• Town converts parcel into downtown hub

    A sold-out concert by soul music legend Gladys Knight opened a new 2-acre park in Douglasville, Georgia, recently—that’s a good sign for the multipurpose public space in the county seat 30 miles west of Atlanta. Douglasville is another example of a town converting an underutilized parcel downtown...Read more

  • Ten features of walkable communities

    The following features of walkable communities were presented this week by Wade Walker, a transportation engineer with Kittelson & Associates. This is a great list, although not definitive; other lists of 10 could be made. Here's Walker’s list, with my comments. Small block size. The average...Read more

  • Planning a city that gets people moving

    Lake Wales, Florida, has adopted a plan that puts active mobility at the heart of day-to-day life.
    “Physical activity is a natural part of the daily living for humans,” notes John Simmerman, founder of Active Towns. “But so is being sedentary. One of the big challenges in our current realm is that much of our environment is designed around using the automobile and taking the easy way. Part of...Read more

  • Engineers resist narrow lanes, but change is coming

    An American Society of Civil Engineers survey shows the challenges to creating more walkable streets, yet the way forward is to enable more context-based design.
    A little over a month ago, Johns Hopkins University released the largest-ever research on travel lane width and safety, providing conclusive evidence that 9- and 10-foot lanes do not contribute to greater automobile crashes and, in some cases, reduce collisions. Traffic engineers have long shunned...Read more