Author: Chris Smith

  • School Siting and Transportation

    Yesterday’s Oregonian included a cover story on the pressures to find sufficiently large sites for new schools in growing districts. The story included an aerial photo of the 64-acre Tualatin High School and the presented the debate for small school sites versus the current pattern of very large sites with playing fields, parking, etc. There…

  • Lessons from the Netherlands: Fare Policy

    Riding trams in the Netherlands this week, I have been struck by the number of ways to buy a fare: 1) On most trains in Amsterdam there is a conduction in a booth selling tickets. I am told that conductors were only recently added back to trains, in part to make customers feel more secure.…

  • Segmenting the Pavement

    These two pictures, besides demonstrating my incompetence at photo composition, show an approach sometimes used in the Netherlands. This is a street in Utrecht. The non-auto portion of the pavement is broken up into three zones. A bike lane is closest to the auto lanes. And the sidewalk of course is against the buildings. What’s…

  • A Variety of Streetcar (Tram) Streets in Amsterdam

    A few days ago I shared a photo of a local shopping street served by trams here in Amsterdam. I’ve compiled a set of photos of trams running on different types of streets and the variety of design treatments used. Different solutions seem to work well for different needs.

  • Finally, on a Bike in the Netherlands

    One of the ironies of our busy agenda here in Amsterdam is that we’re spending so much time going to meetings and criss-crossing the country on the national railway that we have not had time to get on a bike and ride. That got fixed today when we visited Apeldoorn and Grongingen.