A Marin County shopping mall hopes to be the first LEED-certified mall, partly by reserving parking space for low emitting vehicles. All spaces, for guzzlers and green vehicles alike, are unpriced, perhaps pointing to shortfalls of green building.
The notion that the US Green Building Council would award points for parking spaces reserved for low-emissions vehicles while keeping all spaces 'free' might give pause to parking guru, Don Shoup, and justification for a recent Planetizen feature, "Parking Policy Reform More Important Than LEED Certification".
San Rafael's Northgate "mall aims to become California's first regional mall to be LEED certified, and in doing so, officials have reserved 154 parking spaces, or 5 percent of the mall's 3,100 spaces, for "low-emitting fuel-efficient vehicles." The spaces earn the mall points toward Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building certification status, awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council."
"A nine-page list of low-emitting vehicles, determined by the council and available at the mall's guest services kiosk and at the management office, includes hundreds of makes, years and models.
Mall officials have said they encourage only people driving low-emitting vehicles to use the spaces, but the mall does not have an enforcement policy."
However, the plan has run into unexpected difficulties, and for the time being, no spaces will be reserved for the greener vehicles.
Thanks to SF Streetsblog
FULL STORY: Northgate mall's low-emission parking spaces get blacked out - for now

Planning for Congestion Relief
The third and final installment of Planetizen's examination of the role of the planning profession in both perpetuating and solving traffic congestion.

Car Noise Is Killing Us
It’s not just traffic collisions that kill—a new study from researcher at Rutgers finds that the loud noises emanating from cars has direct impact on heart health in Americans.

Acceptable Deaths
What can we learn from our Covid response?

New White House Housing Initiative Includes Zoning Reform Incentives
The Biden administration this morning released a new program of actions intended to spur housing construction around the United States.

Fare-Free Transit Hasn’t Reduced Car Trips, Data Says
Fare-free transit isn’t the climate change benefit that many have hoped, according to recent writing by David Zipper for Bloomberg.

Redevelopment Threatens Iconic, Affordable Chicago Homes
The ‘workers’ cottages’ are being replaced with larger, more expensive homes, threatening one of the city’s original forms of affordable housing.
City of Malibu
EMC Planning Group Inc.
Jefferson Parish
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Harvard GSD Executive Education
City of Rohnert Park
City of Hot Springs
City of Lakeway, Texas
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.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course aims to provide an introduction into Urban Design Sketching focused on how to hand draw master plans using a mix of colored markers.