Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition
Transportation Equity in Our City
In Ireland people ask St Anthony to help them find parking spaces. In Chicago, if you shovel the snow from a space, it belongs to you. In Shanghai people beg their parents to reserve spaces by sitting in them. Everywhere parking is a big reason law-abiding people pay fines to the government and a cause of screaming rows between strangers. More important, it profoundly shapes cities — usually for the worse.
Read more…
https://medium.economist.com/the-perilous-politics-of-parking-43f1f34d4b97
“We design our streets like roads, as if their primary function — and sometimes their sole function — is the movement of automobiles.
Many people don’t grasp the difference between a street and a road. They think the terms are interchangeable, and rightly so. In the United States, we’ve spent decades — and trillions of dollars — blurring the distinctions.”
A Street
A Road
Traffic injuries are the leading cause of death ages 15-29…but it doesn’t have to be the case in Asbury Park. APCSC advocates for streets that provide safe access for everyone, especially the most vulnerable.
What does walkability mean?
“Every person has the right to walk. Choosing to move on foot—to work, school, or the market—should be safe and easy for urban residents. Yet city streets are increasingly being built for high-speed, personal vehicles, with hazardous intersections and narrow or nonexistent sidewalks. In many cities, simply getting anywhere by foot has become a dangerous: thousands of pedestrians are killed on the world’s roads each week.”
Watch:
https://vimeo.com/234826824?ref=em-share
“Project improvements include the resurfacing of Route 71/Main Street, upgrading 29 intersections with ADA compliant ramps, and several pedestrian upgrades including curb and sidewalk replacement.
Additional improvements include bike lanes, 17 new traffic signals, the replacement of steel utility poles with standard wooden poles, landscape restoration, utility relocation, and improved lighting to enhance the safety of the road for the thousands of motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists using the road each day.”
Read more…
http://thecoaster.net/wordpress/in-asbury-park-main-street-renovations-beginning/
What an idea! If not subsidizing bike riding here in the US, how about making it a whole lot more desirable and easier to ride bikes and walk?
“Would similar schemes work in the United States to encourage more city dwellers to ditch their cars for two-wheeled machines instead? ”
Read more…
https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/paris-subsidies-buy-bikes-give-up-cars/518715/
This article nails it–and so does the link to the accompanying article and short film. “The Car is the star” for sure in the US. But in Asbury Park it doesn’t have to be the case. We’re working on prioritizing safety and advocating for equity for all users, especially the most vulnerable: pedestrians and bicyclists.
EDWARD HUMES APR 12, 2016
“The car is the star. That’s been true for well over a century—unrivaled staying power for an industrial-age, pistons-and-brute-force machine in an era so dominated by silicon and software. Cars conquered the daily culture of American life back when top hats and child labor were in vogue, and well ahead of such other innovations as radio, plastic, refrigerators, the electrical grid, and women’s suffrage.”
And more here from Citylab…
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2016/07/a-1960s-cartoon-hilariously-mocks-americas-car-obsession/491558/
Here we go again. It might be the last snowfall of the year, but here it is, and it’s messy.
Snow and the Walkable, Bikeable, Accessible City
“It’s a common winter scene that should remind us just how valuable these public assets are. After major storms, while roads are still impassable and public transit service is often curtailed, walking may be the best, safest — indeed sometimes the only — option for people to get around. Clearing sidewalks quickly is especially important for wheelchair users, the elderly and others with limited mobility who can’t easily navigate mountains of crusty snow.”
Read more…
“A new report shows how dangerous it has become to walk along the street. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimates the number of pedestrian deaths last year was 6,000 nationwide.”
Pedestrians: wear bright or reflective clothing, remove earbuds, make eye contact with drivers, cross only at crosswalks, never talk, text or use electronic devices in an intersections. Drivers: carry on. #CarCulture
Read more…
