Designing roads for low-speed vehicles like golf carts can make getting around safer and easier for seniors.

There is much for urbanists to critique about Florida's master-planned community the Villages–currently "the fastest-growing metropolitan statistical area in the country." But one thing the Imagineer-designed retirement community got right, argues Alissa Walker, is their enthusiastic support of golf carts as a transportation mode.
"Those golf carts, in fact, make a lot of urban-transportation planners salivate. By some estimates, one-third of all trips in the Villages are taken in them. They run on electricity, or on a little bit of non-ethanol gasoline (dispensed from old-timey pumps, even). They are lightweight and barely pollute. They’re not supposed to go faster than 20 mph, and they don’t kill many people the way cars do (although it does happen)."
Not that the Villages is any kind of car-free utopia. Ryan Erisman, author of Inside the Bubble: The Complete Guide to Florida’s Most Popular Community, says "[m]ost people still have cars" which they use for any trips outside the immediate neighborhood. Meanwhile, the Villages has no public transit to speak of. "Of course we should be working, in general, to put everything closer together so nobody has to get behind the wheel at the age of 95 — or 55, for that matter." But the concept of actively designing for golf carts or other slow-speed vehicles could go a long way toward making cities more friendly to seniors and the general population.
FULL STORY: There's One Thing We Can Learn From the Villages Success

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Half of Post-Fire Altadena Home Sales Were to Corporations
Large investors are quietly buying up dozens of properties in Altadena, California, where a devastating wildfire destroyed more than 6,000 homes in January.

Opinion: What San Francisco’s Proposed ‘Family Zoning’ Could Really Mean
Mayor Lurie is using ‘family zoning’ to encourage denser development and upzoning — but could the concept actually foster community and more human-scale public spaces?

Jacksonville Launches First Autonomous Transit Shuttle in US
A fleet of 14 fully autonomous vehicles will serve a 3.5-mile downtown Jacksonville route with 12 stops.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Gallatin County Department of Planning & Community Development
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
JM Goldson LLC
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Jefferson Parish Government
Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Claremont