david-beale-179723

Week in review: January 30, 2018

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Consultations, feedback, and events

On foot

  • Kitchener plows ahead with sidewalk shovelling study (The Record)
  • Time to start thinking of sidewalks as public infrastructure (Waterloo Chronicle)
  • Rainbow crossing coming to Kitchener core (Kitchener Post)
  • Galt’s new pedestrian cross brings back memories of the ‘Holey Bridge’ (The Record)
  • Regional staff recommend new active transportation bridge across Highway 7/8 between Chandler and Avalon (Planning & Works Committee agenda)
  • Walking School Bus program coming to 30 schools in Waterloo region (CBC)

By bus, train, or… airplane?

  • 3 weeks left for feedback on LRT route into Cambridge (CTV)
  • Turns out the hottest ticket in town is a bus fare card (CBC)
  • Oxford County wants high speed rail alternative in southwestern Ontario (CBC)
  • Airport authority buys International Centre in Mississauga (Mississauga.com)
    Presumably for an airport transit hub next to the rail corridor.
  • Why it’s so expensive to build urban rail in the US (CityLab)
    For the record, ION’s costs of about $45 million per km are quite low compared to a typical $115 million per km in US cities.
  • A conversation about how public transport really works (Financial Times)
  • Garneau supportive of Via Rail’s $1.5-billion request for new trains (Globe and Mail)

Vision Zero

  • Speed kills, so why do we keep designing for it? (Strong Towns)
  • The incredibly cheap street fix that saves lives (CityLab)
  • Who’s afraid of the “petextrian”? (The Baffler)
  • Mobile phone conversations, listening to music and quiet (electric) cars: Are traffic sounds important for safe cycling? (SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research)
  • Undriven snow: activists trace winter car routes to reshape city streets (99% Invisible)

The shape of our cities

  • Kitchener parking garages pricey, underused but plans persist to build another (The Record)
  • ‘They gave in to developers’: Ontario’s latest move to curb housing costs slammed as weak (CBC)
  • Youth! Street life! The case for crowded neighbourhoods (Bloomberg)

The road ahead

  • Provincial funding boosts Miovision expansion (The Record)
  • Why older Americans might benefit from giving up their cars (Strong Towns)
  • Modern vision of an urban future at odds with our local politics (The Star)
  • Elon Musk’s “innovations” are not the future — they’re delaying it (Paris Marx)