TRANSPORTATION

Density, transit, auto-free living and urban redevelopment are popular topics right now, as many US cities – including Charlotte – continue to boom, luring new residents and coveted millennials by the tens of thousands. But the future of development might still be in the suburbs, according to Joel Kotkin. A fellow in urban futures at […]

There are three things most Charlotteans seem to agree on: a victory streak for the Panthers, a cool brew at a neighborhood brewpub, and free (or mostly free) parking. But with the surge of new and promising technologies and platforms in recent years – Uber, Lyft, autonomous cars, dockless bike sharing, and even electric scooters […]

[highlightrule]Unless local governments change transportation strategies, new traffic from rideshare companies will just mean gridlock.[/highlightrule] If you’ve used Uber or Lyft lately, you’re not alone. By the end of 2018, the total number of for-hire car rides, including conventional taxi trips and trips with services like Uber and Lyft, will approach 4.74 billion, surpassing total […]

Writing about Vauban, Germany, the renowned eco-district just inside the Freiburg city limits, has been on my wish list for several years, ever since my self-guided tour of trend-setting European models. I was eager to see this famed quartier, formerly a French army encampment, where roof-top solar panels abound, heating bills are astonishingly low, and […]

[highlightrule]To sign up for the UNC Charlotte bike-share program visit gotchabike.com/charlottewheels [/highlightrule] Bike sharing has arrived at UNC Charlotte. The program launched July 31 with 100 bikes and 10 hubs for the bikes. The UNC Charlotte bike share program, Charlotte Wheels, is run by Gotcha Bike. The Gotcha Bike app lets users reserve and return […]

In addition to studying how to accommodate growing ethnic diversity – needed in many cities, not just Houston and Charlotte – there’s another lesson Houston might hold for Charlotte: Finding the money to build out an ambitious greenway plan. They call them bayous. We call them creeks. But both Houston and Charlotte have a number […]

If you prefer a full-screen version of the map in your browser, click on the image above. The 30-mile Cross Charlotte Trail through Mecklenburg County and Charlotte, when finished, will offer a transportation corridor that will allow users to bicycle or walk from one end of the county to the other, connecting spots such as […]

Are master plans really worth the effort? Skeptics discount them, charging that they are little more than feel-good exercises in wishful thinking. Such critiques have currency for some plans but not all. When done right, a plan states which policies are more important and includes metrics to gauge outcomes; it charts timelines for putting recommendations […]

Charlotte is joining dozens of other cities around the world, as well as the departments of transportation for North Carolina and the U.S., in declaring its intent to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries – including bicycle and pedestrians as well as autos. It’s a movement called Vision Zero. And it might result in the […]

If New York, famous for traffic congestion and less-than courteous drivers, can do it, why can’t Charlotte? A public discussion Tuesday, April 4, in uptown Charlotte will feature the New York traffic official who oversaw 400 miles of new bike lanes, helped launch the country’s largest bike-share program and transformed 180 acres of asphalt into […]