National Trails Day: Saturday June 6th

The first Saturday of June is National Trails Day.  I think that it should be leveraged to promote trail use, volunteerism wrt cleanups, as a day to celebrate opening new trails, facilities, etc. ("Thousands of volunteers help maintain WA trails each year," Seattle Times).  

Too often it isn't.

The American Hiking Society is the lead, but federal agencies, at least they used to, like the National Park Service and the US Forest Service were big celebrants.  

Biking and walking access is a big part of trails and Trails Day events.

US Forest Service lands are free access on Trails Day.  They have a lot of volunteer and other events that day, all over the country.

National Parks aren't free that day.

1.  Last month, while doing park playground evaluation for a grant application, I realized besides most places not having enough signage calling attention to trails, that trail signage could be augmented with information/icons pointing people to nearby services like restrooms or air pumps--bike maps often do this, but not signs.

-- "May is National Bicycle Month | More on the concept of adding services icons to bicycle route wayfinding signage"

2.  Years ago, I was blown away by a trail study for Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Ohio (Cuyahoga Greenways Plan) that did demographic studies about the increased range of jobs made available through the expansion of trail networks.  

I haven't stayed in close touch with bike planning best practice over the past few years, but I think this plan is definitely worth reading in terms of how it lays out goals and evaluation criteria for route selection, and even branding!

3. The basic idea is building a network for cycling.  I like the way an old German National Bicycle Plan illustrated the point.

I'm still proud of the concepts I developed many years ago in creating the Western Baltimore County Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan in terms of the scales at which to focus the development of bicycle and walking infrastructure ("Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces""):

• within neighborhoods
• one mile radius from schools and bus stops and transit stations
• three mile radius from "town centers"
• along corridors
• between corridors
• connections within and to parks, which I called a County bikeway network
• connections to neighboring jurisdictions (Baltimore County has borders with Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County, Howard County, Carroll County and Harford County in Maryland, and York County in Pennsylvania.

4.  With regard to trails as networks and infrastructure, urban trails can be particularly good at connecting neighborhoods to parks, libraries, shopping districts, grocery stores, schools and other civic assets.  The Northwest Branch Trail in Prince George's County does this very well--and it's the first trail that I really rode on that made me realize the value of trails versus street riding.

On the street, so much of your mental energy is occupied on defensive cycling.  You can drop a lot of that when riding trails, except for gauging the movement of pedestrians, little kids, dogs, roller bladers, scooter riders, skateboarders, etc.

On the Baltimore and Annapolis Trail and the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, brewpubs in Iowa, etc. many businesses have opened rear entries to link to the adjoining trail.

The patio and 606 Trail access point at Wolf & Company in Bucktown. Credit: Quinn Myers/Block Club Chicago.

In Chicago, the Wolf and Company restaurant is the first company to have placed a restaurant entry on  the 606 Trail.  

They specifically chose that building because it could support multiple concepts, including the trail.

Ironically, the 606 Trail was created to serve a lower income area of Chicago ("Lessons from The 606," DePaul University Institute of Housing Studies) but the Bucktown neighborhood where the restaurant is, is decidedly upscale.

The top floor is a cafe with coffee, tea and other drinks.

The bottom floor, 1752 N. Western Avenue opens to the street and neighborhood, with a full service restaurant, bar and market ("Bloomingdale Trotters Should Beware of Wolves, Not Foxes, Along the 606," Eater).

With a butcher case like this, and prices to match, the market is definitely a lot more than a typical convenience store focused on selling snacks and soda.

So Wolf & Company is three concepts: cafe; restaurant and bar; and upscale market, in one, connecting both to the 606 Trail and the Bucktown neighborhood.

5.  Speaking of branding, how about Promoting Bikeway Networks through Postcards?  The Alta Trail Map postcard below pictures their trails for winter skiing.  I like the icons they use to denote the various amenities at different trailheads.  Ski resorts promote mountain biking in summers as a way to build revenue off-season, and publish trail maps.

Relatedly, the Ketchum Idaho Visitor Center has trail maps posted on its walls.  As do some other groups.  But rarely bicycle shops.

6.  Not trails per se, but bikeways, Salt Lake is really doing a lot of great work ("Recent study cites Salt Lake City as one of the nation's safest metro areas for bicycling," Cache Valley Daily), even though its program to add sustainable mobility infrastructure to the city's streets has been stymied and preempted by the Utah State Legislature--legislators complain that bikeways make it hard for them to drive to the Capitol ("Utah Senate approves bill that blocks Salt Lake City's street improvement work," Salt Lake City Weekly).

7.  Besides the drying up of federal funding for sustainable mobility infrastructure ("Cities Losing Federal Support for Bike and Walking Infrastructure," Governing, "USDOT’s historic failure to advance any new transit projects in 14 months may be a sign of things to come," Transportation for America) and fortunately most states and localities are maintaining their commitments to biking and walking (and can't afford to cover federal government funding for transit) ... 

