Mike Christensen is the executive director of the Utah Rail Passenger Association. Today, he joins Tiffany to discuss the benefits of passenger rail, including how it can lead to more productive land use. (Transcript included.)
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The South Dakota Legislature is considering implementing harsher penalties to deter drag racing on streets. This ignores the street design that allows people to drag race in the first place.
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In historic cities, land was treated as a scarce resource and every inch of it was used with ingenuity. This created productive and charming places that could meet the evolving needs of residents. Here are a few ways we can bring that traditional productivity and adaptable charm to modern cities.
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Maricela Sanchez is a city council member and anesthesiologist from Prosser, Washington. She has lived in several major cities, including LA, San Francisco and NYC. She joins today’s episode to discuss how her travels and profession molded her perspective on what makes a town safe and resilient. (Transcript included.)
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A new bill in the Illinois General Assembly would require the state DOT to conduct traffic studies after crashes involving pedestrian fatalities. This is a great step in the right direction, and it highlights how local officials can take action too.
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Do speed cameras actually make roads safer, or are they just another enforcement tool that fails to address the underlying design issues that cause speeding in the first place?
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Last Wednesday, a plane crash claimed the lives of 67 people, making it the deadliest U.S. air disaster in over two decades. It prompted an immediate, coordinated response on a local, state and federal level. And yet, when over 100 people die in car crashes a day, nothing is done. It’s time for that to change.
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When actor Timothée Chalamet got stuck in traffic on the way to a movie premiere, he showed that rethinking how we travel can lead to better outcomes for everyone.
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Here’s how Strong Towns Chicago is making its neighborhoods safer, more pedestrian-friendly and more inviting.
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While long-term safety initiatives like updating street design standards or starting a crash response team are important, they must be paired with immediate action. A recent crash in Rochester, New York, shows why.
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A mysterious plastic sign appeared on a Houston street, raising the speed limit to 60 mph — double the actual limit. Drivers didn’t seem to notice the difference.
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After a fatal crash, Rochester citizens and officials got to work, identifying factors that contributed to the crash, updating street design policies to make streets safer, and establishing a Community Traffic Safety Team to address other dangerous factors before crashes occur.
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Fletcher Williams was hit by three cars in a 13-month period — all within a half-mile radius in Bradenton, Florida. And he’s only one of many crash victims. The design of these streets is inhumanely dangerous and must be changed.
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After a cyclist was killed in a car crash, residents of Indianapolis worked with Strong Towns to conduct the first Crash Analysis Studio. City officials have taken notice and instituted new initiatives to create safer streets.
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The terms chosen to describe upcoming road work often misrepresent the actual projects, ascribing a positive or negative bias that affects how political leaders interpret and underwrite them. The DOT Decoder is the perfect gift for decoding three common terms used by departments of transportation and their engineers.
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Conducting a walking audit is an quick, easy and free step that anyone can take to start improving their place. In this article, trained architect and urban designer Edward Erfurt demonstrates how to do so, using a recently completed sidewalk project in his community as an example.
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Buses are an important part of a city’s transportation system, but they’re considered a mode of last resort for many people. Here’s why it’s important to make bus systems more appealing — and a few ideas on to do so.
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In this episode, host Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Sully Israel, a Local Conversation leader, to discuss his group’s efforts to keep their city’s main street closed to cars.
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Driving from my dismal exurban hotel to the walkable downtown of a Florida beach town led me to a resolution: Start seeking out the kind of lodging that accentuates the best reasons for visiting a place, and hopefully discourage the kind of development that’s contributing to its demise.
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To build a Strong Town is to develop governing habits and shared cultural understandings that result in a long run of small wins that may be individually imperceptible but cumulatively result in broad and meaningful change. Today, I want to share one of those small wins with you.
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