Transportation headlines, Friday, August 19

Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog.

Perry’s Texas: Transportation needs trail behind (Houston Chronicle)

It’s perhaps easy to read into the political implications of this story, given that Perry just declared that he’s running for president. But above all, this story provides a useful look into how another large western state has handled its transportation needs over the last decade. The Chronicle has some strong words for Perry, the state’s longest-serving governor: his aversion to raising revenues to pay for transportation expansion and maintenance has left highways “threadbare.”

T4A building album of USA’s most dangerous streets, needs your photos! (Streetsblog.net)

To draw attention to the unsafe conditions for pedestrians across the U.S., advocacy group Transportation for America is compiling an album of the country’s most dangerous streets. If you think of the most dangerous street in your part of town, it’s probably too wide and too fast, and the safe pedestrian crossings are few and far between. Readers can contribute to this list of infamy, by safely taking a picture of the street in question and sending it by email to T4A or posting it to the group’s Flickr page. Videos can be uploaded to T4A’s Facebook page.

Home on the rails (The Architects Newspaper)

In this piece, writer Sam Lubell takes an expansive look at how transit-oriented development is changing the face of Los Angeles and San Francisco by providing more housing and destinations within easy reach of rapid transit. Lubell notes that much of the change has been initiated by the transit agencies themselves. In L.A.’s case, Metro’s Joint Development Program has been coordinating with the private sector to build TOD on Metro-owned property. This article provides an important perspective we don’t see as much in the transportation blogosphere, that of the designer and architect — so check it out!