From yanivbin at gmail.com Mon Dec 14 04:31:13 2015 From: yanivbin at gmail.com (Vinay Baindur) Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 01:01:13 +0530 Subject: [sustran] THE LIFE AND DEATH OF URBAN HIGHWAYS Message-ID: FYI APOLOGIES FOR CROSS posting https://www.itdp.org/the-life-and-death-of-urban-highways/ The Life and Death of Urban Highways March 13, 2012 Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email Share on print More Sharing Services [image: Screen Shot 2014-01-07 at 11.26.59 AM] Download this document Source: ITDP >From the 1940s to the 1960s, U.S. cities lost population and economic investment to suburban locations. To compete, many cities built urban highways, hoping to offer motorists the same amenities they enjoyed in the suburbs. Whatever their benefits, these highways often had adverse impacts on urban communities. Many cities in Latin America, following the Unites States? lead, also began building urban highways in the 1950s and 1960s, and in China and India, recent urban highway construction is even more dramatic. These new roads carry a significant amount of traffic and contribute to economic growth, but they also blight large sections of cities, threaten historic urban neighborhoods, and concentrate air pollution in highly populated areas, threatening people?s health and causing other problems. In the past fifty years, tens of thousands of miles of urban highways were built around the world. Many are now approaching functional obsolescence. This is leading many cities, not just in the United States, to question the place of major highways in urban areas and whether they merit further investment or should be removed. Today, some of the same urban highways that were built in that period are being torn down, buried at great expense, or changed into boulevards. As cities around the world grapple with congestion, growth, and decline, some, as seen in the following case studies, illuminate what can be done when a highway no longer makes sense. *In light of the fact that so many cities in developed countries are now tearing out urban highways, it is time to re-appraise the specific conditions under which it makes sense to build a new urban highway and when it makes sense to tear one down.* From shovan1209 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 19 16:44:17 2015 From: shovan1209 at yahoo.com (Syed Saiful Alam) Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2015 07:44:17 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [sustran] Re: Pedestrian Budget In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <902336221.844110.1450511058022.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> No footover bridges in the name of clean air!! No footover bridges in the name of clean air!! The World Bank, under its Clean Air Project, is building many footover (pedestrian) bridges in Dhaka. This is wrong on at least two counts. The point of footover bridges is to facilitate the movement of cars, which pollute. Meanwhile, they hinder the movement of pedestrians, who do not. Efforts to improve air quality should focus on improving the situation of non-motorized transport, including walking. It does not make sense to penalize pedestrians in the name of clean air. In fact, street-level crossings (zebra crossings or crosswalks) would help to smooth ear traffic; as it is, cars rush to the next stoplight, only to sit and wait. Most cities around the world have stopped building footover bridges and torn down existing ones, as they are extremely unpopular with pedestrians, do not reduce accidents, and do nothing to smooth traffic flow. Second, it is the World Bank's policy that all new transport projects must incorporate Universally Accessible Design. There is no way that a person in a wheelchair, or most people with a disability, or even someone with a fairly minor problem walking, can use a footover bridge. A bridge equipped with an escalator is still unusable by a person in a wheelchair. It is obviously completely impractical to create bridges with lifts (elevators) throughout the city. Nor is there any reason to do something so wasteful and likely to land up broken and thus useless within a short period. Zebra crossings make street crossings easier for all users, and thus contribute to independent movement by all, as well as contributing to clean air. ?Syed Saiful Alam +8801552442814 shovan1209@yahoo.com On Tuesday, March 16, 2010 5:33 AM, Ian Perry wrote: Hi, I have managed to find some information from the UK - though more a split of how money is spent on pedestrians/road safety than for the entire budget.? I hope this is interesting, if not useful. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government's Local Road Safety Grant (2008/09) of ?313,000 to the Vale of Glamorgan council was budgeted as follows: ?? ? ? ?98,500 to provide revenue for Road Safety Education Training and Publicity. ?? ? ? ? ?210,000 will be used for Road Safety Engineering Projects ?? ? ? ? ?4,500 as a contingency fund. >From the ?210,000 budget, the change of a zebra crossing to a puffin crossing in Cowbridge, cost ?45,000 (?30,000 for the crossing plus an additional ?15,000 because they moved the crossing 20 metres down the road to improve traffic flows). http://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/our_council/council/minutes,_agendas__reports/reports/cabinet/2007/07-05-09/road_safety.aspx nb. "some" of the budget went on consultants and employee salaries. In Bridport in Dorset (UK), 2 years ago a Puffin crossing cost ?26,000 to install, at the same time a four way lights controlled junction was upgraded from Pelicans to Puffins costing ?85,000.? Last year the removal of a Zebra crossing, resurfacing and installation of a Pelican crossing with pedestrian 'refuge' (caged) island cost ?100,000. For more information as to what traffic and pedestrian measures cost in the UK, see Appendix A of: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/item/wrap/Council/committee/2010/ne/ne003/0216_9.pdf Shared space costs ?75,000+ Zebra pedestrian crossing ?15-25,000 Pedestrian ?refuge? island ?10,000+ Infrastructure is expensive business! Ian Perry On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 5:22 AM, Sudhir wrote: > Dear all, > > We are searching for % of Budget allocated for pedestrians in our cities > and > unfortunately could not find many Asian cities. > > Do you know how much % of money authorities are planning? to invest on > pedestrians in your city? > > thanks, > Sudhir Gota > Transport Specialist > CAI-Asia Center > Unit 3510, 35th Floor, Robinsons-Equitable Tower, > ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City > Metro Manila, Philippines 1605 > Tel: +63-2-395-2843 > Fax: +63-2-395-2846 > Visit our new portal: www.cleanairinitiative.org > Skype : sudhirgota > -------------------------------------------------------- > To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit > http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss > > -------------------------------------------------------- > If you get sustran-discuss via YAHOOGROUPS, please go to > http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join the real > sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. > > ================================================================ > SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, > equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries > (the 'Global South'). > -------------------------------------------------------- To search the archives of sustran-discuss visit http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=014715651517519735401:ijjtzwbu_ss -------------------------------------------------------- If you get sustran-discuss via YAHOOGROUPS, please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. ================================================================ SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South').