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Copenhagen’s redesigned streets have become a world model. The Danish city’s 40-year shift away from a car culture was driven by concerns about urban flight, oil prices, and climate change, said Shin-pei Tsay, executive director of the Gehl Institute in New York City, a nonprofit with connections to the Copenhagen urba...
More than 200 miles of bike routes, including streets where pedestrians, cyclists, and cars operate at different grades.
But it was protected bike lanes that really pushed people out of their cars.
Cyclists essentially have their own sidewalk a little higher than the pavement that cars drive on but lower than pedestrian walkways. On more than 200 miles of bike routes, including streets where pedestrians, cyclists, and cars operate at different grades. Copenhagen eliminated parking on these streets and on smaller ...
Almost half of Copenhagen’s workers and students commute by bicycle, compared with about two percent in Philadelphia.
A street in Copenhagen with the tiered structure that creates physical barriers to separate drivers from cyclists and pedestrians.
Similar street designs are filtering into the United States.
In Cambridge, Mass., the Department of Public Works has for the last decade pursued an ambitious plan to redesign its 125 miles of roads on the same principles Copenhagen used. Cambridge devotes up to $6 million for coordinated right of way improvements that can upgrade bike lanes, sidewalks, bus stops, and roadways. I...
Redesigning 125 miles of roads, spending $6 million annually to update six to seven streets with bike infrastructure, utility maintenance, sidewalk improvements, and repaving.
Philadelphia, which has 2,575 miles of streets, is not yet at Cambridge’s level of coordination, though three years ago it introduced software to track utility projects to encourage them to coincide with streets projects. As the poorest of America’s ten most populous cities, Philadelphia also contends with the high cos...
The city began 10 public works projects in 2018, valued at about $77 million. The projects include the progressive — raised crosswalks on Broad Street for $780,000 — and the mundane — $10 million for paving and curb ramps. Paving projects now are planned with the city’s safer streets program in mind, so bike lanes and ...
The intersection of Huron Avenue and Chilton Street highlights some of the changes Cambridge Mass. is making to its streets. Features like curb bumpouts at intersections and brightly painted bike lanes are designed to contribute to safer streets.
An additional complication in Philadelphia is City Council’s great influence over any street changes that shift curbside parking, something that has slowed the city’s installation of bike lanes.
One of Philadelphia’s most recent experiments with bike lanes, though, shows that changing the roadway can alter how people drive. A pilot program that replaced driving lanes with protected bike lanes on Market Street and JFK Boulevard resulted in a 20 percent increase in cycling, said Kelley Yemen, the city’s complete...
How Much Road do Fifty Commuters Need?
Personal vehicles take up the vast majority of space on city streets, since 60 percent of Philadelphia workers commute by car. A comparison of the space requirements for different commuting choices reveals that cars take up significantly more room per person than buses or bicycles.
Salim, 44, a driver for more than two decades, prides himself on his ability to dodge traffic traps.
There are an estimated 18,000 deliveries a day in Center City.
Salim pulled into a drop-off passenger zone at the Academy House on Locust Street. A Philadelphia Parking Authority enforcement worker stopped, chatted about the chilly weather, then stuck a parking violation on the truck’s door.
“At least we didn’t block a lane,” Salim said.
With 20 logistics developments in the zoned areas, congestion declined by about 10 percent.
The ticket isn’t his to pay. UPS will cover it. Delivery companies paid $4.6 million in parking fines from April to September 2018. The PPA wants to increase fines, but experts doubt that will be a deterrent. The time saved by not circling blocks to find legal parking is more valuable to delivery companies than avoidin...
Paris, a city of more than two million, used zoning in 2016 to direct development of distribution and logistics warehouses along the waterfront or near train tracks close to the city center. These create space where deliveries can be broken down and reloaded onto smaller vehicles less likely to clog travel lanes, such ...
Chappelle International, a logistics center in north Paris, includes a rail freight station, offices, restaurant, sport facilities, data center.