8.  the biggest issue in bicycle planning to me is not the development, construction and implementation of infrastructure and facilities, but providing the assistance people need to make the transition from automobile-centricity to biking.

I write about that here:

-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs"

9.  Secure bicycle parking networks operating at the metropolitan scale.  But while #24 is Provision of secure bicycle parking, and lockers and showers in destination districts.  Zoning requirements to build them in office buildings and campuses of a certain size.  Or as a proffer/ community benefit.

I failed to call out specifically the need for secure bicycle parking networks.  That means 27 points.  This covers the topic:

-- "If you're going to promote electric bikes at scale, there needs to be complementary investment in secure bicycle parking and charging" (2023)
-- "Bike to Work Day as an opportunity to assess the state of bicycle planning: Part 2, building a network of bike facilities at the regional scale" (2017)

Rennes, France does a good job with regional secure bike parking ("National Bicycle Month | Rennes, France: a national model").  Other European cities too.

10.  E-bikes can help a lot.  Years ago I was critical about e-biking, because I thought "regular" bikes worked in cities--especially in flat areas--just fine ("(Still) tired of mis-understanding of the potential for e-bikes."

E-bikes have the added benefit of 

1. extending the distance people are willing to commute by bike
2. making it easier for aging seniors to continue biking
3. making it easier to bike in hilly conditions
4. making a bicycle trip more competitive with car travel in terms of time, so that people actually switch trips from a car to a bike.

From Reddit. An Amazon e-bike vehicle making deliveries in DC.  Although some worry about such vehicles blocking bike lanes. 

11.  Making cycling irresistible. But my earlier position on "the right way to use electric bikes" made me remember job isn't to make plans about how I think people should bike.  It should be about building the conditions to make bicycling irresistible 

-- "Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany," Transport Reviews (2008).  

I used that paper as the foundation for this piece, which was commissioned at the time by the DC Bicycle Advisory Committee in response to a Rails to Trails Conservancy initiative.   

-- "Ideas for making bicycling irresistible in Washington DC" (2008)  

In writing, I made the point that DC is urban and should lay out an urban agenda for biking, as opposed to the more suburban and rural biking "sense" of the rails to trails movement.

I see one of the ideas, delivery services using bike-based vehicles is just now being implemented in DC.

12.  E-bikes and cargo bikes help people shift trips to and from school from car to bike. ("Small But Mighty: Electric Bicycles Can Bridge the Gap in Access to Transportation," National Laboratory of the Rockies, "Study finds that once people use cargo bikes, they like their cars much less," ArsTechnica).

13.  E-bike voucher programs are quick to fill up.  I didn't even know about the latest one in Utah ("Utah E-Bike Program offers $800 vouchers to qualified residents," ABC4).  It opened on June 1st.  Was full before the end of the day on June 3rd.

I like the usually these programs provide more support for those of lesser means.  But I think that they should be loan deductible programs like in in England or Ireland.   Sometimes, they are funded through carbon tax programs and similar kinds of impact fees.

14.  E-bikes on trails (and beaches) can be problematic.  On trails it is because they are faster than people on foot or regular bike.  And certain types of e-vehicles aren't bicycles, but more akin to motorcycles ("Iowa City needs a nuanced conversation about e-bikes," Iowa City Press-Citizen, "Iowa cities team up to promote e-bike safety on trails and sidewalks," Iowa Public Radio/NPR, "E-bikes are all over mountain trails. Some want them banned," "In the South Bay, e-bikes are restricted along the beach. Yet they’re still everywhere," Los Angeles Times, "Moab Opened 200 Miles of Trail to E-Bikes. I Was One of the First to Ride Them (Legally)," Outside).  From the first article:

Anyone who regularly uses Iowa City trails has likely seen the tension already developing: riders moving too quickly through crowded pedestrian areas, oversized throttle-powered bikes built more like motorcycles than bicycles, and parents purchasing machines online without realizing they may exceed Iowa’s legal definition of an e-bike. 

A sign posted at a trail entrance to the Aliso Wood Canyon Wilderness Park 

in Aliso Viejo, California restricts e-bike usage.

That matters because Iowa City has spent decades building trails designed to function as shared public spaces. Pedestrians, runners, wheelchair users, cyclists and families with strollers all use the same network. That system works because speed differences remain relatively manageable and predictable. A 12 mph difference matters on a crowded trail. A 30 mph difference changes the character of a shared trail completely. 

Unfortunately, the public conversation often collapses into two extremes. Either all e-bikes are treated as dangerous, or any discussion of regulation is dismissed as anti-bike hysteria. Both reactions miss the point. Most e-bike riders are responsible, and many are exactly the kind of people cities should want out of cars and onto trails. E-bikes reduce traffic, parking demand, and transportation barriers for people who might not otherwise ride at all. At the same time, it is reasonable to acknowledge that high-speed electric motorcycles do not belong on crowded recreational paths simply because they have pedals attached.

Ketcham, Idaho.

