The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

After a two day hearing late last week, the Richmond Planning Commission approved a contentious $1 billion plan to expand a Chevron refinery located in the city. The plan still requires city council approval.

July 14 - San Francisco Chronicle

An editorial calls for a comprehensive plan to address Dallas' growing need to overhaul its streetlights—80 percent of which are now older than their recommended 25-year life span.

July 14 - Dallas News

Like cities in the United States—most notably, New York City—London is working to improve walkability while reducing pedestrian fatalities. The policy that will direct London in these efforts, the Pedestrian Safety Action Plan, is still taking shape.

July 14 - Living Streets

A new study finds that economic inequality is a national problem, evidenced by the access of college educated residents to quality of life indicators in cities all over the country—not just San Francisco, New York, and Boston.

July 14 - The Washington Post - Wonkblog

Dynamic pricing is not the only route to increasing parking availability. Better management of disabled placards at metered spaces may be an easier and more effective strategy. Implemented on July 1, Portland's policy is showing dramatic results.

July 14 - AP (via KATU.Com)

BLOG POST

New research can help planners understand how specific decisions will affect transport activity (how and how much people travel), and their ultimate economic, social, and environmental impacts.

July 14 - Todd Litman

In another example of Los Angeles slowly unraveling itself from prior legislation that hinder its transit goals, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will allow light rail construction in the San Fernando Valley.

July 13 - Los Angeles Times

A clash between transportation planning mentalities is playing out in Milwaukee over a proposed highway expansion—on one side the car-centric concerns of the state; on the other, the placemaking concerns of the city.

July 13 - Streetsblog USA

The U.S. Conference of Mayors signed a voluntary agreement to reduce carbon emissions in their respective cities, as they did ten years ago, but dropped the provision that they lobby Congress to pass a cap and trade bill to reduce emissions.

July 13 - Governing

Palo Alto, one of the suburban cities at the center of the Silicon Valley tech boom, is considering a Comprehensive Plan Update. On the table for the Planning and Transportation Commission: a "net-zero" restriction for new vehicle trips.

July 13 - Palo Alto Weekly

The ugly story of the fence between a public housing community called New Haven and the nearby "middle class" community of Hamden, Connecticut will soon be over, but not because Hamden suddenly gained enlightenment.

July 13 - New York Times

Writing for Woodhouse, Mike Clay leads a worldwide tour of the most innovative bike parking technologies and facilities.

July 12 - Woodhouse

Joe Eaton reports from Bainville, Montana, which is suffering the effects of the Bakken oil boom, although the majority of the Bakken wells, and its corresponding tax revenue, are in North Dakota.

July 12 - National Geographic

Angie Schmitt covers Bike Portland's article on store owners teaming up to bring road diet as a means to improve business.

July 12 - Bike Portland

Patch bills advanced in the Senate and the House on Thursday that would keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent through May 2015—good news for state DOTs that will see reduced federal reimbursements on August 1 unless a funding bill is passed soon.

July 12 - Politico Morning Transportation

Payton Chung summarizes a new report from the Transportation Research Board that reveals the indicators of successful transit projects.

July 12 - Streetsblog USA

Northern California is no stranger to debates about redevelopment, displacement, and the proper mix of affordable and market-rate housing—but this time the setting for these stories is in the state capital of Sacramento.

July 11 - Next City

Robert Puentes and Bruce Katz call for expanded partnerships to build the infrastructure of the future. These new partnerships will require customization by sector and the development of new models for revenue and risk sharing.

July 11 - ReNew Canada

A new book called 'Blue Urbanism: Exploring Connections between Cities and Oceans,' by Timothy Beatley, argues that cities must expand their understanding of urbanism to include their impacts on the oceans.

July 11 - ASLA The Dirt

Tubers and tourists had their right to litter protected by a district judge in Texas. What they got as a result was…a lot more litter.

July 11 - New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung