Complete streets

“Gridlock Sam” Schwartz to speak at Ohio State on September 20th

The Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA) is pleased to welcome Samuel Schwartz to Ohio State University for a free public lecture on Tuesday, September 20, 2016, 4:00pm at the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater, 1871 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43210

Sam Schwartz is the most famous traffic engineer in the world, serving as New York City Transportation Commissioner under several mayors, and now leads an international and highly influential consulting firm, Sam Schwartz Engineering.  Mr. Schwartz invented the word ‘gridlock,’ earning the enduring moniker “Gridlock Sam.”

Sam is called the “Jane Jacobs of Traffic” due to his long fight to create room for humans and social space in city streets and an “urban alchemist” for his uncanny ability to grow green space from asphalt.  In Canada, is he known as “[The] Wayne Gretzky of Traffic Planning.”

Gridlock Sam will speak about his recent book, Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and Fall of Cars, a lively history and discussion of how to move cities beyond automobile dominance.

The lecture is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so RSVP today at: http://cura.osu.edu/920rsvp

More information about Sam Schwartz

CURA Gridlock Sam

Public transit generates new physical activity

Miller HJ, Tribby CP, Brown BB, Smith KR, Werner CM, Wolf J, Wilson L, Oliveira MGS (2015) “Public transit generates new physical activity: Evidence from individual GPS and accelerometer data before and after light rail construction in a neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA,” Health & Place, 26, 8-17. doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2015.08.005

Highlights

  • We track physical activity time before and after construction of a light rail line
  • Study participants wore accelerometers and GPS recorders
  • Changes in physical activity time relate directly to changes in transit use
  • No substitution of transit-related physical activity time for other activity time

Abstract: Poor health outcomes from insufficient physical activity (PA) are a persistent public health issue. Public transit is often promoted for positive influence on PA. Although there is cross-sectional evidence that transit users have higher PA levels, this may be coincidental or shifted from activities such as recreational walking. We use a quasi-experimental design to test if light rail transit (LRT) generated new PA in a neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Participants (n=536) wore Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and accelerometers before (2012) and after (2013) LRT construction. We test within-person differences in individuals’ PA time based on changes in transit usage pre- versus post-intervention. We map transit-related PA to detect spatial clustering of PA around the new transit stops. We analyze within-person differences in PA time based on daily transit use and estimate the effect of daily transit use on PA time controlling for socio-demographic variables. Results suggest that transit use directly generates new PA that is not shifted from other PA. This supports the public health benefits from new high quality public transit such as LRT.

Sneckdown time!

A neckdown is a traffic calming strategy: narrowing the width of a street at an intersection to slow vehicles.  A sneckdown is a neckdown created by untrod or plow-piled snow.  A post at the Transportation Alternatives blog from February 2014 discusses how sneckdowns reveal that our streets give cars more space than they need.  [ WHAT SNOW REVEALS ABOUT STREETS].

Never waste a good crisis, people of New England (and other snowy places).   Post and follow sneckdown photos on Twitter: #sneckdowns.  And use this evidence to demonstrate that cars don’t need all that precious urban space.