15.  Suggestion: Create a senior bike purchase deduction program from the social security benefits program.  I recently suggested Medicare could do this for seniors ("The "new" Washington Post editorial page blows a chance to be innovative | Nudging versus "nannyism" and senior health care"), but instead of deducting from your payroll check, from your Social Security check.  

There is clear value for promoting senior biking as a fitness measure.  Let's make it easy.  People with lower incomes could get a match--the check doesn't go all that far for many and i can be difficult to save up for big expenditures.

16.  Speaking of seniors, we need to have programs that promote walking and biking as people age.  Some senior centers and organizations do this on a national best practice basis ("Freewheelers: Old Spokes Bicycle Club," Philadelphia Inquirer).  Apparently there is a similarly named Old Spokes group in Calgary.  

Baltimore County Office of Aging sponsors a Cycling Seniors program.  Etc.

A couple years ago, Washington Area Bicyclists Association did an active transportation expo for seniors.  

I think all senior center programs should develop and implement similar kinds of programs.

17.  Acknowledge and respond to climate change.  Trails should consider adding push button mister stations to deal with the heat.  

Water stations where they can be installed, based on access to utilities.

Add shade structures and tree plantings.  With the aim that over decades, the trees become tall enough to provide significant shade.

A mister on a playground.  

 

How Paris Beat the Car

 Is an article in the Financial Times.  The author discusses the Paris Mayoral election in term of a pro-sustainable mobility versus car-centric dynamic.  The leading left candidate supports sustainable mobility, the conservative candidate wants to be more car friendly

The author sees car friendliness as a step backward, not just for Paris, but for how Paris enables other cities to adopt similarly aggressive policies--an example of how I say "world class cities don't just take, they give"--in that their willingness to be more boldly innovative enables other cities to maybe not be so bold, but to be innovative, with a successful example they can point to.  From the article:

The city’s transition away from the car, though fantastically chaotic, has become a global role model. Under mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris was “the most influential city in the world”, says Canadian urbanist Brent Toderian. Parisian car traffic fell by more than half between 2002 and 2023, while cycle lanes expanded sixfold. Bikes now make more than twice as many journeys as cars. Hidalgo, stepping down after 12 years, exulted: “The bike beat the car.”

First, pushing out cars improves life for most inhabitants. Paris has reduced traffic accidents, noise and air pollution. More than 300 “school streets” have been pedestrianised; kids play there after school. More than ever before, Paris is a sea of terraces: from April to October, cafés and restaurants can put tables on parking spaces outside their premises. Cities shouldn’t be storage spaces for heaps of metal.

Avenue Lamoricière in the 12th has introduced play areas © Joséphine Brueder/Ville de Paris

Lesson two is that banishing cars doesn’t hurt an urban economy. Retailers often worry it will deter their customers. Studies repeatedly show it doesn’t. More broadly, French Hidalgo-haters need to explain why Paris is in the global top four of business-focused rankings of cities...

Lesson three: car-free cities must offer people good alternative ways to travel. Paris itself does: it has world-class public transport plus cycle lanes. Only 28 per cent of Parisian households own a car. But Paris is a relatively small city of 2.1 million inhabitants. The five million people living outside the ring road in the “Grand Paris” metropole are less well served.

Lesson four: a city needs to control deliveries (typically made in Paris by double-parked vans). A study by MIT found that delaying deliveries by five minutes could cut the kilometres travelled by delivery vehicles by about 30 per cent, because that lets transporters bundle parcels. To do this, cities need to meet a bigger challenge: get a grip on tech firms operating in their streets, and get those firms’ data. Firms like Waze or Google often possess the deepest knowledge of a city’s workings, says Missika.

Lesson five: cities must discipline bikes. Aggressive cyclists terrorise pedestrians. Early motorists were just as wild until laws came in. Grégoire (himself once fined for cycling with earphones on) promises stricter policing.

Note, he doesn't mention the Velib' (Velo Liberation=Freedom) bike sharing program which predates Hidalgo and ushered in a more bicycle-centric mode in a big way--one that "gave permission" to cities across the globe to do something similar.  

Other actions built from this one, the same way that Portland has incrementally built its sustainable mobility infrastructure ("A summary of my impressions of Portland Oregon," 2005).  While that entry is 20 years old, Portland furthered incremental positive change with streetcar expansion, the transit-bike-walking only bridge, the Aerial Tram, promotion of EVs, etc.

The UK has adopted the Paris school street model; NYC also.

I think lessons two and three should be reversed.  You can't have a sustainable mobility dominated transportation policy if you don't have great transit, let alone infrastructure supportive of walking and biking.  I consider it a privilege to have lived in DC where this kind of mobility paradigm is doable.  I biked to work and for most of my errands for 30+ years.

