CNU Salons

It seems more and more studies these days are making the connection between the built environment and health, and pointing to the challenge we face in improving our communities.

Two recent news stories are a case in point. One covers a study that found a link between gas prices and obesity. Higher gas prices encourage walking and alternative transportation. But another covered a study that exposed a lack of walking amenities in communities. So what do people do when it gets too expensive to drive, but walking, biking, and transit aren't options?

Filed in the Appellate Division of Superior Court, the suit is the fifth challenge to the proposed expansion of Campbell Soup Co.'s world headquarters here.

John Norquist and transportation planner Norm Marshall were in Buffalo, New York late last week, alerting Buffalonians to the ramifications of allowing the NYSDOT to forge ahead with an awful plan to maintain an embanked freeway along the city's Outer Harbor and expand an adjacent frontage road. Norquist urged leaders at all levels to put the heat on Governor Eliot L. Spitzer to halt the just-add-concrete plan and switch to another plan that the DOT studied, one that would replace the freeway and frontage road with a single urban boulevard that would set the stage for revitalized mixed-use neighborhoods.

A study compared how well old-city street layouts handled traffic versus modern approaches. The results set off a firestorm.

From Governing Magazine
By ALEX MARSHALL

When I drive my neighborhood streets of Brooklyn, which were laid out more than a century ago in a grid style, it’s obvious: These city streets do a better job of handling local traffic than the more modern set up of cul-de-sacs, collector streets and arterials. That’s because, when I’m heading somewhere, I can choose from five or six local streets as opposed to one or two suburban style “arterials.”