“We might be living through a new age of miracles,” writes Justin Gillis and Hal Harvey in an op-ed for The New York Times. “Last month, Los Angeles decided against adding lanes to a freeway, an unexpected move in a city that has mistakenly thought for years that more lanes mean fewer traffic jams.” “Shortly before that, Germany’s highest court ruled that diesel cars could be banned from city centers to clean up the air.…” “The bottom line is that the decision to turn our public streets so completely over to the automobile, as sensible as it might have seemed decades ago, nearly wrecked the quality of life in our cities.…” “We are revealing no big secrets here. Urban planners have known all these things for decades. They have known that removing lanes to add bike paths and widen sidewalks can calm traffic, make a neighborhood more congenial—and, by the way, increase sales at businesses along that more pleasant street.…” “What we might be seeing, at last, is a shift in the public mood, a rising awareness that simply building more lanes is not the answer.…” “This interest in new ideas is an opening for mayors and governors. The smart ones are shaking off their obeisance to the automobile and thinking about how to create city streets and transport systems that work for everyone.”
Citizens in Little Rock, AK took several blocks of a car-dominated city street and created a temporary 'Pop-up Main Street,' using tape and hay bales to redesign the street for a weekend, demonstrating the potential of traffic-calming principles. (Photo credit: Life in the Rock / Mason Ellis)
Citizens in Little Rock, AK took several blocks of a car-dominated city street and created a temporary 'Pop-up Main Street,' using tape and hay bales to redesign the street for a weekend, demonstrating the potential of traffic-calming principles. (Photo credit: Life in the Rock / Mason Ellis)
