walkability

The street economics of induced demand

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There’s a lot of misinformation out there about induced demand, a widely established city planning model that attempts to explain why cities tend to maintain a steady state of congestion. I’ll go into some more detail on the theory of induced demand later, but I wanted to start with the economic model. Auto transportation market The … [Read more…]

Want to reduce reliance on foreign oil? Start with walkability

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I started reading Jeff Speck’s new book Walkable City this week. I’m only a few dozen pages in, but one stat jumped out at me early on. Portland is, in many ways, the paragon of urban planning success. While other cities were focused on easing traffic by widening highways, Portland implemented a strict urban growth boundary, inside … [Read more…]