Paris now has about 20 freight logistics developments in the zoned areas, said Laetitia Dablanc, a professor of logistics at the University of Paris and director of research at the French Institute of Science and Technology. They have reduced congestion by almost 10 percent, but the demand for deliveries still exceeds ...
“I guess they would need 80 of them to really run operations with electric vans or walking or cargo cycles,” she said.
Cargo bikes like this one traveling on a Paris street, could be one way to cut back on delivery trucks in dense city centers.
Warehouses are being developed in Philadelphia, though without an assist from zoning. The city hopes to have better-planned loading zones, which now are created through individual requests from businesses. In the coming year, though, changes will likely be limited to tweaking the time limits for curbside parking and sh...
New York City has a voluntary night-delivery pilot program with 300 participating businesses and a goal of attracting 900 more. Philadelphia is interested in the concept, but it could require noise-ordinance changes from City Council and won’t come anytime soon.
Public transit helps thin congestion by getting people out of cars, and buses are the most flexible, wide-ranging network SEPTA offers.
In practice, though, a person on foot is faster than buses in parts of Center City. A car parallel-parking or a double-parked delivery truck can halt a bus. And pulling away from a bus stop back into traffic? Arduous.
65% of SEPTA's 83 bus routes regularly run late.
Sixty-five percent of Philadelphia’s 83 bus routes run late. SEPTA and city officials are redesigning Philadelphia’s bus network and considering options like all-door boarding or eliminating transfer fees to speed service. SEPTA expects to start looking for a contractor for the redesign in 2019, but changes could take ...
What Philadelphia talks about, the Big Apple does — and more. On multilane arterials like 34th Street in Manhattan, New York City has dedicated a lane in each direction almost entirely to bus service. Cars can use the lanes for right turns, but otherwise driving in them risks a $150 fine.
Driving in a bus lane is a $150 fines.
Sixteen rapid bus routes citywide.
On these Select Bus Service routes, riders buy tickets from kiosks at stops and board at any door. Random ticket checks keep riders honest. At some stops, curbs are extended to allow buses to stay in the travel lane. Traffic signals detect buses, so lights stay green longer, or switch from red faster, to keep buses mov...
“It took the bus from being equivalent to walking, like you may as well just walk, to being something that actually provides a worthwhile service,” said Eric Beaton, deputy commissioner in New York City’s Department of Transportation.
Buses on the two-mile route, begun in 2011, were 15 to 20 percent faster than before the dedicated lanes, Beaton said, and ridership on those routes generally grew. The 34th Street route costs $27 million, with curb extensions as the costliest upgrade. The city had been converting about two routes a year to rapid trans...
This effort, though, has not spared New York City from bus service woes. Plans to grow the Select Bus Service were suspended last year to save money. Ridership is dropping, according to a report issued last year by the city’s Bus Turnaround Coalition. The coalition sees more dedicated bus lanes as part of the solution,...
The dedicated bus lane at 3rd Avenue and 34th Street in Manhattan sets buses apart from city traffic. The stops feature ticket dispensers and buses board passengers through all their doors.
Philadelphia has dedicated bus and bike lanes on Chestnut and Market Streets, but without New York’s infrastructure changes and, until recently, little enforcement. Even with just improved midday enforcement, though, SEPTA reported early indications that buses are traveling about three minutes faster on Chestnut. New b...
Dedicated bus lanes may come more quickly to Roosevelt Boulevard, where an express bus introduced in 2017 is expected to be upgraded before 2025, said Jennifer Dougherty, SEPTA’s manager of long-range planning.
New York is “just farther ahead of us in the process,” Puchalsky said.
Work sites spilling into streets and sidewalks force Center City pedestrians to jump, duck, and dodge like heroes in a video game.
Philadelphia has almost 2,000 active construction permits, with hundreds more awaiting approval — a welcome sign of the city’s prosperity. But the barricades and fences that surround them bully pedestrians off sidewalks and present a dangerous barrier to travel for people with disabilities or with children in strollers...
