Virginia approves its first transportation plan based on a new system of scoring and prioritizing projects


by Dan Levine, Transportation for America

Following the release of the first list of recommended projects back in January, today’s approval from the CTB marks the first complete cycle of a brand new process created by the legislature a few years ago to improve the process for selecting projects and awarding transportation dollars — all in an effort to direct the new money to the best, most cost-effective projects with the greatest bang for the buck.
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http://t4america.org/2016/06/14/virginia-approves-its-first-transportation-plan-based-on-a-new-system-of-scoring-and-prioritizing-projects/
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Slower Speed Limits Give Cities a New Attitude About Biking, Walking, Breathing


BY ANNA CLARK, Next City

Edinburgh, Scotland, is rolling out a 20 mph speed limit on 80 percent of its roads. (Photo by Martin Abegglen)
As more U.S. cities embrace the Vision Zero approach to curtailing traffic and ensuring pedestrian safety, there’s plenty of compelling data in favor of slow roads coming out of Edinburgh, Scotland. The numbers show how lower speed limits can change drivers’ attitudes about bicyclists — and even let city-dwellers breathe a bit easier thanks to air quality improvement.
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https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/slow-speed-limits-cities-edinburgh-20mph
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NINE FOOT TRAVEL LANES IN PRACTICE


[B' Spokes: Yes Roland Ave with the state not allowing anything less than 10.5 foot lanes so we got a really skimpy Bikeways I am looking at you. 9 foot travel lanes exist are safer IMHO just fine for use that is not an major arterial road. See:]

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/10/12/nine-foot-travel-lanes-in-practice
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Op-Alt: We can fix Baltimore's streets


Liz Cornish, City Paper

As the Executive Director of Bikemore, Baltimore's livable streets advocacy organization I was grateful to see the dangers people walking in Baltimore City face highlighted in the recent article entitled "Walk Hard: Baltimore is unsafe and unsympathetic to pedestrians." At Bikemore, our daily work is spent shedding light on how vehicle traffic in Baltimore is often prioritized over the safety of human beings walking and riding bikes. These decisions not only decrease public safety but also our quality of life.

The article accurately discussed how our road designs, laws, and policies often favor those behind the wheel of a car. But what the article failed to discuss was how inherently solvable these problems really are. To generalize and simply say Baltimore as a city doesn't care ignores the fact that it is not some nebulous force that causes our roads to be this dangerous, but the daily actions of our elected leaders, appointed officials and city employees. People with power are consciously making decisions that disregard the health and safety of the citizens they are supposed to serve, and they need to be held accountable. The people that lead our city's agencies--most notably the Department of Transportation have failed on multiple levels to to design and build safer streets--streets that improve public safety and public health by encouraging biking and walking. This failure is not only out of line with how the majority of American cities now design their streets, but is grossly negligent.
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http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcpnews-we-can-fix-baltimore-s-streets-20160617-story.html
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NEW PED AND BIKE DATA COLLECTING TECHNOLOGY


-> A new crop of data collecting technology — including bike-counter totems, GPS-enabled smartphone apps and cameras that use machine learning — is enhancing more time-consuming, less accurate ways of counting people riding bikes and walking. Tech startup CTY designed Numina (http://bit.ly/1tqvimy), a camera bike and pedestrian counter because there is not a lot of data that helps justifies complete streets infrastructure. The data counting hardware is essentially a camera mounted 15 feet up on a light pole capturing video. Software is programmed to recognize and count patterns such as a bicyclist or walker crossing the screen. Numina can also track behavior on a given piece of infrastructure — where a cyclist rides on a street, whether they choose the sidewalk over the bike lane, spots pedestrians avoid and more. Some of the most exciting data is coming from companies such as Strava (http://bit.ly/1WNyrcp) and MapMyRide (http://bit.ly/1XWTGcC), which track routes via GPS units and smartphone apps, provide actual behavior, and can provide demographic data about users. http://bit.ly/24x0Fr1

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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NHTSA: 2014 TRAFFIC SAFETY FACTS: CHILDREN 75% killed in cars vs other modes


-> The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released its 2014 Traffic Safety Facts: Children with details the number of motor vehicle traffic fatalities and injuries involving children 14 and younger. Of the 1,070 child fatalities in 2014, 20% had been walking, and 5% had been riding a bike. http://1.usa.gov/238oTss

from CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.
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When governments make road data public, anyone can help make roads safer


By Jacob Mason , Greater Greater Washington

This map shows where people have been caught speeding in Montgomery County this summer. If DC and other local jurisdictions released more open data, we could make maps like this for places all over the region.
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http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/27732/when-governments-make-road-data-public-anyone-can-help-make-roads-safer/
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Walk Hard: Baltimore is unsafe for and unsympathetic to pedestrians


By Edward Ericson Jr., City Paper

[Highlight:]
"The police officer was clearly sympathetic" to the driver, she says. "The attitude is, everybody drives, everybody makes mistakes, and it could have been me. It's easy for the police officer to identify for the driver and not that person that got hit."

http://www.citypaper.com/news/mobtownbeat/bcp-061516-walk-dangers-20160614-story.html
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