The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Back in September, we reported that the trust fund had to receive an $8 billion bailout. Reuters reports that a second bailout is required to prevent the fund from going broke by August. Sen. Boxer indicates she supports indexing the gas tax.

June 4 - Reuters

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> Once again, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) delightfully surprises the design community with another major leap forward in making city streets a public realm for all users (I can’t tell you how odd it still feels to write that).  As if the impressive, incessant roll-out of bike lanes, successful implementation of the “Select Bus Service”, and the unprecedented changes to Times Square and its environs weren’t enough to pique the imaginations of New Yorkers used to streets built for cars, NYCDOT has just issued their “<a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/streetdesignmanual.shtml">2009 Street Design Manual</a>”.  Planners and Engineers, get ready for a thrill! </p>

June 3 - Ian Sacs

Is congestion pricing unfair to poor people? Rand has released an Environmental Defense Fund-sponsored report, "Equity and Congestion Pricing" that attempts to answer this question and report on other equity-related aspects of congestion pricing.

June 3 - Environmental Defense Fund - Press Release

BLOG POST

<p> <span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Calibri">Automobile industry subsidies are an inefficient way to support economic development. Even worse, policies intended to support automobile manufacturers and recover loans can be economically harmful.</span></span></span><span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Calibri"> </span></span> </p>

June 3 - Todd Litman

A tour examining 'the future of work' looks at several 'coworking communities' around Manhattan, where freelancers and small businesses have pooled resources into one location.

June 3 - Urban Omnibus

Barry Diller, IAC, and his wife, Diane Von Furstenburg, a well-known fashion designer, have donated $10 million to the Friends of the High Line, which is a non-profit group that manages the project.

June 3 - THE DIRT

Transit advocates may be louder than highway backers for the first time in discussions about the next authorization bill, but highway supporters warn less highway funding means less gasoline taxes.

June 3 - Congressional Quarterly Today

Ryan Avent at Streetsblog calls Randal O'Toole's anti-transit arguments "transparently foolish."

June 3 - Streetsblog

With a budget proposal that threatens to close 80 percent of California state parks on the table, Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, explains how the state's budget crisis left the SMMC "dead in the water."

June 3 - The Planning Report

The U.S. Census Bureau is putting marketing messages in soaps and fortune cookies in foreign languages in an attempt to improve the number of participants.

June 3 - USA Today

LEGO and the Wright Foundation have launched two new sets to honor the architect's centennial.

June 3 - The Architect's Newspaper

Los Angeles released the first piece of its Bike Master Plan and received a variety of reactions.

June 3 - la.streetsblog.org

Alex Marshall takes a look at Spain's recent record of proactive transportation planning, connecting cities to direct development rather than to connect already successful areas.

June 3 - Governing Magazine

The False Creek Shoreline in northeast Vancouver has been slated for decades for significant commercial development. Today, planners proposed taking the area in a new direction.

June 2 - The Vancouver Sun

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is the latest to get behind the idea that painting roofs and buildings white can help counter global warming.

June 2 - The Times Online

LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) announced on May 19 that it was laying off Brooke Hodge, its curator of architecture and design.

June 2 - The Architect's Newspaper

Consumers in India, Brazil, and China scored the highest (and those in the U.S. the lowest) in a survey conducted by National Geographic and Globescan for green behavior.

June 2 - THE DIRT

A new contest challenges planning professionals and ordinary people to submit their solutions for improving congestion in the United States.

June 2 - SF.STREETSBLOG.org

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman"> <p> I’ve read some airport-related planning literature about the interiors of airports and about their public transit connections. (For a good example of the latter, see <a href="/node/34842"><u><span style="color: #0000ff">http://www.planetizen.com/node/34842</span></u></a> ) But one other difference between airports relates to their exteriors: the difference between walkable airports and not-so-walkable airports. </p>

June 2 - Michael Lewyn

Professor David Godschalk, City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill, discussed the need to initiate 'positive development' strategies in cities during a National Building Museum symposium.

June 2 - THE DIRT