Philadelphia has almost 2,000 active construction permits.
The permitting that allows construction sites to encroach on sidewalks can be confusing, said representatives from Feet First Philly, a pedestrian advocacy group sponsored by the Clear Air Council, and little attention is paid to expiration dates.
Since 2012, sidewalk closure fees are reduced if builders are able to allow pedestrians to pass on the same side of the street, and voided if they keep the sidewalk open. Weekly diversion fees — the mayor has suggested a daily fee — increase along with the extent of the disruption.
Philadelphia’s challenge, though, is enforcement. The city has just six inspectors and two supervisors dedicated to right-of-way enforcement. Compare that with another city with a construction boom, Washington, which has 24 inspectors assigned to that task. Beyond compliance, Philadelphia’s right-of-way unit also is re...
The city’s fears about noncompliance were borne out in December, when a developer and contractor agreed to pay $160,000 for failing to obtain proper permits or creating fraudulent documents for years.
Washington considers closing sidewalks unnecessary for most stages of a project.
Washington D.C. has 24 right-of-way inspectors; Philadelphia has six.
“Detours should be only done when absolutely necessary, and there’s no other way to manage traffic,” said Matthew Marcou, associate director of the public space regulation division in the district’s Department of Transportation.
Working with builders, that city established preferred options, including maintaining an open portion of sidewalk, covered walkways, diverting pedestrians into parking lanes, or diverting pedestrians into vehicle lanes. A similar set of options aims to keep bike lanes intact during construction. Closing a sidewalk is r...
Philadelphia is looking at mapping permits to ensure both sides of a street aren’t obstructed and has started allowing online applications for permits, which should streamline the system. Hiring isn’t likely, officials said, but there are discussions about reassigning some of the city’s 56 public works inspectors.
“Additional resources would definitely help," said Pat O’Donnell, Philadelphia’s director of operations for transportation.
The city wants to better coordinate traffic signals, but traffic lights run on more than 60-year-old technology.
It envisions better street design but already has a 1,000-mile backlog on repaving.
Pedestrians could cross more safely in raised crosswalks, but the city goal is to add them to “at least” two intersections by 2020.
Philadelphia had 101 traffic-related deaths in 2018 — the highest number since 2012, according to preliminary police data.
The picture isn’t entirely dire: Philadelphia has the largest percentage of bike commuters of any large American city, and transit use is third highest.
People’s choices about how to shop, how to travel, and where to live can either contribute to a more navigable city or further clog streets, said William Eisele, a senior researcher with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Addressing congestion isn’t just a matter of reallocating travel lanes or making bus service ...
Comparisons among cities are difficult, but some indicators show how far Philadelphia has to go. The city paves about half as many miles each year as New York and Denver. Philadelphia's standard for pothole repairs is less stringent than in New York City, Baltimore, Boston, and Denver. Among eight American cities with ...
The city’s seven-year transportation plan envisions $150 million in transportation infrastructure investment by 2025 and aims to eliminate traffic deaths by 2030. They’re ambitious goals, Puchalsky said, and will require more annual funding than the city currently dedicates to transportation ($97 million from city budg...
Still to come are the city’s plan to encourage transit use and SEPTA’s bus network redesign. Those, too, will set the table for the city’s priorities.
One advantage to being behind the curve? There are plenty of trailblazers to learn from.
Truck traffic is clogging Center City streets. What’s Philly going to do about it?
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NORTH RIDGEVILLE, Ohio – What’s the scariest Halloween decoration you can imagine? To a Cleveland sports fan the Browns' long list of disappointing quarterbacks may do the trick.
For five years during the month of October the Timoteo family has hosted the QB souls lost to the factory of sadness.
“Next thing you know, the Browns quarterback graveyard was born,” explains Tony Timoteo.
There are more than a dozen QB tombstones in the graveyard in the family’s front yard, starting from 1999.
But Sunday afternoon Timoteo added the latest tombstone to the yard, and it was different.
