• Abandoned railways and urbanism

    Lately I’ve been thinking about major opportunities for urbanism—places where compact, mixed-use development makes the most sense in cities and towns nationwide. Transit-oriented development—building walkable, urban projects near transit stations—is just one widely recognized example. Likewise, a...Read more

  • The cost of crashes is higher than congestion

    Congestion costs drive highway expansion decisions, but these costs are dwarfed by the impact of automobile crashes. Comparing the two points to a better strategy than widening thoroughfares.
    In 2019, the last full year before the Covid pandemic, the US lost $190 billion due to traffic congestion—mostly in urban areas—according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s annual Urban Mobility Report . The report provides an economic rationale for expanding highways and urban arterial...Read more

  • Periodic Table of Urbanism

    At CNU 30 in Oklahoma City planner Stephen Goldie presented an idea that has been in the works for several years, building on the rural-to-urban Transect. Goldie calls it the “Periodic Table of Urbanism,” see image at top, because it resembles the periodic table of chemistry. The idea is...Read more

  • Carbon emissions and the Transect

    Transportation is a major source of household carbon emissions, and these emissions are reduced dramatically as Transect zones become more urban, as shown in this slide, presented by Scott Bernstein at CNU 30 in Oklahoma City in late March. I have seen similar correlations of traditional cities...Read more