Category: Streetscapes

  • Reclaiming the Sidewalk

    Photo by Dan Anderson On Wednesday, City Council will consider (this is on regular agenda – not time certain, so probably sometime between 10:30 and noon) a plan to phase out storage of dumpsters on sidewalks (technically not allowed today, but not enforced). Here’s the full report (PDF, 186K).

  • European Traffic Photos

    Geek Alert! Portland Transport reader (and PDOT safety guru) Greg Raisman just returned from a European vacation, where his wife was tolerant enough to let him take a LOT of pictures of traffic patterns in different cities. Check it out on Flickr.

  • Complete Streets Get Some Respect

    Via Planetizen: “The concept of ‘complete streets’ — with bike lanes, sidewalks and room for mass transit — has attracted a diverse national alliance of supporters, including advocates for senior citizens and the disabled.” “Fourteen states, six counties, 10 regional governments and 52 cities have complete streets policies, according to the National Complete Streets Coalition.…

  • More Green Streets

    The City of Portland is ramping up its efforts to make our streets more environmentally friendly. From the Daily Journal of Commerce: A policy approved by Portland City Council in April makes green street features like curb extensions, bioswales and stormwater planter systems a required part of all city-funded infrastructure projects in the public right-of-way.

  • How Walkable is Your Neighborhood?

    There’s an interesting new Google Maps Mashup called Walk Score that looks at how far it is from any given address to key services like a grocery store, drugstore, schools, parks, etc. and computes a walkability score. Mine was 95 out of 100 :-) Note that the site has had some problems with heavy traffic…