Smart Growth Around America

The report featured in last Thursday’s Washington Post (“Highway Conditions Contribute to Over Half of Fatal Auto Crashes”) got it half right: highway design does affect safety. But the argument that road and bridge widening is a cure for fatalities is wrong. That recommendation could have been written in 1959, and has been refuted on the ground in projects around the country.

Tweet Freiburg-im-Brisgau – Quartier Vauban : commerces et immeuble Originally uploaded by adeupa de Brest A walkable, car-free street in the upscale suburb of Vauban, Germany. The community has easy rail access into Freiburg. With thrift the latest necessity in today’s economic struggles, people are not only trimming the fat from their budgets — they’re [...]

Tweet There is a fascinating story on the cover of this month’s Wired Magazine about Shai Aggasi and Better Place, Inc., and his out-of-this-world plan to turn the car industry as we know it on its head. His plan is essentially to replace the car as the primary commodity being sold by automakers, and turn [...]

Tweet You may have seen oilman T. Boone Pickens around lately. If not, then you haven’t turned on your television, radio, or opened a newspaper in the last few weeks. He’s been touting his new Pickens Plan nonstop to nearly any outlet that will listen, taking out full-page ads in newspapers from coast to coast [...]

Tweet We noticed this new report from the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, entitled “Primer on Transportation and Climate Change.” (H/T to David Crossley of the Gulf Coast Institute.) In it, they say some really terrific things about facing up to the realities of climate change while acknowledging we have to change our [...]

Tweet High gas prices are squeezing the housing market on the fringes of metro regions. It can be scary to turn on CNBC or CNNMoney these days. Watch for just a minute or two, and you’re likely to hear that not only is the housing market in trouble, but we might not be able to [...]

Tweet There’s a commercial airing frequently for a Dodge minivan these days. Maybe you’ve seen it: An unhappy family sits around their very nice home, all doing their best to ignore each other. The cynical teenage daughter is on the phone, asking her friend, “Did you see what she was wearing? Eww!” The youngest boy [...]