Bicycle- & Pedestrian-Inclusive Infrastructure Projects Create 46% More Jobs Per Dollar Than Road-Only Projects


Via Cleantechnica

Owing to the recent election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States of America, and some of the comments that he’s made to date about infrastructure spending and job creation, the folks over at Bike League recently reposted an old article of theirs discussing the fact that infrastructure projects that incorporate bicycle and pedestrian elements create more jobs than road-only projects.

A lot more.

Around 46% more jobs are created per dollar spent, according to a 2011 study from the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/27/bicycle-pedestrian-inclusive-infrastructure-projects-create-46-jobs-per-dollar-road-project/
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STREET TREES 101


-> Street trees are essential for strong walk appeal almost anywhere in the US, which makes them a fundamental part of the public frontage from the property line to the edge of the street. A Congress for the New Urbanism Public Square article provides a detailed primer on the importance of street trees to sustainability and walkability, and considerations in selecting and placing street trees. http://bit.ly/2igiTQg

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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PERFORMANCE-BASED PRACTICAL DESIGN FOR COMPLETE STREETS


-> FHWA recently published its Applying Performance-Based Practical Design Methods to Complete Streets: A Primer on Employing Performance-Based Practical Design and Transportation Systems Management and Operations to Enhance the Design of Complete Streets. (http://bit.ly/2igeaOF) The Primer explains how the application of performance-based practical design principles combined with transportation system management and operations strategies can promote the consideration and application of Complete Street design principles to a wider range of contexts.

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEW ADMINISTRATION


-> The Partnership for Active Transportation has put together a set of recommendations related to active transportation for the Trump Administration. (Active Transportation Agenda for the Trump Administration: http://bit.ly/2ifVlvb) The Partnership is a unique collaboration of organizations working across the fields of transportation, public health, economic development, community leadership, equity and livability. To build healthy places for healthy people, the Partnership calls for the creation of safe and practical routes for people to walk or roll to get where they need to go. Their recommendations call for increased investment in active transportation, a focus on active transportation networks, improved transportation planning, and prioritizing safety, among others.

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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The Best and Worst States for Drivers


Via Money Geek

https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/road-safety-study/

[B' Spokes: Interesting that this methodology put Maryland just in the top 10 best for safety states. Could it be we tend to under report issues like speeding and distracted driving? Or could it be that because of sprawl we drive further just to do the same things as everyone else? After all Frederick and Baltimore are bedroom communities to DC. And we do know that different areas have different commute times and different times for being stuck in contested traffic, both of which are strong indicators of more miles driven for some populations than others. I always thought that fatalities per population is a better metric than fatalities per miles driven. Like it's so much safer to drive 20 miles to work than 10 miles to work with the same fatalities per population. I understand that the more miles driven per the same population results in more crashes but that's just it, the same population. When comparing different populations I will assert that we all do the same thing, work, shop and play in the cars we drive and it is the frequency of traffic death that happens while doing our daily lives is what is important. ]

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Why America’s roads are so much more dangerous than Europe's


By Norman Garrick, Carol Atkinson-Palombo, and Hamed Ahangari

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Even before that spike upward, per capital traffic fatalities in the US were already the highest in the industrialized world. No other developed country tolerates the level of carnage on their roads that we do. This national failure has been overlooked for far too long. Studying short-term variations in our safety record is important, but it can also distract us from investigating the forces contributing to our horrendous safety record compared to our peers.
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http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/30/13784520/roads-deaths-increase-safety-traffic-us
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Historicist: Pedestrian-blaming, 1930s style


BY DAVID WENCER, Torontoist


The Christmas of 1936 was a black one for Toronto. On December 26, newspapers reported on the holiday slaughter: three people killed, at least six people injured by hit-and-run drivers, and more than one hundred separate traffic collisions. In the years that followed, politicians, police officials, and concerned citizens promoted annual December public safety campaigns in the hopes of making Toronto’s streets safer over the holidays.

Books dedicated to the history of the automobile in Canada often describe Canadians’ “love affair” with the automobile in the early 20th century. Toronto newspapers of the 1920s and 1930s, however, reveal that the new vehicles were not universally embraced. Articles express widespread public anxiety about the growing number of traffic collisions on city streets and highways; many Toronto newspapers featured regular photo arrays of smashed vehicles in and around the city.


In his 2008 book Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, Peter D. Norton notes that American cities were similarly preoccupied with traffic deaths at this time. “Even in the United States there is little evidence in cities in the 1920s of a ‘love affair’ with the automobile,” Norton writes. “With the sudden arrival of the automobile came a new kind of mass death. Most of the dead were city people. Most the car’s urban victims were pedestrians, and most of the pedestrian victims were children and youths. Early observers rarely blamed the pedestrians who strolled into the roadway wherever they chose, or the parents who let their children play in the street. Instead, most city people blamed the automobile.”
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http://torontoist.com/2016/12/historicist-pedestrian-blaming-1930s-style/


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