ITDP in the News

New bus rapid transit system earns Dar es Salaam 2018 Sustainable Transit Award

Citiscope (6/30/17): The winner of this year’s Sustainable Transport Award was announced today at a ceremony here during a conference called Mobilize. The award is given annually by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy, a global non-profit advocacy organization and host of the conference. As the winning city, Dar es Salaam will also host world transportation experts for next year’s Mobilize conference.

The Self Driving-Dilemma

CityLab (5/4/17): That’s one message from a new report prepared by the University of California Davis’s Institute of Transportation Studies and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), a nonprofit organization that develops bus rapid transit systems and promotes environmentally friendly urban planning. They’ve been crunching the numbers on how to avert warming the planet with carbon emissions while also reducing gridlock and increasing mobility.

Mexico City May Abolish Its Parking Minimums

Streetsblog USA (4/12/17): Once you factor in space for ramps and access lanes, that means about 40 percent of the square footage in an office development must be devoted to parking, said Andrés Sañudo, a Mexico City-based consultant who’s been working with the non-profit Institute for Transportation and Development Policy to help the city reform its parking policy. In a recent white paper produced at the city’s request, ITDP recommended eliminating minimum parking requirements and replacing them with maximums.

Uber for bikes: how “dockless” cycles flooded China – and are heading overseas

The Guardian (3/22/17): Meanwhile, urban planner Zhu Jinglu at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy – which set up Guangzhou’s public bike share and runs its Bus Rapid Transit system – would be delighted if the anecdotal increase in cyclists led to better cycle infrastructure. Development consultant Li Shuling agrees, but is sceptical she will see changes any time soon.

Parking in China Can Be a Long March

WSJ (1/18/16): By contrast, China is “too lenient towards drivers,” said Liu Shaokun, a vice country director at The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, a New York-based nonprofit outfit. China has encouraged government and private capital to build more parking spaces. The central government in 2015 required cities with a population of more than 500,000 to target a ratio of 1.3 parking spaces per car when planning residential and commercial developments.

All aboard Volvo’s very, very long bus. Like, all of you

Wired (12/1/16): The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy publishes a list of BRT standards, which include dedicated right-of-ways, special intersection treatments, platform-level boarding, and off-board fare collection. (The people who drafted these guidelines are real transit nerds, and things get much more complicated from there.) Not one American transit system meets the gold standard criteria. Simply put, there’s nowhere for these things to rocket unimpeded.

The people who need good transit most have the least access to it

Treehugger (10/12/16):The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) takes a shorter, and more international view with a look at the last kilometre problem, measuring the number of residents in cities that have to walk more than a kilometer to get to high quality rapid transit. It’s called PNT or People Near Rapid Transit.

100 % des habitants proches des transports en commun à Paris… mais pas en banlieue

Le Monde (10/11/16): La capitale française arrive en tête d’un classement réalisé par l’Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). Dans un rapport, publié mardi 11 octobre, cet organisme spécialisé dans les transports en commun a recensé dans 26 métropoles mondiales le nombre de personnes habitant à moins d’un kilomètre d’un réseau « efficace », c’est-à-dire rapide, fréquent, avec des arrêts rapprochés.

Lots to lose: how cities around the world are eliminating car parks

The Guardian (9/27/16): “As parking regulations were put into zoning codes, most of the downtowns in many cities were just completely decimated,” says Michael Kodransky, global research manager for the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy. “What the cities got, in effect, was great parking. But nobody goes to a city because it has great parking.”

Curious about Bus Rapid Transit? Check out Cleveland

Detroit Free Press/USA Today (6/19/16): The HealthLine, which Calabrese describes as a $200-million project, is credited with generating $6.3 billion in economic development, and the Greater Cleveland RTA says it returns  $114 for every dollar spent to create and launch it. The system is described as a “clear best practice” by the New York-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which gave it a “silver” designation in its latest ratings of BRT systems around the world.

Cleveland’s new bike-share system will have a twist — you don’t have to dock at a station

Vox (USA) 5/25/16:  As a 2013 analysis by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy found, the success of bike share in a city usually depends on more fundamental factors, such as station density (successful bike shares tend to have 10 to 16 stations in every square kilometer), coverage area (at least 10 square kilometers), number of bikes (at least 10 to 30 bikes per 1,000 people in the coverage area is optimal), and quality of bikes (they, uh, should be nice)…

After Worst Smog in 11 Years, Mexico City Braces for More

U.S. News & World Report (International) 3/18/16: Bernardo Baranda, Latin America director for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, said that officials ought to re-establish limits on car circulation and improve cooperation across the various jurisdictions that make up the Valley of Mexico. Longer-term, he called for more investment in public transportation as well as tolls on cars and creation of areas open only to foot and bicycle traffic. “The root problem is the growth of the vehicle fleet,” Baranda said…