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Exploring the possibilities
The 30% rule for housing affordability is good. The 45% rule with housing and transportation is better.
Most people who think seriously about housing policy know the 30% rule: a household shouldn’t spend more than 30% of its income on housing…
Local governments hold power to make big things happen–with the right keys
Local communities hold distinctive tools for climate action that no other level of government can replicate, and together they are engines of large-scale change.…
Local communities are quiet but effective engines for climate action at a large scale
Local communities are among the biggest underutilized agents of large-scale change — and they’re still flying under the radar. Individually, local communities hold distinctive…
Five horsemen of climate inaction
Despite more than two decades of solid evidence proving the case for urgent widespread transitions to climate sustainability, the speed and scale of solutions…
To scale up climate solutions, local governments need to accelerate system changes
Note: This article is by Ryan Schuchard and was first published by Federation of American Scientists. When I ran for city council in Boulder,…
Keys to good bicycle parking
The same high standard as for cars Bicycle parking is like car parking: you want a place to park that’s convenient, which you can…
Transportation, urbanism, and energy: Three elements that can change it all
Transforming how we move, how we build and use land, and how we power our societies is central to creating a livable, equitable, climate‑safe…
Public transit: A toolbox to make transportation safer
Public transit is a lot of things: an affordable way to get around, a means to reduce congestion, a climate solution. Another contribution that…
Car-centric planning leaves a lot of Americans out
Most places in the United States are built around the assumption that we will drive for nearly everything. That design choice does not just…
Transportation is at the center of everything
Make transportation wonderful and you solve so much more. When people hear “transportation,” they often picture cars and traffic. In reality, transportation is about…
The promise and pitfalls of automated vehicles—and what needs probing
Automated vehicles have moved from science fiction into beta reality. Cars and shuttles can already navigate complex city streets, even if they still need…
Lessons from 2025’s biggest transportation failures
Failure is an important part of learning, but only learning is something we choose. We can treat failure as an inconvenient PR problem. Or…
After a century of driving, we have less freedom—here’s how to get it back
On the surface, “freedom” on the road can seem like having a car and driving it everywhere. But when you look at how transportation…
100 years of automotive progress and transportation now costs…more
After more than a hundred years of engineering breakthroughs and industrial refinement, you might expect the cost of getting around by car to have…
The “cost of place:” Why housing and transportation are the same household bill
People tend to separate housing from transportation when they budget. From a savings standpoint, they are one decision about where you live and how…
Want $1 Million? Drop the extra car
Most people think of their cars as working for them. They imagine convenience, freedom, maybe even status. But for many American households, especially those…
Primer on how the UN COP process supports US climate action
The UN climate conferences do not write US law, yet they change what countries, companies, cities, and investors actually do. COPs create shared timelines…
Wrap-up of COP30 in Belém: Developments and what’s next
The COP30 climate talks in Belém, Brazil closed with a familiar mixed message: the headline cover decision reaffirmed the 1.5°C limit and called for…
How to think about e-bikes and safety
E-bikes present new safety concerns. They are faster and therefore crashes are more prone to being serious compared with a conventional bike. And they…
How to make streets safe and turn Vision Zero into a reality
Today is the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the third Sunday in November. It is a day to honor those lost…
Policy priorities for good living, thriving communities, and next-level climate action
Policy priorities to advance wellbeing and climate solutions together through urbanism broadly Working draft 1. Legalize abundant homes in walkable places Decades of exclusionary…
Primer on transit-oriented development
Transit-oriented development concentrates daily life within a 5 to 10 minute walk of high-quality buses, trains, and ferries. The goal is to make transit…
Transportation needs a purpose—and that purpose should be about wellbeing
Transportation is full of surprises. One of them: The whole enterprise is generally managed without a logical overall purpose. It’s true there are lots…
“Level of service” concepts for equitable access and mobility
The concept of “level of service” (LOS) is performance metrics for the services that local governments should be providing–the expectations and standards they should…
Where “level of service” comes from and what we need it for now
“Level of service” (LOS) is one of the most enduring ideas in public-sector management. It started as a technical grading system for traffic flow…
If you like historic preservation, you’ll love good transit, bicycleability, and 15-minute neighborhoods
Early American urban life thrived on lively streetcar corridors, ubiquitous bicycles moving safely on slow, shared streets, and neighborhoods where most daily needs sat…
Home rule in a warming world: Balancing autonomy versus avoidance
Climate change is rewriting the job of local government. Towns face floods, heat waves, wildfire smoke, drought, and stronger storms. Home rule can help…
Good parking: What we know now about effective policy and management
Over the past two decades, parking policy has evolved from a supply-maximizing, one-size-fits-all practice to an outcome-driven system that advances climate goals, public health,…
Key climate solutions for communities
To unlock new climate progress, apply the power of local communities. Communities are key to most of the climate action needed as well as…
To electrify transportation faster, look beyond vehicles to urbanism—and electrify that
To electrify transportation, we have to swap gas cars for battery-powered ones. Just as important is the system they run on: The location of…
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