Smart Growth America: “Three-fourths of Americans believe that being smarter about development and improving public transportation are better long-term solutions for reducing traffic congestion than building new roads, according to a survey sponsored by the National Association of Realtors and Smart Growth America. The 2007 Growth and Transportation Survey details what Americans think about how development affects their immediate community. Nearly three-quarters of Americans are concerned about the role growth and development play in climate change, as well as remaining concerned about traffic congestion. Half of those surveyed think improving public transit would be the best way to reduce congestion, and 26 percent believe developing communities that reduce the need to drive would be the better alternative. Only one in five said building new roads was the answer.”

The below street design concept had been proposed for Woodward Avenue from Ferndale to Birmingham. Rather than remove a traffic lane, the parking areas would have been redesigned.

A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes – New York Times:
“The city is planning to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in Chelsea into what officials are billing enthusiastically, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, as the street of the future.

“The most unusual aspect of the design, which will run from 16th Street to 23rd Street, is that it uses a lane of parked cars to protect cyclists from other traffic.

“I think it’s a sneak peek at the future streets of New York,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner. “It represents the kinds of innovative ideas that we can explore to make the streets more livable.”

From the Ann Arbor News:
Ann Arbor Mayor John Hieftje, a proponent of alternative transportation, rides his bike to City Hall from his northside home two or three times a week. He takes the “side path” along Plymouth Road, which was built wide enough to be used by bicyclists and pedestrians alike, until moving into the streets downtown, where he’s careful to obey street signs as if he were driving a car.

Hieftje said the city is rapidly expanding its bicycle path system, which is expected to grow 300 percent over the next five or six years. A recently developed non-motorized plan means that six to eight years from now, 85 percent of the city’s main roads will have bike lanes.

He said drivers should remember that every cyclist is saving a parking space, as well as well as helping the environment.

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