Recent Streetsblog CALIFORNIA posts about Urban Design

Road diet bike lanes being installed on Pershing Drive in Playa Del Rey. Photos by Joe Linton/Streetsblog L.A.

Playa Del Rey Street Safety Improvements Court Driver Backlash

By Joe Linton | Jun 8, 2017 | No Comments

Several street safety improvements are underway in the L.A. neighborhood of Playa Del Rey. These include lane reduction road diets that have already been criticized by driving commuters who are experiencing delays.

Temporary bike markings on Live Oak Street. Photo: Sam McNeill via Cite

Urban Designers Take a Do-It-Yourself Approach to Taming Houston’s Extra-Wide Streets

By Stephen Miller | Jun 2, 2017 | No Comments

Impatient at the slow rate of change on Houston's streets, advocates and urban designers took it upon themselves to tame some of their city's wide roads -- and are promising to come back for a second round soon.

Fresno Pedestrian Mall Is No More

By Melanie Curry | Jun 7, 2016 | 16 Comments

One of the oldest pedestrian malls in the U.S., the Fulton Street Mall in Fresno, is no more. The modernist mall was built in the 1960s in an attempt to prevent Fresno’s downtown economy from being sucked dry by suburban development sprawling on the outskirts of town. It failed, as many such malls did, because […]

Evidence That Split-Phase Signals Are Safer Than Mixing Zones for Bike Lanes

By David Meyer | Jan 26, 2016 | No Comments

When DOT presented plans for a protected bike lane on Sixth Avenue, one point of contention was the design of intersections. How many intersections will get split-phase signals, where cyclists and pedestrians crossing the street get a separate signal phase than turning drivers? And how many will get “mixing zones,” where pedestrians and cyclists negotiate […]

In the Inland Empire, Freeway Overpasses Can Win Urban Planning Awards

By Melanie Curry | Nov 23, 2015 | 29 Comments

The American Planning Association advocates for excellence in planning. But to judge from the awards given by its Inland Empire chapter, sometimes the notion of “excellence” is in the eye of the local beholder. The chapter gave its 2015 Urban Design Award to a sprawling freeway interchange where Van Buren Boulevard crosses over I-215 in […]

Feds Propose Major Rule Changes to Eliminate Barriers to Safer Streets

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 8, 2015 | No Comments

Applying highway design standards to city streets has been a disaster for urban neighborhoods. The same things that make highways safer for driving at 65 mph — wide lanes, “clear zones” running alongside the road that have no trees or other “obstacles” — make surface streets dangerous and dreadful for walking, killing street life. The […]

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