New from Nathan Lewis

Life Without Cars 2014

Once a year, we take a little time to imagine Life Without Cars. Many people live without cars today, and also without bicycles (at least for daily transport use), mostly in urban areas with good public transportation. In the developing world also, most people don't own cars, and live in urban areas with good public transportation. Before 1900, nobody used cars. ...

Continue reading at the link!

A short opinion piece from Scotland that you should read

Car-free city centres a must by Norman Armstrong

"REPORTS in The Herald as I write (November 20) tragically illustrate points I made (Letters, November 15), that our addiction to oil and cars constitutes the overwhelming problem facing western society, a problem disproportionally concentrated in Glasgow."

Required reading for today!

Here's an article that's a must-read for anyone interested in building better places in our communities. Density is not the answer, Place to Non-Place ratio is.

Places and Non-Places

A new development built in the traditional style!

 photo found here

Sure, it's located in the midst of the sprawliness of outer Santa Barbara, but it's a start! Las Palmas Viejas is a small development of several "villas" off a highway west of downtown Santa Barbara. The designers involved in this project did a fine job incorporating garage doors & an even better job at the design of the "street" (which is effectively a cul-de-sac). Notice how there is no separation of sidewalk and roadbed. A change in paving stone colour does the same job while refusing to distinguish clearly separate spaces for cars and walkers, thus calming traffic.

Even at such a small scale, it's encouraging to see developers willing to try this type of project instead of typical suburban housing or superblock "townhomes."

A Look at Boone (Part 2: King Street)

King Street is Boone's primary commercial strip, and is one of the top "main streets" in North Carolina. For a half-mile the street is lined with numerous shops and restaurants. Even though it attracts a good amount of foot traffic, the sidewalk is wide enough that there is never a feeling of being jammed between the buildings and the parking lane. At times the sidewalk is arcaded, which is a plus on wet days.


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However (there's always a "however," isn't there?)... King Street's bipolar personality of walkable main street and major thoroughfare is detrimental. For example, the vehicular right-of-way is wide to the point that crossing is rather uncomfortable. Though the speed limit is low enough that you don't have to play human Frogger while trying to cross (like too many streets), King Street gets enough traffic to act as a barrier to businesses on the other side. The number of parking areas on the southern side (the right side in the picture) also kills the streetwall effect and most people prefer to walk on the other side.
Overall, King Street is solid by North Carolina standards but possesses way too many characteristics of modernistic, post-car urban design.