Cities & Planning

Mayor Bruce Harell announced Wednesday that one block of Pike Street, between First and Second Avenues, which has been rebuilt as part of the Seattle waterfront project as a curbless "shared street" intended to maintain through traffic, will remain closed to through vehicle traffic as a pilot while the city collects feedback and observes how

City dirty. Apply antiseptic liberally. The flexible hybrid schedules and the hit-and-miss Return to Office plans of major employers are hurting most cities’ central business districts. Most downtowns were built of stacked offices over coffee shops to maximize the investment return on having folks spend 71% of their days in a cubicle. Failing to draw

A new poll found 82% of voters don’t believe highway expansions are the best solution for reducing congestion. America runs on highway sprawl and car commercials, but ample reason exists to think most Americans are seeking a different way to tackle transportation and growth issues. A new national poll conducted by Hattaway Communications found overwhelming

A Seattle Neighborhood Greenways forum pushes the city to heed community-led efforts to remove cars from some streets. SDOT may finally be listening. During a public forum called “Pedestrianize This!” hosted by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways in April, Jeff Hou, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Washington, gave a talk about pedestrian-only streets

Anne Hidalgo will help pedestrians feel safer not with a crackdown on micromobility, but with a common-sense plan to take more away space from drivers.

It’s obvious how to make the roads safer for cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike. We just don’t do it.

AtmosZero has developed an energy efficient, electrified boiler that New Belgium Brewing plans to install at its main facility next year.

The laundry list includes ideas for denser housing and expanded homeless outreach — along with some Space Needle-level swings.

Matt Sephton’s been collecting maps of Akihabara for years and now has a collection spanning from the 1970s to the 21st century. It starts out in the radio era, grows into the age of personal…

American public transit is notoriously expensive to build compared to countries in Europe and Asia. Today, we visit a $837 million subway station in New York to learn why these projects come with such a high price tag all across the country.For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

This week the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is set to award $16.1 million to advance planning and design work for multiple segments of multiuse trail on the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas. The ultimate vision, being branded the Puget Sound to Pacific Trail, would connect over 200 miles from the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal all

Over the last few years, a couple of technical advances, a tweak in the law and some Oregon idiosyncrasies are helping the state's farmers take another look at producing maple syrup.

Ex-Im’s $900 million loan for a solar project in Angola is green colonialism

The current system makes it hard to build the long-distance power lines needed to transport wind and solar nationwide.

Researchers found as more Americans move into fire-risk areas, they increase the likelihood and impact of wildfires.

A new analysis suggests strategies to better prepare for extreme heat and prevent attributed deaths across Washington.

The width allocated to lanes for motorists, buses, trucks, bikes, and parked cars is a sensitive and crucial aspect of street design. Lane widths should be considered within the assemblage of a given…

Many communities are now debating decreasing neighborhood street width. Planning commissioners need to understand the pros and cons of this debate. How narrow is too narrow -- and how wide is too wide?

This street, in San Jose, California, is 60 feet wide The land underneath is worth $2.7 million—nearly $250,000 per house No wonder housing is so expensive In the United States, residential streets are typically 50 feet wide. That's much wider than in most other countries. In Tokyo, for example, the

Japanese vending machines are like Doraemon's magical pocket - it offers everything ranging from amulets to Pokémon merchandise.

From soft drinks to hot coffee, Japanese vending machines are world-famous. To learn about this unique culture of Japan, read on to find out.

The Japanese are always one step ahead in innovation.

A trip to Japan is guaranteed to blow your mind every few minutes. When foreigners come to Japan for the first time, especially to Tokyo, one thing that is sure to catch their eye is how many vending machines there are. Vending machines are in almost every country in the world. However, what's surprising is how many of them there are in Japan.

Shirts, eggs, flowers, umbrellas, fruits, and fish can all be found in vending machines across Japan. And, that is just the tip of the iceberg.

For decades now, Japanese vending machines have served up an array of interesting, mundane, and useful things. Things like manga. Or bread in a can. Or illicit substances. Or video game piracy cartridges.

A high school student's innovative idea to use proceeds from vending machines to provide local children in need with meals became a reality in Himeji City.