“We want Baker to shut the graveyard down, we can put a closed sign on and that’s it. So that’s what we are hoping for and that’s what we are praying for,” Timoteo said.
As soon as Baker Mayfield, the Browns’ rookie-first-round star began his first play of the game, Timoteo placed the fake headstone in the ground.
Friends and family came out to a graveyard watch party in honor of Baker. Timoteo and his wife, Jill, say they don’t mean the graveyard to be negative, it’s meant to be a joke.
“Certain people that don’t get the joke give us a bad rap they think our whole quarterback display is negative but in reality my wife and I are the biggest Browns fans of all time and we actually want the graveyard to close,” he said.
“It was sad to put it in because like I hope at some point this is all done and we have a winning quarterback and there is no end date to his start,” said Jill Timoteo.
In case roller coasters weren't a rickety mish-mash of nightmares as it is, this one broke down mid-ride at Sea World Australia Friday, leaving all on board teetering high above the ground in high winds.
Rather than cowering in fear however, the kids on board celebrated the occasion with the saving power of the dab.
The Storm Coaster (more like sh*t storm coaster) had up to eight people trapped in its cart when the ride stalled, according to The Courier Mail.
Look at these kids. They're living for the attention, waving in frivolity and giving hella thumbs up as a news helicopter hovers overhead. Then there's mister black t-shirt who's found himself in the perfect situation commence dabbing.
A spokesperson for Sea World also told Yahoo "a sensor fault occurred, leading to the ride's safety systems being engaged," adding our "highly trained staff ensured the safest outcome was achieved with the guests led down the stairs to ground level without incident."
All those were safely rescued and returned to the ground, and presumably went dabbing into the sunset.
What impressed Kuhn was the report's "comprehensive scope" and that it "established the policies not only for the next five years, but framed the agenda and set the strategies for the next 30 years."
A leading US expert on China studies said the ongoing 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) marks a "new historic starting point," believing it will exert influence on China and the world for decades to come.
"Xi Jinping set out an audacious, grand vision for China's future development, which, without doubt, is the highlight of the political report," said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, referring to the report Xi delivered at the opening of the congress on Wednesday.
While announcing socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a "new era," the CPC leader envisioned China developing into a nation with "socialist modernisation basically realised" by 2035, and "a great modern socialist country" by the middle of the century with a leading influence in the world.
That is why this congress has special significance as it marks the start of a five-year period that is the confluence of the two centenary goals, said Kuhn, who was at the Great Hall of the People as the co-producer and host of "Closer to China with R.L. Kuhn" on China Global Television Network (CGTN) when the report w...
"People orientation and rejuvenating the country, in the historic context of China's ancient civilisation and long struggle against foreign oppression, form the foundation of the report," Kuhn said.
[The report also gave Kuhn, author of bestseller "How China's Leaders Think," a sense of how confident the Chinese leader and the country are in socialism and their commitment to deepening reform and strengthening rule of law.
From the report, he also saw the "strict governance of the Party by reforming and purifying itself," which he said is "unambiguous."
"The anti-corruption campaign not only continues but is enhanced," he added.
On the economic front, Kuhn saw the increasing role of innovation, especially in science and technology. Regarding military, he described the content concerning military reform and modernization as "open and specific."
From the report, he also saw China's sovereignty as "sacrosanct" and its international engagement as "pro-active, confident and growing."
It impressed Kuhn that "the leadership of China, led by Xi, has a profound understanding of the country, its governance, economy and society, and is determined to bring about its great rejuvenation."
"Xi gave a realistic appraisal of problems, including social imbalances, economic structure, endemic pollution," while making an "epic narrative of what China has remarkably achieved, what China has yet to do, and what China envisages as necessary to be a great nation," he said.
It is on this competence and accomplishment that the political legitimacy of the CPC is founded, said Kuhn.
With this political report and the congress, Xi, who is the core of the CPC Central Committee and of the whole Party, sees China as standing a a new historic starting point and that socialism with Chinese characteristics is entering a new era, Kuhn added.

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