Complete streets

A more pedestrian, bike and transit friendly OSU

 

Good news, everybody!  The OSU has announced a new Comprehensive Transportation and Parking Plan that improves pedestrian, bike and public transit access and circulation on campus.  Read about it here: OSU Transit Plan Proposes Big Changes for Campus.

So happy to see progress towards sustainable transportation on campus – cars will be part of the future, of course, but its time we ended their preferential treatment and moved towards more balanced transportation systems.

I knew it was a good idea to appoint Jennifer Evans-Cowley, a highly regarded urban planner, as OSU’s Vice Provost for Capital Planning and Regional Campuses.  Keep up the good work, Jennifer!

Re:Map Columbus contest

Transit Columbus, a local non-profit citizen group supporting a better connected Columbus, has just announced Re:Map Columbus – an alternative transportation map design contest.

The idea is to develop a map to highlight alternative transportation modes (walk, bike, CoGo, Car2Go, COTA, etc) for all of Columbus, or in specific neighborhoods.  The winning submission will receive a $2,000 prize. The top 10 submissions as chosen by the public will receive a CoGo year membership as well as additional prizes. You may submit as an individual or a team.

The contest will start on November 1st with submissions being accepted until December 31st, 2014.

More information and rules at: http://www.transitcolumbus.org/mapcontest/

ReMap Columbus Flyer 2-01

Road diets are magic

The (quite wonderful) CityLab blog from The Atlantic has an article describing “what has been called ‘one of the transportation safety field’s greatest success stories'”: the road diet.  [So What Exactly Is a ‘Road Diet’?].

Road diets are inexpensive ways to achieve good transportation outcomes, such as increased traffic safety, as well as better walkability and bikeability.  Despite popular conceptions, it does not necessarily increase traffic congestion.  And did I mention they are cheap?

Road diets are as close as we get to a “magic bullet” in transportation planning.  As planner Charles Marohn writes:

Why, when our leadership has expressed so clearly the enormous financial gap we have in funding a “world class” transportation system, are road diets not an obsession of transportation departments everywhere?