• To fight global climate change, fight global sprawl

    The drive-through lifestyle, exported by America and adopted worldwide, is the "operating system for growth" that is a root cause of rising carbon emissions.
    A few years back I conducted a little experiment. I went onto a popular image-sharing website to see how difficult it might be to find new drive-through McDonalds restaurants in four different, rapidly-growing parts of the world: Brazil, India, China, and Eastern Europe. My goal wasn’t to look at...Read more

  • Building support for walking and bicycling infrastructure

    Set expectations you know you can meet or exceed with each step. For a bike lane, benefits like safety, increased fairness, and recreation and lifestyle are realistic.
    In my last post , I looked at the difficulty of getting things — like walking and biking infrastructure — done and how the manner in which we measure our accomplishments makes all the difference. Not just towards building momentum but towards building community. In short, it’s all about baby steps...Read more

  • Will the feds handcuff cities on automated vehicles?

    If federal laws like the AV START bill foreclose the opportunities of cities and states to intelligently regulate AVs, communities themselves will lose the steering wheel.
    Editor's note: Number 1 of Jeff Speck's 10 rules for cities about automated vehicles is "be afraid," and this article reinforces the message that cities must be in control of their own destinies when it comes to AVs. Congress is currently considering the AV START bill , which would be the first...Read more

  • Critical data points for my street

    One gaggle of girls, 270-plus trick-or-treaters, 20 pies, and one streetwise cat are vital statistics for this urban thoroughfare.
    Last week NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) released a report that said data is key to the function of streets, now and in the future. Data may be more important, NACTO says, than pavement itself: Data is replacing concrete, asphalt and steel as the foundation of 21st...Read more