• Seven stroads that have been converted to streets

    There are thousands of stroad sections in the US. Transforming a good number of them is important to to the goal of improving quality of life and mobility in cities and towns.
    A “stroad”—a term coined by Charles Marohn of Strong Towns —is a thoroughfare that combines the complexity of a street with the design speed of a road. Stroads include the most dangerous thoroughfares in America, and they don’t serve the functions of a street or a road very well. There are...Read more

  • The comfort of Light Imprint infrastructure

    I love these boardwalks in Carlton Landing, a new town in Oklahoma. The houses face a tiny pedestrian thoroughfare that consists of the boardwalk and rain gardens. The rainwater simply soaks into the ground. This is the ultimate in Light Imprint infrastructure, which reduces the dependence of...Read more

  • What covid proved about traffic safety

    In mid-April of 2020, we published an article indicating that as traffic was plummeting, traffic deaths were rising. This counterintuitive claim was not backed by firm numbers at the time, and the world was more focused on deaths from the pandemic anyway. But as Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns...Read more

  • Why Universal Design is critical to CNU

    Too many architects, planners, transportation engineers, and urban designers reduce the ADA to some kind of onerous hurdle that must be leaped.
    As a reporter, marketer, and planner, I have been involved with the Congress for New Urbanism since its founding. I started writing about urban design, growth, development and how cities work and fail in 1988, the same year I married a brilliant attorney and writer who has used a wheelchair for...Read more