Salt Lake is developing bike infrastructure to the point where the State Legislature is pissed, seeing it as making it hard for them to drive to and from the Capitol ("After a brush with death, a bill to give Utah more control over SLC streets awaits Cox’s signature. Here’s what it would do.," Salt Lake Tribune).  But I was thinking about this and what Salt Lake isn't doing, which is true for just about every jurisdiction in the US, is proactively building the base of every day cycling.

Salt Lake in its core is flat and very hilly (foothills) on its east and northeast sides.  Start by promoting the hell out of biking in the core where it's relatively easy to do ("Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs").

9 Line adjacent to Liberty Park, Salt Lake City.

The state law affects Sugar House Park, where I am on the board.  We want to replace the right most lane of 2100 South into an enhanced bike lane, which the city is doing by other parks.  And add bike share stations.  

And I would like to have national best practice bike parking in the form of Biceberg underground kiosks (although the water table is an issue in some areas of the park).

Life After Cars | US Metropolitan areas where 8% or more residents use public transit to get to work

One of the points I used to make wrt transit advocacy is that people needed to recognize that most of the US--92% of all trips involve a car--has no concept that a transit-centric mobility and lifestyle paradigm is even possible.  

This is why this graphic (via Reddit) is so compelling.  Sadly.  Because it shows how few areas of the country are at least somewhat transit-centric.  

I always say I was privileged to have lived in DC for 30+ years, where it is possible, practical, and frugal to rely on transit (even better when you add biking, walking, and the occasional car share) rather than having to own a car.  Not owning a car at the time supported $100,000 of our mortgage.

If I were healthy, and maybe with the addition of an electric bike, I probably could live car light, not car free, in Salt Lake.  But I am not strong enough yet to be able to use an electric bike, and I have scads of doctors appointments, occasional hospital stays, etc.

"Gasoline is up and GOP sees an easy target: Biden," Politico.

Like when President Biden proposed a federal excise tax holiday on gasoline when prices rose, advocates were quick to say, "no, instead make transit free."  When comparatively speaking, everyone drives, and they are more concerned about gas prices than transit use.

What I always argue is that it took 50+ years to build our automobile-centric transportation system, and while it shouldn't take that long to build up a sustainable mobility system, we need to take a variety of steps, including actively helping people take up bicycling and shift trips from the car.

-- "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs"  2024

As some people say, "biking is the freedom that car television ads claim to provide."

This reality is why I didn't bother trying to track down a review copy of the book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, which has received a fair amount of coverage ("‘Car Brain’ Is Making the US Unhealthy and Dangerous. EVs Won’t Fix It.," Bloomberg).  

I think it's great to think of a no car lifestyle as a thought experiment, a way to think about how you get around, and what you can change to do so without a car as much as possible.

But to argue seriously that it should be the policy of the land, given where we are now, is ludicrous and I would think, for most people is an argument that can't ever be taken seriously.

Note that I am pleased by recent various pro-sustainable mobility gains:

•  electric bikes are successful in shifting trips away from the automobile
• bike sharing systems in DC, New York City, and Toronto are having record years
• each year more and more people take part in Safe Routes to School programs
• coverage within SRTS programming about "bike buses" ("More Children Are Powering Their Own Wheels to School as Part of ‘Bike Buses’," Inside Climate News)
• the expanded use of cargo bikes as alternatives to the car 
• winter cycling promotion initiatives including a winter Bike to Work Day in many cities
• and that transit use is rebounding after taking a hit during Covid.

Last year's entry, "20th anniversary of the blog| Urban revitalization systems thinking's greatest hits: Part three -- transportation" has links to what I consider to be my best writings on transportation.

It is possible to shift people away from the car, partly by alternatives, partly by changes to urban form, and the creation of mixed use communities.

My ability to be mobile waxes and wanes depending on (if any) recent hospitalizations.  Before my last trip to the hospital, I was walking two miles per day and doing a variety of exercises.  I haven't worked back to that level, but I can walk a mile, better if split half and half.

Where I live that means I can walk one half mile east to a decent shopping center with a supermarket, Shake Shack, and various other retail in one direction, a little farther from that adds a dry cleaner, shoe repair and copy shop to the range.  

Walking west, another half mile, is a small group of businesses on four corners of a neighborhood intersection with a smaller upscale supermarket, drug store/apparel shop, two restaurants, and salon and light office (for awhile I saw a doctor as my PCP in an office above the direction).

In yet another direction is another grouping of shops, including where I get my hair cut (sometimes I spring for a razor shave too) where I walked to just last week.

There's a park in another direction.  And if I can walk a bit farther, a neighborhood library (more like 3/4 mile each way).

Again, it's a privilege to live in a place with access to all those amenities easily reachable by walking or biking.  (And by car, two major hospitals within 15 minutes, north and south of where I live, among other amenities.)

Again/2, if I could bike right now, I'd have access to a great deal more amenities, all in less than a 5 mile radius.  

And that's not even taking advantage of the light rail-based transit shed in the metropolitan area (it's not too proximate for me, the nearest station is almost 3 miles away, on the University of Utah campus).  Bus service isn't too bad, but degrades with distance.    If you're in the rail transit shed, you can live car light definitely, and depending on where you work, no car.

