This post is about community hubs, realization, and an upcoming planning application. My neighbor Bekah will from time to time remind or goad me that we live in suburbia. We live on the outskirts of town, or as I’m inclined … Continue reading 3rd Places – Nate Allebach
Eric Budd has an excellent letter in Boulder Weekly in response to an earlier Op-Ed by Gary Wockner. I never read Garys op-ed, but Erics response makes great reading. It eschews the accusatory, selfish language often found in driver vs cyclist exchanges, and focuses on the positive aspects of cycling in a community, much of which you’d never know unless you had cycled. Among other things, Eric says: Whether it’s riding bikes downtown for happy hour, to the grocery store or to go on a hike, putting people close to the places and services they need makes biking a great … Continue reading Bicyclists for people – Let’s be neighbors
I wrote an in Op-Ed in the Colorado Hometown weekly back in December 2018. On August 21st, CHW printed a follow-up. The website for the Hometown Weekly seems to have stopped updating back in April, so I’ve reproduced it here. It is, I think, very germain to the November Louisville CO election. There are 3x councillors and a new mayor up for election. I attended the City consultation on the Transportation Master Plan, and there are little to no improvements under discussion for Main St. Louisville can change and still be historic If things don’t change, they’ll stay the same, … Continue reading People not Parking – What Next for Louisville?
This Forbes article came up again recently. My hometown, Louisville CO, is still struggling with how to incentivise redevelopment downtown, following the “collapse” of their parking garage initiative run for the city by the Louisville Revitalization Commission (LRC). I even applied for a vacant seat on the LRC, which I didn’t get. Better that than being one of those people who just complain at every opportunity. I’ve encouraged the Mayor and Councillors to do more to make it easy for people that could get downtown without using private cars, to do so. Disappointingly, nothing has happened in the 3-years I’ve … Continue reading Cyclists and Pedestrians generate more income for a town
This is one of the best blogs of many on the Strong Towns blog. American suburbia is only viable with heavy government subsidy and planning — It would be unaffordable otherwise. As we see the Growth Ponzi Scheme unwinding and the first decades of what journalist Alan Ehrenhalt has called The Great Inversion, Americans are experiencing a return to normal living conditions. In many ways, it’s a traumatic transition; who-moved-my-cheese on a continental economic scale. Source: The Greatest Social Challenge of our Generation — Strong Towns Continue reading The Greatest Social Challenge of our Generation — Strong Towns
If you had 100 destinations you’d have removed some of the major bottlenecks, but we don’t. We have the Central Business District. It’s a major constraint and getting people in cars in and out of it no matter how automated the cars are will have the same fundamental problems and constraints. Anyone who says otherwise really doesn’t understand the problem. Continue reading Will self driving cars save Austin from itself?
So prop-1 failed, no bad rail, no gloating from me. We still have a major commuting problem. Repeat after me though, we don’t have a traffic problem. One of the problems we have, that comes from growth is so many places are having infrastructure work. Google are all over south Austin laying underground conduit for fiber optic cables, mostly though they are not the problem, apart from a half day here or there where the close off a lane. The RapidBus dedicated lanes have caused some problems downtown, but slowly people have got used to not using the bus lanes, … Continue reading Austin Traffic: Poor planning
There is a better choice and it’s worth the wait, Austin’s strongest and densest corridor: Guadalupe-North Lamar.. Communities want light rail on that route and have written it into the neighborhood plans. The FTA has said it would consider funding a MetroRapid bus-to-light rail conversion in that corridor. Continue reading There are no $1.4 Billion do-overs
From where I see it, this was never about rail, it was always about developing an under-developed corridor of central Austin. A previously undesirable corridor because of it’s proximity to I35 and the noise and congestion associate, along with specific properties, which, without rail wouldn’t be nearly as viable or valuable. Continue reading Prop-1 The Wrong Rail for Austin