Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.
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• Boston cyclists are finally getting a long-sought after bike lane on the city’s Massachusetts Avenue. The city’s cycling community began advocating for the lane two years ago after a reconstruction plan for the busy downtown artery failed to provide any provision for the city’s bike commuters.
• StreetsBlog has assembled a user-generated photo gallery of simple but innovative bike infrastructure from around the world. Check it out to see Washington D.C.’s sleek bike-sharing terminals, Buenos Aires’ separated cycling infrastructure and Madison, Wisconsin’s bright red bike lanes.
• In honour of the 30th anniversary of New Urbanism, the Atlantic interviews Andres Duany, the “father” of the influential, albeit controversial, urban planning school. New Urbanism advocates self-contained, mixed-use communities as the remedy to the automobile-dependent suburb. While planners, architects, politicians and residents remain divided on the merits of New Urbanism, it has remained an influential philosophy since it first entered into the planning lexicon in 1980.
• As urbanites we tend to ignore the effect of transportation policy and neighbourhood planning on rural communities. An op-ed in BluePrint America, written by planners Gary Toth and Hannah Twaddell, defines “rural liveability” and establishes principles on how to design transportation policy with this definition in mind.
photo of “New Urbanist” development Seaside, Florida from Melanie M
One comment
That slideshow should bring any proud Torontonian from “the city that works” era to tears.
Grab a projector and beam it onto the side of City Hall the next time the bozos who scream about pandering to useless bike agendas try to vote down something. The world is moving on, you dinosaurs… get with it!