My hospital is 5.4 miles away, easily bikeable when I am healthy, not when I am really sick, but takes more than an hour transferring from one bus to another....

Quote of the day: great cities have great transit

At a public hearing a number of years ago about proposed transit system cuts in Washington, DC, a bus driver testified how his job "makes people money" in that he facilitates how people get to work.  

But he also drives people motivated by other reasons to take transit.  

David Engwicht's Reclaiming Our Cities and Towns argues in part that cities are about exchange and therefore so is transit--and exchange isn't limited to transactions, be they work or shopping, but to facilitate all forms of "doing."  

The more efficient is mobility, the more that can be exchanged.  If a city devotes itself to roads and parking, rather than transit, there is less area in which to conduct exchange.  

(Another illustration is by David Appleyard, who found that the wider the road and greater the traffic, the less interaction of residents between each side of the street, and even along their side of the street.)

WRT Philadelphia's transit cuts, I just wrote about it,"Tr ansit death spiral starts with Philadelphia."

Photo: Alejandro A. Alvarez, Philadelphia Inquirer.

From "The arts season is about to begin. Will cuts to SEPTA mean a loss of audiences?":

“You can’t be a great city or a major city without meaningful public transport, and we know when we look at systems around the world, public transport requires a subsidy.”

SEPTA “makes it possible for everyone to participate in the city’s cultural life — it is an essential infrastructure for the continued vitality of Philadelphia,” said Ryan Fleur, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts.

=====

Note that Peter Dobrin, the author of the piece, is the Inquirer's arts reporter, and his coverage about arts issues aren't just about performance, but include important writings on the urban design quality of buildings, real estate issues, etc.  For example, "Will a revitalized ‘cleaner, greener, safer’ South Broad Street rescue the arts?."

The resistance: Florida cities challenging MAGA guidance on LGBTQ crosswalk treatments: Update to "Attacks on American civil society to the most picayunish"

Hundreds of people turned out in a show of support for the LGBTQ+ rainbow pride intersection of Duval and Petronia streets in Key West on July 26, 2025. (Nick Doll Photography via Key West Business Guild/courtesy)

The City of Del Rey Florida, after pressure from the State DOT in response to US DOT guidance, agreed to remove "LGBTQ" painted crosswalks, which technically are not considered appropriate road treatments according to the Manual of Uniform Controlled Traffic Devices.

But they changed their minds.  From the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, "Delray Beach changes course, will defy state and keep its LGBTQ+ pride intersection":

Delray Beach has decided to defy the state and keep its LGBTQ+ pride intersection downtown, a move that could draw scrutiny from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration. The decision to keep the intersection, at least for the time being, was made this week by a majority of city commissioners. 

It came three weeks after City Manager Terrence Moore ordered removal of the intersection. Moore, like officials in Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach, acted in response to a pronouncement from DeSantis’ secretary of transportation.

They are taking a big risk, considering how MAGA Florida is, and it's a definite positive sign of resistance.  The article is worth reading in full, as it describes the issues and the responses within a number of Florida's cities.

Delray Beach is not alone in resisting the early-July directive posted on social media by Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, who attached a memorandum warning non-compliant communities that they could lose state funding. Key West city commissioners voted last week to keep their rainbow intersection and fight efforts to remove it. In late July, hundreds of people gathered to show support for the city’s LGBTQ+ rainbow intersection.

In Fort Lauderdale, the fate of a segment of a road painted the colors of the rainbow progress pride flag is unresolved, with several factors complicating the issue. Mayor Dean Trantalis said he wants to preserve that section of Sebastian Street. Any decision about changing its status should be made by the City Commission, not the city staff, the mayor said.

=========================

This entry was published July 18th:

A file photo, above, shows the “Pride Progress Flag” mural on East Ocean Avenue and First Street in Boynton Beach. Now, it's no longer there. A woman, below, walks her dog at the newly painted intersection on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel) 

Besides post-hospital demotivation, another reason for not writing has been the overwhelmingly anti-progressive acts by the Trump Administration, too much to grapple with.  I wrote about this in March ("Federal government cuts target civil society").  

From the Sun-Sentinel:

The instructions came via a July 1 social media post, press release and “Dear Governor” letter from Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and a July 2 social media post from Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, who attached a detailed memorandum from one of his assistant secretaries. 

 Duffy was direct about his intentions. “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks. Political banners have no place on public roads. I’m reminding recipients of @USDOT roadway funding that it’s limited to features advancing safety, and nothing else. It’s that simple.”

So much for placemaking, traffic calming, and sustainable mobility.

This is further illustrated by proposals to cut federal funding to PBS and NPR ("Senate approves cuts to NPR, PBS and foreign aid programs," NPR).  Since the Senate agreed, it's all but a done deal.  Advocacy and action groups in all categories, such as agriculture and sustainable mobility, the arts and humanities and other areas are all losing funding.

