Planetizen Newswire
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Freeways
A thorough and damning indictment of 20th century land use and infrastructure planning, and its contemporary legacy of segregation and congestion.
The New York Times Magazine
The hulking structures proposed to handle UberAIR's fleet of flying taxis won't be able to serve 4,000 passengers per hour. And that's just one of their many deficiencies, Alissa Walker writes.
Curbed
Some worry that, of the many reasons cities pursue cap parks, creating quality green space is low on the list.
Stateline
Former Washington State Representative Margaret Hurley, aided by Margaret Leonard at the local level, saved the Logan neighborhood in Spokane from a freeway plan that would have razed 600 homes. Now the plan is reborn in another part of town.
The Spokesman-Review
The Los Angeles Times follows-up an earlier article on the dangers of building too close to freeways. It's a trade-off that the California Air Resources Board acknowledged last April with new guidelines that recognize the dire need for housing.
Los Angeles Times
After withdrawing support for a controversial extension of the 710 Freeway, Los Angeles Metro is asking cities for local road improvements to improve traffic flow in its stead.
Pasadena Star-News
The state of Oregon is looking to use a gas tax increase to, among other things, fund a billion-dollars worth of highway-widening projects.
City Observatory
The Congress for New Urbanism has released the latest Freeways Without Futures list, updating a list we last saw in 2014.
Streetsblog USA
Photographer Michael DeFilippo captures the striking, ironic, and often depressing ways in which highways cut apart the urban fabric of St. Louis.
Huffington Post
In the 1950s, southern Orange County, California was a place of open hills, citrus groves, and scattered towns. The I-5 Freeway changed that, paving the way for today's subdivisions.
KCET
Although many local activists and officials oppose the trend, Arkansas state planners are considering major highway expansions in the Little Rock area. The state's highway department has demonstrated a pro-car, pro-suburb agenda.
The Atlantic
As more solo-commuters have moved into the express pay lanes designed to quickly move traffic on Los Angeles's congested freeway system, speeds have dropped and L.A. Metro officials are looking to pricing disincentives to speed things up again.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Logically we might assume that as cities grow larger, commutes get harder. It can certainly feel that way. But research points to structural factors that actually make commuting in big cities more efficient.
CityLab
Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne describes an L.A. in flux, at once beholden to its postwar image and pushing in a new direction. The city, he says, faces existential questions on a scale unmatched elsewhere in the nation.
The Architect's Newspaper
Local officials, planners, and other civic leaders have joined together to look at how the city can bring neighborhoods split by freeways back together again.
The Dallas Morning News
At some point, in places all over the country, freeways stopped working as they were intended. What can be done to improve one of the great frustrations of life with a car?
Pacific Standard
It is difficult to imagine a time when Los Angeles' freeways symbolized access, efficiency, and modernity. Now that the city's love affair with freeways is nearly spent, what future do we envision for them?
Los Angeles Times
When his father was governor, California was awash in federal highway dollars. Now Jerry Brown's administration contemplates a risky tax hike, juggling the need for road improvements with a clean, transit-oriented agenda.
Los Angeles Times
After a $2.3 billion widening project, traffic once again chokes the Katy Freeway's 23 lanes. For road spending critics who are also taxpayers, this I-told-you-so moment is bittersweet.
Streetsblog Network
The most dangerous air pollution is not smog and is barely known by the public, writes Bill Adams, editor of UrbDeZine. Line-source particulate matter air pollution could change the way the public thinks about road projects and gas powered cars.
UrbDeZine.com
