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Tag Archives: urban design

Creating Connections With ‘The Link’

I’ve mentioned the coming improvements to the Springfield bicycle route system that will be paid for with the CIP tax. The improvements include route number signs and sharrows. The City also has plans for a new project called The Link — an exciting plan to link existing and new greenway trails into a coherent transportation [...]

Posted 11 June 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § news § policy ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

First Friday on The Square

The new perimeter of the Square continues to work as designed. I’m looking forward to work beginning on the interior. Here’s what the area looks like full of people. The open, permeable space invites people to walk about as they please. Drivers are welcome. That is a street you’re seeing there. But the space tells [...]

Posted 05 June 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged: , ,

Built For Cars, Not People

American suburbs were built for cars during a time in which it seemed oil would shoot from the ground forever. And once we knew that such was not the case, we kept building suburbs because people wanted to live in them. People were also encouraged to do so by the culture and the government. I [...]

Posted 26 May 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology § policy ‡ Comments (3) ° Also tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

Our Urban Challenge: Build It First

I swear I’m not making this up. The following is a snippet of conversation I heard at the Mudshouse. The interlocutors were high school kids: Kid 1: “There’s just too much sprawl here.” Kid 2: “Yeah, not enough density.” Kid 3: “It doesn’t matter. We’re not going to live here anyway.” How do we make [...]

Posted 16 May 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Complete Streets Passes House

MoBikeFed reports that the HCR 67 Complete Streets Resolution passed in the Missouri House an hour before the end of the legislative session: The resolution is a comprehensive outline of the reasons for pursuing complete streets policies and urges all levels of government–from the city level up to the federal government–to use complete streets principles [...]

Posted 15 May 2010 † Andy Cline § news § policy ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Cars: Fewer v. Better

From David Roberts at Grist (extra links added to quote): On one side, you have people like Scott Bernstein of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Geoff Anderson of Smart Growth America, or Tom Murphy of the Urban Land Institute, who are focused on using land and urban assets more effectively, which means increasing density and [...]

Posted 13 May 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: , , , , ,

Springfield: Potential Blue Zone?

Much has been written about the health benefits of burning calories instead of carbon to transport ourselves. This also happens to be one of the important components to Blue Zones — areas of the world in which people live longer, healthier lives. The premise of Blue Zones is:  identify the optimal lifestyle of longevity and [...]

Posted 13 April 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to the Danger Zone

Take a good look at this illustration; it’s supposed to represent good street design (source). From the same source, here’s another illustration. This is not a joke. These illustrations show bicycle lanes beside parked cars on narrow urban streets. These lanes are dangerous. And they are designed to lure beginners. Such lanes are supposed to, [...]

Posted 09 April 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § bicycle safety § ecology § policy ‡ Comments (10) ° Also tagged: , , , ,

World of Tomorrow

We spent much of our time in vision exercises during the strategic plan transportation committee meeting yesterday. Our goal was to imagine what role transportation should play in creating the kind of community we want to live in by 2035 (when I’ll be 78 years old). We did an overall visioning exercise and a series [...]

Posted 09 April 2010 † Andy Cline § ecology § news § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: , , , , ,

Our Urban Challenge: Free Parking

Dr. Donald Shoup wrote a book called The High Cost of Free Parking in which he argued that too many American cities just give away their most valuable real estate in the form of free parking spaces. The usual cry from business owners in response is: “But we’ll drive away customers if we charge for [...]

Posted 03 April 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology § policy ‡ Comments (3) ° Also tagged: , , , , ,

Our Urban Challenge: Barriers

Chestnut Expressway cuts east-west through the middle of Springfield’s urban core as I’m defining it. It is a 4-lane, 40-mph loop for I-44. It’s very well designed to move cars and trucks across Springfield giving these vehicles easy access to the urban core — especially downtown, OTC, MSU, and Drury. And that’s the problem with [...]

Posted 28 March 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology § policy ‡ Comments (12) ° Also tagged: , , , ,

Our Urban Challenge: Networks

Transportation is connected to everything else in urban planning. That means, among other things, that the goals of a transportation system ought to fit with the goals of other planning concerns. In the following video, Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, talks about the important goal of creating networks [...]

Posted 26 March 2010 † Andy Cline § ecology § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: ,

Our Urban Challenge: Green Density

I’ve just started reading an interesting book by David Owen entitled Green Metropolis. I discovered it on this list of the top ten urban planning/design books published in 2009. (Note that David Byrne’s book tops the list.) The premise of Owen’s book is that dense, urban living is greener living. A big part of the [...]

Posted 23 March 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § ecology § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: , , , , ,

Google Springfield

I’m on board with the Google Springfield thing. Join the Facebook page! Technorati Tags: urban design, urban development

Posted 20 March 2010 † Andy Cline § announcement § news ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged:

LaHood Addresses Nat’l Bike Summit

Found on (SF) Streets Blog: LaHood mentions “livable communities,” which I understand to include densely-populated urban areas with mixed-use development where walking, bicycling, and public transportation is the norm. See the beginning of my urban challenge series below. Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle politics, cycling, sustainability, urban design, urban development

Posted 14 March 2010 † Andy Cline § advocacy § news § policy ‡ Comments Off ° Also tagged: , , , ,