In "Florida city removes LGBTQ+ rainbow intersection, quickly complying with state, federal mandate," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports on how the US DOT and Florida DOT--both hard right Republican, have advised local governments to remove gay pride rainbow crosswalks because they are not authorized "traffic control devices."

Attacks on American civil society to the most picayunish

Update: 8/15/2025 

Some Florida cities are resisting ("Delray Beach changes course, will defy state and keep its LGBTQ+ pride intersection," Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel), including Key West and others.

======

 

A file photo, above, shows the “Pride Progress Flag” mural on East Ocean Avenue and First Street in Boynton Beach. Now, it's no longer there. A woman, below, walks her dog at the newly painted intersection on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel) 

Besides post-hospital demotivation, another reason for not writing has been the overwhelmingly anti-progressive acts by the Trump Administration, too much to grapple with.  I wrote about this in March ("Federal government cuts target civil society").  

From the Sun-Sentinel:

The instructions came via a July 1 social media post, press release and “Dear Governor” letter from Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and a July 2 social media post from Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, who attached a detailed memorandum from one of his assistant secretaries. 

 Duffy was direct about his intentions. “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks. Political banners have no place on public roads. I’m reminding recipients of @USDOT roadway funding that it’s limited to features advancing safety, and nothing else. It’s that simple.”

So much for placemaking, traffic calming, and sustainable mobility.

This is further illustrated by proposals to cut federal funding to PBS and NPR ("Senate approves cuts to NPR, PBS and foreign aid programs," NPR).  Since the Senate agreed, it's all but a done deal.  Advocacy and action groups in all categories, such as agriculture and sustainable mobility, the arts and humanities and other areas are all losing funding.

In "Florida city removes LGBTQ+ rainbow intersection, quickly complying with state, federal mandate," the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports on how the US DOT and Florida DOT--both hard right Republican, have advised local governments to remove gay pride rainbow crosswalks because they are not authorized "traffic control devices."

Quimbyism: sign me up!

A book I need to read.  Yes to the City: Millennials and the Fight for Affordable Housing

We've heard of NIMBY -- not in my backyard -- and YIMBY -- yes in my backyard -- abbreviations for different factions in communities opposed to or supportive of development.

A few years ago, Michael Mehaffy a prominent new urbanist, came up with the term, QUIMBY ("Never mind NIMBY and YIMBY–it’s time for ‘QUIMBY’ urbanism We need a major rethink of gentrification and affordability challenges if we’re going to get anywhere," Public Square), for "quality in my backyard" in part because YIMBYs don't seem to be too clued into quality, just building.

This comes up a lot with criticism of historic preservation as a limiter of development, or a stalking horse to stop development.  OTOH, there are a lot more areas of cities not zoned for preservation than for preservation.  

So most cities have plenty of build out capacity in commercial districts, transit catchment areas, reproduction of institutional lands, etc.

It happens that the neighborhoods that many people want to live in are typical of those that are designated historic, such as rowhouse neighborhoods in New York City, Baltimore, DC and Richmond.  YIMBYs basically argue for tearing down historic housing in favor of building more, to meet current demand, not recognizing that the new housing will be even more expensive because it is built at today's pricing for land, labor, materials, and financing.

To me, this is a perfect example of YIMBY housing on Sherman Avenue NW in DC, adjacent to housing that is eligible for historic designation but isn't designated, hence there are no design standards or processes to ensure compatible development.

Anyway, I commented on a recent post on the Pro-Urb list that QUIMBYISM could help us solve a problem of lack of congruence with multiple movements all addressing an element of what makes urbanism and urban living so attractive, by providing the glue that could join them in an agglomerated movement:

• Historic Preservation
• New Urbanism
• Urban design and placemaking (including Project for Public Spaces concepts)
• Walkability-15 Minute City concepts
• Sustainable mobility
• City Beautiful.  

This too, in NE DC near H Street NE and Hechinger Mall, in a rowhouse neighborhood that is eligible for historic preservation designation.  

These kinds of examples are why I argue that the entire city should be treated as a historic district ("Treating an entire city as a heritage area/conservation district, rather than a neighborhood by neighborhood approach," 2020).

On the other hand, this is an example of good, quality oriented infill development in a historic district and yes it costs more.  

It's a row of four or five new builds constructed on the 500 block of East Capitol NE (a tony housing district in DC).  

Ironically, they were built on a parking lot that was created by the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in the 1970s, by tearing down a beloved neighborhood restaurant, Mary's Blue Room  ("Losing my religion," 2008).

This action sparked the creation of a local historic preservation ordinance, providing protection against non-federal property owners, when the National Register Historic Districts designation process created by the 1968 National Historic Preservation Act only provides protections against federal undertakings.

But as Stephen Semes writes in Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism, and Historic Preservation, "the architecture of the ensemble" and maintaining neighborhood design coherence should be our priority.

