MIT project uses sensors to measure pedestrian appeal of urban space

The MIT Media Lab's Placelet project will "track how pedestrians move through a particular space," according to The Atlantic's CityLab. Researchers are developing "a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians, as well as vehicles, over long periods of time. The sensors, which they are currently testing in downtown Boston, will also track the 'sensory experience' by recording the noise level and air quality of that space."

Residents rally for safer crossings after pedestrian struck, killed in Denver

After two pedestrians were struck - one fatally - in a Denver neighborhood, officials have responded to make the crossing less dangerous. The blog Evidence Soup reports:

"Although it took two years for a nearby block to convince the city to add a crosswalk, within 6 weeks our Public Works folks announced a plan to make this a 24-hour "Safety Zone" - by December they'll be adding signage, speed-monitoring equipment, crosswalks, double yellow lines. "

Blogger Tracy Allison Altman notes that others in the area had been asking the wrong questions and ignoring compelling evidence that neighborhood patterns were changing and more people were out walking. "It's not about cars. It's about pedestrians. . . . Sometimes it's best to draw attention to your evidence without discounting someone else's. Go around them, not at them."

As traffic around the Rte. 9/Rte. 30 retail area worsens this holiday shopping season, will more people try to get form place to place on foot, despite the dangers? I crossed Rte. 30 to Shopper's World on foot last weekend, and for the first time I can recall, I saw another pedestrian out crossing with me. It's time for us, too, to pay more attention to walkers, not only drivers, when designing traffic flow -- before we end up with a similar tragedy.

New pedestrian crossings in town

A look at two upgraded pedestrian crossings in Saxonville, at the McAuliffe branch library and Potter Road/Elm Street.

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Stimulus funds: How much for something besides roads?

Streetsblog has some good news for cycling, pedestrian and anti-sprawl advocates. Analysis by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign of the recently passed stimulus bill shows that the $27.5 billion included for "highways" allocates 3% of that for "transportation enhancements," usually bicycle and pedestrian projects. That's up from 1.7% in the 2005 federal transportation bill.

In addition, major metro areas (population over 200,000) will get roughly 16% of the total funding -- which apparently is good news considering how funding usually gets distributed. Although Ben Fried at Streetsblog points out, "As Brookings notes, the nation's 100 largest metro areas produce 75% of the nation's GDP." Three-quarters of the nation's economic activity, yet less than one-fifth of federal funding for transportation infrastructure.

Thanks to my colleague Mitch Betts for the link.

Last month, Transportation for America put together a chart showing various state transportation funding requests. Massachusetts apparently asked for $783 million in transportation funding, including $17.6 million (2.2%) for bike and pedestrian projects. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the second-highest percentage request on the chart - possibly highest, since Maine's 2.8% included ferries as well as bike and pedestrian work.

Natick meeting: State transportation office seeks citizen input

Have experiences getting to work, school or elsewhere that you'd like to share with state officials? The Executive Office of Transportation says it's "kicking off a civic outreach effort to talk to Massachusetts residents about their experiences using the transportation system."

The second workshop is Monday, September 22, 6 pm at the Morse Institute Library in Natick (the first workshop is Sept. 17 3 pm at the main library in Boston). You can see the full workshop schedule  here.

"Tell us what you observe every day as you move around on the roads, rails, and trails of our state," the You Move Massachusetts Web site invites.

Alas, 6 pm is a tough time for most of us who work a full-time day job ( unless they're planning to feed us dinner there). Nevertheless, I'm hoping to get down to the workshop to share my experiences trying to, say, cross Rte. 30 without getting killed; or my inability to walk to Shoppers World or the Natick Mall from my office nearby because no thought was given to pedestrian needs.