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Resources: Publications, Reports, & Documents
Alaskan Way Viaduct: Analysis of No-replacement Option
Tags for this publication:Transportation engineers Norman Marshall and Lucinda Gibson of Smart Mobility conducted a review of WSDOT's analysis of a 'no-replacement' option for the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Marshall and Gibson found significant flaws in the analysis, including the use of exaggerated estimates of future downtown street traffic and misleading conclusions about the amount of truck traffic on the viaduct.
Date:
September 2006 »
Assessment of Transportation Needs for Buffalo's Waterfront Redevelopment
Tags for this publication:Transportation engineer Lucinda Gibson reviewed existing travel patterns along the Route 5 corridor and concluded that a surface boulevard option with an at-grade bridge will not only handle traffic volumes but also improve traffic circulation along Buffalo’s waterfront, creating enhanced opportunities for economic development in the key sections running from downtown to the Outer Harbor.
Date:
December 2006 »
CNU Report on Emergency Response & Street Design, 2009
Tags for this publication:CNU, fire marshals, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are working together to create connected networks of traditional streets that work equally well for pedestrians, traffic, and emergency response access. Learn how these streets save lives, improve emergency response times, and reduce vehicle miles traveled with this report, which summarizes Peter Swift’s study identifying street width as a determining factor in the frequency of collisions, the Local Government Commission’s case studies of developments in Hercules, Calif, Memphis, Tenn., and Seattle, Wash. (under a previous EPA grant to study this topic), the City of Charlotte, N.C.’s 2008 connectivity study, and myriad others cataloged by the Initiative team.
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CNU Report: Education 2007
Tags for this publication:With schools no longer serving their role as anchors of walkable neighbohoods and education-inspired migration making regions more sprawling and segregated, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) is encouraging an active discussion on educational issues. In 2006, CNU convened an education summit in Chicago at which leading urbanists, economists and education experts explored changes in school design and school policy aimed at making traditional urban centers more livable and inviting to families of all incomes and racial and ethnic backgrounds. Participants in the summit have written many essays in this publication in hopes of bringing insights from the gathering to a broader audience.
Following-up to the summit later in 2006, the CNU board took a position on school design and school policy. Read it on page two of this report.
Date:
March 2007 »
"Urban Sprawl and Delayed Ambulance Arrival in the U.S."
Tags for this publication:This study published in the November 2009 edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine definitively links suburban sprawl development with longer emergency response times. Authors Matthew J. Trowbridge, MD, Matthew Gurka, PhD, and Robert E. O'Connor, MD, of the University of Virginia, call for more development along new urbanist/smart growth principles.
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2005 CNU Transportation Summit Report
Tags for this publication:Toward a New Urbanist Transportation Agenda
Date:
June 7, 2006 »
Academic Research About New Urbanism
Tags for this publication:From CNU's Education Task Force
Date:
2005 »
Bibliography on New Urbanist Land Development Regulations
Tags for this publication:Bibliography of articles on New Urbanist Land Development Regulations
Date:
2001 »
Bus Stops Tech Sheet
Tags for this publication:Exploring transit stops as part of the pedestrian environment and streetscape, focusing on the design and location of transit stops.
Date:
May 31, 2001 »
Carta del Nuevo Urbanismo
Tags for this publication:Charter of the New Urbanism, translated into Spanish [Español]
Date:
1/1/1999 »
CDC Review of LEED-ND
Tags for this publication:Review of LEED-ND public health benefits by public health officials convened with members of the LEED-ND Core Committee. Reviewers conclude that many program prerequisites and credit criteria are supported by research and expert opinion, while uncovering areas where public health studies are lacking. The report anticipates that LEED-ND standards will "accelerate the pace of applied research," noting as well that LEED-ND is already more empirically grounded than traditional zoning practice.
Attached documents include a Healthy Community Design and LEED-ND fact sheet created by the CDC; a more detailed report of the review including research citations and a transcript of the meeting; and a summary of the LEED-ND public health benefits.
Date:
August 2008 »
Charta des New Urbanism
Tags for this publication:Charter of the New Urbanism, translated into German [Deutsch]
Date:
1/1/1999 »
Charta för ett Nytt Stadsbyggande
Tags for this publication:Charter of the New Urbanism in Swedish (Svenska)
Date:
1/1/1999 »
Charter of the New Urbanism
Tags for this publication:The Charter outlines the principles and ideals which guide the New Urbanist movement.
Date:
February 20, 2001 »
CNU Letter to the EPA on Stormwater System Reform
Tags for this publication:This letter, sent by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the summer of 2010, requested a meeting between the two bodies to discuss reforms to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The letter suggested that current NPDES standards and policies had the unintended side effect of promoting sprawl, and suggested concrete solutions to this problem, to be achieved through reform to the NPDES. In the fall of 2010, the EPA responded to the letter and requested a meeting with the CNU and with the leaders of the so-called "Rainwater Initiative" who originally spearheaded the campaign. The EPA requested data on stormwater discharge in urban redeveloped areas and for ways to improve the NPDES so that it no longer inadvertently promotes sprawl.
Date:
10-11-2010 »
CNU Report: 2005 Transportation Summit
Tags for this publication:A report of topics from the November 2005 CNU Transportation Summit in Kansas City, Mo.
Date:
2/1/2006 »
CNU Report: Housing Affordability 2008
Tags for this publication:
The housing bubble and the ensuing foreclosure crisis have hit poor and moderate-income people particularly hard and reinforced how housing affordability is an ongoing national problem. Adequate housing in a good neighborhood remains out of reach for far too many Americans. And regrettably, after a period of innovative leadership in the 1990s, the Federal government shows only limited interest in advancing housing policy.
Members of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) played key advisory and design roles in one of the rare large-scale housing success stories of recent decades: the Federal Hope VI program’s transformation of distressed public housing projects into livable mixed-income neighborhoods fully integrated into the fabric of cities. To help break an emerging impasse between the political right and left over housing policy – one that derailed programs like Hope VI -- CNU assembled leading housing specialists and urbanists from across the political spectrum for a forum in Racine, WI. From codes enabling traditionally urban forms of affordability such as housing above stores to newer ideas such as community land trusts. Or very radical ideas like replacing all Federal Housing programs and using the savings to add to the Federal earned income tax credit. This publication explores highlights from the forum and tracks how the discussion has advanced since then.
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CNU Report: Street Design, The International Fire Code, 2012 and Beyond
Tags for this publication:
In recent years, new urbanists and firefighters have discovered both common interests and shared challenges in neighborhood street design. The Emergency Response & Street Design Initiative, a collaboration between the Congress for the New Urbanism, fire marshals from across the United States, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Growth program, have found solid common ground for ongoing efforts to reconcile narrower streets and good emergency access: Street connectivity — specifically wellconnected networks of traditional street grids — is essential to good urbanism, shortens emergency response times, and improves overall community life safety.
Date:
January 8, 2011 »
CNU Strategic Plan 2007-2012
Tags for this publication:CNU Board members have developed a strategic plan for the organization and announced the contents at CNU XV. The plan lays out a strategy for enabling and promoting the reform of the regulatory structure governing development and the practices of the building industry and related professionals.
Date:
May 2007 »