"Maintaining a broad stylistic consistency in traditional settings is not a matter of 'nostalgia,'" he says. "It's a matter of common sense, of reinforcing the sense of place that made a building or neighborhood special to begin with. But many academically trained preservationists want to impose their inevitably subjective notions of what the architecture 'of our time' is."

Modern rowhouses in Capitol Hill, Seattle

Historic era rowhouses in Pittsburgh (I don't know if they are designated)

Typical new construction apartment design.  This is in Lakeland, Florida.

Revisiting: Need for social marketing initiatives around installation of neighborhood traffic calming initiatives: Salt Lake City

In June I wrote "Need for social marketing initiatives around installation of neighborhood traffic calming initiatives: Salt Lake City," about animus about a traffic safety initiative in my neighborhood.  I made the point that car-centric people don't understand how imprinted they are with automobile dependence, and their unwillingness to consider other modes (walking, biking, transit) and users, in this case all the kids who live in the vicinity of this oversized intersection.

But I also made the point that the City Transportation Department could have handled outreach a lot better--basically they didn't do any.  I sent a pdf of the blog entry to the Department Director, and they responded.

These are photos of a couple of outreach devices they deployed, including a signboard in the roundabout and a flyer dropped off at area houses.

And just this week, the City Transportation Department continued to refine the street markings, in keeping with the idea that the roundabout is a prototype, a test.

Need for social marketing initiatives around installation of neighborhood traffic calming initiatives: Salt Lake City

Gosh, years ago I wrote about an approach to planning I called "action planning," focused on implementation, and to be successful included elements of social marketing and branding and identity.

My thinking about planning and how it should be performed has moved from action planning ("Social Marketing the Arlington (and Tower Hamlets and Baltimore) way," 2008, "All the talk of e-government, digital government, and open source government is really about employing the design method," 2012), to best practice revitalization planning ("Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2017) to transformational projects action planning ("Updating the best practice elements of revitalization to include elements 7 and 8 | Transformational Projects Action Planning at a large scale," 2024, "A wrinkle in thinking about the Transformational Projects Action Planning approach: Great public buildings aren't just about design, but what they do," 2022), with stops for destination marketing, cities as brand management, and risk management as areas that elected officials should be very much concerned.

Traffic calming has been a revolutionary treatment in sustainable mobility focused transportation for the last 20+ years.  Most people probably think of it as speed bumps, but there are many different treatments.

But it's not widely understood, especially in places that are dominated by the car, like Salt Lake City.  Like many cities, Salt Lake is a leader in trying to balance the modes with a renewed focus on sustainable modes--walking, biking, and transit.  It's doing some great bike infrastructure, some of which we will be trying to get for the perimeter of Sugar House Park.

A traffic lane was removed and an in-ROW bicycle lane was installed on 900 East adjacent to Fairmont Park.

The Livable Streets Plan is an implementation focused plan aiming to bring that about ("In Salt Lake City, here’s what kind of ‘traffic-calming’ projects could be coming to your street," Salt Lake Tribune).  The city has been investing in such efforts for awhile, and the CIP process prioritizes monies for this action item.

My one criticism of the approach would be a lot of the residential streets in Salt Lake are "naturally traffic calmed" already based on their design, width, etc., and often people don't understand when treatments are implemented, often with little community involvement.  

(Many DC residential streets are similarly set up.  And I've argued that a bike boulevard program is really a traffic calming program irrespective of the bikes.)

That being said here and there are exceptionally wide neighborhood streets too, and traffic calming is a lot cheaper that reconstruction to make the street narrower.

So far, using the concepts of "Tactical Urbanism," many of the projects are either prototypes or done simply, but IMO there can be seriously negative aesthetic effects.

-- Tactical Urbanism Manual, volume 1
-- Tactical Urbanism Manual, volume 2
-- Tactical Urbanists Guide to Materials and Design

"Temporary" can be a long time.  Years.

(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mayor Erin Mendenhall and council member Dan Dugan swap out a 25 mph speed limit sign for a new 20 mph sign in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, July 27, 2022.

In 2022, the city reduced the street mph to 20mph for most neighborhood streets, which in a car oriented city, is at times controversial ("Salt Lake City Council lowers speed limit to 20 mph on 70% of city streets in unanimous vote," "Salt Lake City swaps first 20 mph speed limit sign in initiative for safer streets," Salt Lake Tribune).  (There is a local walking and transit advocacy group called Sweet Streets, that helped promote this change.)

I live on a street that's pretty wide--so cars speed quite a bit, even though it's only one block long, between two households with children, a weird intersection confluence, and about 20 children in close by houses, many of whom come to play next door (the house is more popular with kids than the one with the pool...).

The parents have been hyper about speeding cars, and the neighborhood and our District 6 Councilmember is more concerned about traffic safety these days because a nearby elementary school had a traffic fatality last year ("Yard sign, Person running for District Six Council in Salt Lake using traffic safety as a campaign issue," 2023).  

