transportation

Fresh off a great book-launch event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a nice post about "new oil" on Streetsblog, this week's #forewordFriday is a selection from John L.

Walking isn't just good for you. It has become an indicator of your socioeconomic status. Until the 1990s, exclusive suburban homes that were accessible only by car cost more, per square foot, than other kinds of American housing. Now, however, these suburbs have become overbuilt, and housing values have fallen. Today, the most valuable real estate lies in walkable urban locations. Many of these now pricey places were slums just 30 years ago.

There will be many accolades bestowed upon Los Angeles at this year’s American Planning Association conference. And no doubt many of them will be reserved for L.A.’s forward-thinking transportation policies; well deserved, since public transit generally lurks in the collective blind spot of Los Angelenos. But there is one strategy transit strategy that will likely get overlooked at the conference, and it is perhaps Los Angeles’ greatest feat. In L.A., where image is everything and the car is king, Metro is doing what might be considered Mission Impossible: make transit hip.

When it comes to a love affair with a car, Americans want to know one thing – how fast can it go? That is why America is soon going to fall in love all over again, just like it did for the Mustang, the GTO, and the Shelby Cobra’s pedal but this time it will not be for loud internal combustion engines but instead for quiet electric cars.