The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Yesterday, Mayor de Blasio launched “Vision Zero”, a multi-agency effort to eliminate NYC's traffic deaths within a decade. With eleven deaths (seven of them pedestrians) already recorded in the new year, progress can't come soon enough.

January 16 - Streetsblog

Preparations for the $1.6 billion Blue Line extension project in Charlotte, North Carolina, are nearing completion. Officials have penciled in March to begin construction on the 9.3-mile light rail line.

January 15 - Charlotte Observer

Nearing the 20th anniversary of the last large earthquake to strike the L.A. region, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a year-long effort to identify ways to protect the city's vulnerable buildings and critical infrastructure from the next rumbler.

January 15 - Los Angeles Times

From Denver to Syracuse, U.S. cities are looking to heal neighborhoods torn apart by the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Could an alternative way of envisioning and financing such a system provide lessons for the developing world?

January 15 - The Atlantic Cities

The publicly held and managed wealth generated by Norway’s taxation of oil and gas extraction now equates to one million Crowns (about $162,000 USD) per capita. Norwegian law only allows the government to draw minimally from this fund every year.

January 15 - Reuters

From Republican congressman from Ill. to President Obama's first Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood now takes on a new role as a co-chair of the bipartisan coalition, Building America's Future, to advocate for increased infrastructure investment.

January 15 - AASHTO Journal

It's not just melting ice that threatens to submerge communities along the East Coast of the U.S. Several other factor are conspiring to raise sea levels. Scientists are racing against time to predict how bad things are going to get, and how fast.

January 15 - The New York Times

A new study out of Oxford’s Saïd Business School provides evidence of the influence of external factors, such as foreign wars and environmental crises, on the London housing market.

January 15 - Quartz

Adding 1,100 people every month, Washington D.C. is in the midst of one of the nation’s most powerful examples of population growth. A recently developed heat map shows where supply is being built to meet the new demand.

January 15 - Greater Greater Washington

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology finds that moving to a more-green area can have a long-lasting positive effect on mental health, unlike the short-term jolt from pay rises, promotions or winning the lottery.

January 15 - BBC News

For the first time since 2011, Congressional negotiators have agreed on a $1.012 trillion omnibus budget bill to fund the federal government. Tanya Snyder examines the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development winners and losers.

January 15 - DC.Streetsblog

An interview with Thomas Balsley, landscape architect and designer of hundreds of parks and plazas in New York, reveals inside baseball about the evolution of park design, planning, and approvals in the Big Apple.

January 14 - Metropolis

Facing a shortfall of more than $1 million to maintain its roads, the Chicago suburb of Long Grove is looking to privatize nearly half of them by asking residents to pick up the tab. Residents are unhappy about the plan, but see few alternatives.

January 14 - Chicago Tribune

It's already conquered phones and the Internet, and is moving rapidly into the automotive world, but Google's $3.2 billion purchase of smart device maker Nest provides the company with entree into the "connected home" market.

January 14 - PCWorld

The Northern California marijuana industry is booming, but issues with water consumption and downstream pollution produced by the large-scale cultivation of marijuana are threatening populations of salmon already on the brink of extinction.

January 14 - NPR The Salt

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, half of the UK's coalition government, accuses the Conservatives of withholding a report that identifies sites for two new towns in 'safe' Conservative regions.

January 14 - BBC News

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio enters office with strong progressive credentials, similar to those of Los Angeles’ recently-termed-out Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Can New York find lessons from the Los Angeles political experience?

January 14 - The Nation

After years of declining carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S., and growing hope in the country's ability to meet President Obama's emission reduction targets, preliminary data indicates emissions from energy sources increased 2% last year

January 14 - The Washington Post

A new Senate bill aims to give drivers more control over the growing trove of data being collected by sensors and computers embedded in our cars. Most drivers are unaware of how much personal information is being recorded.

January 14 - The New York Times

Call it the Lac-Mégantic effect - the July 6 conflagration that leveled the downtown, killing 47 people, has implications for all jurisdictions where oil and freight trains run. Cities must recognize that rail insurance policies are woefully lacking.

January 14 - The Wall Street Journal