Shared Spaces
Village centers in Europe are experimenting with "Shared Spaces" -- simplifying roads by removing traffic signals and expanding pedestrian sidewalks.
Tuesday, January 02, 2018
Friday, December 29, 2017
Tappan Zee Bridge's Awkward Location Explained
"The Tappan Zee crosses one of the widest points on the Hudson — the bridge is more than three miles long. And if you go just a few miles south, the river gets much narrower...Why did they build the Tappan Zee where they did, rather than building it a few miles south?
"It turns out, the bridge was part of a much larger project: The New York State Thruway, one of the first modern highway systems. There was an alternate proposal for a bridge at a narrower spot nearby. The proposal was put forward by top engineers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. But that proposal was killed by New York governor Thomas E. Dewey...
"The Port Authority — the body that proposed putting the bridge further south — had a monopoly over all bridges built in a 25-mile radius around the Statue of Liberty. If the bridge had been built just a bit south of its current location — that is, if it had been built across a narrower stretch of the river — it would have been in the territory that belonged to the Port Authority. As a result, the Port Authority — not the State of New York — would have gotten the revenue from tolls on the bridge. And Dewey needed that toll revenue to fund the rest of the Thruway." -- David Kestenbaum, A Big Bridge in the Wrong Place, NPR
Thursday, February 04, 2016
Trending Towards Suburban "Main Street Living" and "Transit-Oriented Development"
"Millennials have traditionally been painted as a generation obsessed with urban living, but just like their parents and grandparents, they wants homes and good schools for their kids. While this demographic has put off having kids longer than previous generations, studies suggest a larger number will soon become parents, and quickly fuel a suburban boom, especially in areas surrounding markets such as Hartford, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, which have seen post-recession job growth in the core. One ULI survey shows that six out of ten Gen-Y respondents expect to live in a detached single-family home five years from now. Of course, this doesn't mean they'll be living in the suburbs of yesterday. Suburbs (and developers) that replicate more Main Street living, including transit-oriented development and offer transportation options connected to big urban centers will see continued growth." -- "The Top 10 Emerging Trends Shaping Real Estate in 2016," Patrick Sisson, Curbed
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Return on Energy Investment
"[The World Bank is] investing in transformational energy projects across the region – and the world – because reliable and affordable power supplies aid business development greatly; every $1 invested in the power supply generates more than $15 in incremental GDP."
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Vancouver House
Bjarke Ingles is one of the most innovative starchitects in
urban design right now. This blog
previous wrote about him in this 2012 post.
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