Free Republic

Two years ago, the street was put on a “Road Diet” and six lanes turned into four — with bike lanes in either direction and parking. “I think this is a very well intentioned project that has failed,” said bicyclist Steve Cohen. “It’s causing a lot of peak-hour gridlock. It’s causing a lot of cut-through traffic in our neighborhoods,” says Mar Vista resident Serena Inyoue. And while the lane was designed to make bicycle riding safer, some cyclists say the opposite is now true. “There was a dangerous aspect before they fixed it and there’s a dangerous aspect after they...

After roaming around and studying downtown for a week, the Urban Land Institute’s advisory services panel provided Atlanta leaders with recommendations on how to move forward with the colossal proposed “Stitch” project. On Friday, ULI, which conducts land use research for cities around the globe, suggested the time is now to partner with local elected officials and philanthropic organizations to get the ball rolling on fundraising efforts for the potentially 14-acre project that would install a massive park and new construction above the Downtown Connector. But in order to be competitive for public and private funding—panelists expect the highway-capping project...

... Los Angeles, like cities nationwide, is transforming its streets. In July 2017 the city installed a “road diet” on a 0.8-mile stretch of Venice Boulevard in Mar Vista, reducing four lanes to two and adding bike lanes separated from traffic by parking buffers. The project is part of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Vision Zero initiative, which aims to eliminate traffic fatalities in the city by 2025. Launched in 2015, Vision Zero is the most radical transformation of how people move through Los Angeles since the dawn of the freeway era 75 years ago. By almost any metric it’s been a...