between 30 MPH and 20 MPH
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It might seem like a small thing: reducing motor vehicle speeds 10 miles per hour. But that 10 mph can make an enormous difference for the safety of a street and how comfortable people feel walking or biking there. Bill Lindeke does a great job explaining what he calls “the critical 10” in a recent post at Streets.mn: […]
Harvard Researcher Calls for Better Police Reporting of Bike Crashes
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Police departments need to improve the way they investigate, document, and convey information about crashes involving cyclists, according to a new study by Harvard public health researcher Anne Luskin in the Journal of Injury Prevention. While police reports are standardized to record relatively detailed information about car collisions, the same is not true of collisions involving bikes. Better police […]
The 2015 Parking Madness Championship! Camden vs. Parkersburg
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Welcome to the World Series of asphalt. The Super Bowl of lifeless city blocks. Today is the Parking Madness championship — the culmination of our 16-city tournament showcasing the worst parking craters to scar America’s downtowns. Are you excited? We are! Streetsblog readers have winnowed the field down to two of the finest examples of poor urban land […]
Why Are U.S. Transit Agencies Failing to Implement Modern Train Designs?
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Almost every urban rail system in America lacks a key design feature that’s become standard in cities around the globe: open gangways, which let people easily walk between cars, increasing capacity and leading to smoother operations. Yonah Freemark at the Transport Politic points out that even New York City’s extensive and crowded subway system won’t be including […]