So about six weeks ago, that helped some of my neighbors get a temporary roundabout placed in the weird intersection.  Anecdotally, I think it's contributed to speed reduction, but I don't think they did of study of prevailing speeds beforehand.

It's not fancy.  It's temporary.

Sometimes kids play in it, but with supervision.  That scandalizes my MIL, but I'm not about to get into a debate with her about how the car companies and their allies changed the definition of street to be car centric instead of people centered.  See Fighting Traffic:The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.

Road Witch was a campaign in England 20+ years ago, focusing on rebalancing the use to streets toward residents, not automobiles.

But there has been opposition, both in Nextdoor, the neighborhood e-list, and through flyers distributed to nearby houses (I'm next door to the roundabout, and obviously with my sustainable mobility proclivities am supportive.)

I think that the real problem has been lack of neighborhood communication and education, heightened by the reality of car centricity, which automobile dependent residents aren't inclined to question--they just take it for granted.

The roundabout just popped up with no notice.  It's cheap looking.  There have been no explanatory materials placed in the roundabout or on people's doorknobs--both about why this has been installed and what temporary means in terms of the plastic poles.

At the Long Beach Beach Streets event, they prototyped sustainable road treatments, but with explanation.  A signboard like that needs to be made for SLC traffic calming treatments, including roundabouts.

There should have been a "block party" to introduce it (the same goes for other traffic calming treatments elsewhere in the city).

Community pop up event showing what a greenway could look like in their neighborhood.  Minneapolis Star-Tribune photo.

People hanging out in a parklet.  Parklets convert street parking spaces to alternative uses.

Salt Lake City Transportation Department pop up booth at Poplar Grove Park.  

They have the capacity for community communication.

WRT temporary, I imagine it could become something more like the roundabout at Hollywood Avenue and 1000 East, but again, no two way communication.  This is a photo not of that roundabout.  It's pretty, not cheap.

Ironically, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, community communication is part of the planning process:

Quick-action pilot projects could start as soon as this fall, but an overhaul may not begin until late 2024. “There’ll be outreach and engagement and development of the plan and the design neighborhood by neighborhood, followed by bidding it out and finding contractors that can build it for us — often, that process takes two years,” Jon Larsen, the city’s director of transportation, said . 

Across the board, implementation is dependent on future funding, which Larsen said was requested in this year’s capital improvement budget. Once the program has its team on board, they’ll begin prioritizing roadways to start on with guidance from the city council. “I know that sounds like a really long time to people; we’re hoping to find ways to speed up that process, and especially having more staff, I feel confident we will be able to,” Larsen said.

I think this and other traffic calming projects in the city show that the community communication element is an afterthought.

I do believe the people in my neighborhood would be more supportive if they knew the reasons why it was installed.  It has full walking infrastructure even though most people drive, although there are plenty of dog and child walkers.

And this need for community communication should be lesson for transportation departments more generally.  Explanatory signage is a must.

Gil Penalosa is running for Mayor of Toronto

Gil is the brother of Enrique Penalosa, who was Mayor of Bogota, who initiated the Ciclavia program--open streets--and implemented the TransMilenio high capacity bus rapid transit system.  Under his brother Gil was the city parks commissioner, and later he created the international pro-urbanism group 8-80 Cities.

He has a pro-public space, pro sustainable mobility based campaign.  But there are a couple dozen candidates, along with the incumbent John Tory.  

Gil is not likely to win, but perhaps he can shape the discussion towards public investment ("Gil Penalosa says he wants to be mayor to make ‘Toronto for everybody.’ Is anyone listening?," Toronto Star). From the article:

The thread running through Penalosa’s campaign is that Toronto is a good place to live, but its timid leadership has held it back. To join the ranks of great global cities like Paris, London or New York, he argues, Toronto needs a bold mayor.

Tory has shown a “lack of vision and action” on pressing issues like the housing crisis that is “almost shameful,” Penalosa said in an interview. “He’s been there for eight years, and you cannot even think of one significant project he has done.”

Penalosa’s view of Toronto’s place in the world is informed by his extensive international career. He was born into a prominent middle-class family in Bogota, Colombia, and earned a master of business administration from UCLA in 1984. From 1995 to 1998 he served as parks commissioner of Bogota, where he led the development of more than 200 public parks, and helped expand the city’s Ciclovía car-free streets program into an event that’s since been emulated around the world.

He relocated to Canada about 20 years ago and founded the advocacy group 8 80 Cities, based around the idea that streets and other infrastructure should be designed to accommodate citizens from eight to 80 years old, not just able-bodied adults.

The Toronto Star article campaign, "Can't we do better?," is focused on the years of under- and dis-investment by the government in the city's network of civic assets and infrastructure. 

 John Tory is committed to his low taxes pledge, but it comes at a cost ("Why is the Toronto Public Library facing service cuts? Ask John Tory," "Cities big and small are funding open streets. Doing so in Toronto should be an election issue," Star).