Image by The Congress for the New Urbanism
OK, they’re not banned outright, but the new VDOT Secondary Street Acceptance Requirements strongly discourage new cul de sacs in Virginia.
Cul de sac neighborhoods are themselves the greatest obstacle to biking and walking. Nearby destinations are a “can’t get there from here” proposition: every trip involves busy arterial roads, usually with no bike lanes, shoulders, or sidewalks.
Sunday’s Washington Post highlighted the cul de sac problem, as did Ken Benfield at NRDC, LA StreetsBlog, and Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling.
Where cul de sacs already exist, cut-throughs can make neighborhoods a lot more bike and pedestrian friendly. We can push for these in our own communities.
But most importantly, we need to make sure that our builders, and our local governments, know that cul de sacs are no longer allowed.
Please share this article, and link to this material, to help spread the word about Virginia’s cul de sac policies.
The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) is seeking a motivated and creative manager to grow IMBA’s membership base. Interested parties should be well versed in mail and email marketing, and online communications. More information is available at IMBA.
The Alliance for Biking and Walking (formely Thunderhead Alliance) has announced a new program of Advocacy Advance Grants, to invest $250,000 in advocacy start-ups or innovative campaigns. Applications are open to Alliance members, or new organizations (less than one year old) that are not yet members.
These grants are designed to fund things that will be permanent, such as advocacy programs that will be ongoing, or innovative bike-ped infrastructure.
Instead of explaining more here, let us direct you to the press release, the Alliance’s Advocacy Advance Grants page, and the Advance Grants website.
This program is a joint project with the League of American Bicyclists, with strong support from SRAM, Bikes Belong, Planet Bike, and Cannondale.
Bike Pittsburgh (nice site design!) has some great links for us, especially Livable Communities from the blog of the US Secretary of Transportation (I bet you didn’t know he had one), a piece about the Bicycle Transit Center at Union Station in DC, and a NYT article about the costs of owning a car. Thanks to Bikes Belong for the tip, via Twitter. (You can follow VBF on Twitter too.)
Last night the Alliance for Biking & Walking had its Bike Summit reception at the Elephant & Castle in Washington DC, where the 2009 Advocacy Awards were presented.
As we announced yesterday, our own Bud Vye was named Advocate of the Year for 2009. No write-up of the reception (yet) but we do have a couple of pictures: [continue reading…]
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