News Roundup
- Great Streets San Diego launches. GSSD is an education and advocacy group for livable streets and great urban placemaking in San Diego. Walter Chambers, founder of GSSD and self-identified “slow bicyclist” states that “Great Streets San Diego is about putting People first in design. Successful urban spaces attract people, and if the goal is to attract and keep people, then everything the planner, architect, engineer, designer and community does must be toward that goal.
GSSD will focus it’s efforts at the community level, believing that a well informed public will demand from its officials, engineers, and designers good urban practices such as Complete Streets, good Placemaking, bicycle and pedestrian accommodations, and sustainable smart growth. ” It is very encouraging to see other advocacy groups popping up around San Diego. - North County’s Transit District has given cyclists another reason to ride the Sprinter trains.The trains now have double the capacity for bicycles and have added bike straps to secure bicycle frames.
- If there still was any lingering questions on why the U.S. continues to have terrible, and crumbling infrastructure, the Infrastructurist has a good writeup on the answer: only 0.60% of the GDP is spent on infrastructure. Given that the Transportation Bill is currently being held up because of a failure to consider viable alternatives such as a higher gas tax, not unlike the ones found elsewhere around the globe. Only by leveling the playing field by investing equally in all forms of transportation such as bicycle infrastructure will citizens finally have real options on how they can transport themselves.
- The House Transportation And Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fl apparently has a fundamentally flawed understanding of not only the effects of the Transportation Bill, but a failure to understand basic accounting with his proposal to cut all transportation expenditures by one-third while simultaneously not wanting to charge tolls on interstate highways.
- Tanya Snyder at Streetsblog offers a good writeup on the environmental impact of a two wheeled commute as a response to Brian Palmer’s analysis on his bicycle commute in comparison with his commute as a driver.
- Another San Diegan driver speeds next to the separated Class I bike path along the San Diego river, loses control and flips. Thankfully, no cyclist was injured or killed. The driver also appears to be relatively unharmed.