Planning Pool

Today’s post presents a story about transportation modelling and the real costs of driving, originally covered in this month’s Wired magazine. Congestion pricing isn’t exactly a popular idea in North America, so it’s great to see the science behind it taken seriously in non-planning media.

Thanks to Bernard Garon on Flickr for this great Creative Commons photo of New York Traffic.

The goal of traffic engineering is to maintain the safe and efficient movement of people and goods. It is typically measured in terms of vehicular volume, traffic flow, and incident rates. However, traffic and transit are complicated issues with significant economic, environmental, and social and ramifications. Charles Komanoff, an energy-policy analyst, transport economist and environmental activist, has devoted years to measuring and analyzing New York’s … Continue Reading

The Works: Anatomy of a City

I just finished reading The Works: Anatomy of a City by Kate Ascher, former vice president of New York City Economic Development Corporation. The book is a beautiful compendium of   description of New York City’s guts, covering moving people and freight, providing power and communication, keeping the city clean, and what the city may look like in the future. The Works is well organized, moving from more general ideas and examples to really specific examples. The book is also a pleasure to read. The Works is full of infographics, cross-sectios of streets, maps, illustrations, historic photographs, and charts. It is also full of really interesting facts, like the following description of the pedestrian crosswalk signals in New York … Continue Reading