Word: urbanism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...from the Massachusetts Turnpike to the Charles River, handles 180,000 automobiles a day -- nearly 2 1/2 times its stated capacity. The two-mile elevated section, built without any shoulders or slowdown and speedup lanes for exits and entrances, has an accident rate that is twice the average for urban highways in the U.S. Next year Massachusetts will begin a ten-year, $4.3 billion project to rebuild and reroute some seven miles of highway, including Central Artery. Construction will add four traffic lanes, enough to accommodate an anticipated 210,000 vehicles a day, and will replace the elevated roadway with...
Since traffic jams are almost synonymous with urban growth, they have been building for a long time. (The term gridlock apparently came into common use in New York City during a transit workers' strike in 1980, when a surge of commuter autos paralyzed Manhattan's street grid.) Congestion on two-lane highways in the 1950s hastened construction of the 42,797-mile interstate system, which will be officially completed in 1991 (estimated final cost: $108 billion). But the interstates eased overcrowding only temporarily. Says Transportation Secretary James Burnley: "It's not a problem that will be resolved in a final...
...Knight, vice president of the Government Employees Insurance Co. in Chevy Chase, Md. Some Los Angeles manufacturing companies have fled to less congested cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix, and corporations have moved their headquarters from New York City to Dallas and Orlando. Says Sigurd Grava, professor of urban planning at Columbia University: "Congestion can play an important role in the life and death of a city." When Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt, a former U.S. Transportation Secretary, got caught in a traffic jam in Seattle, he took the occasion to get out of his car and pass...
...increasingly caught in traffic because commuting patterns have changed drastically in recent decades. The interstate highway system was originally designed to carry motorists primarily from city to city; its beltways were constructed mainly as bypasses for long-distance travelers. Local commuters, by contrast, generally moved in and out of urban downtown areas in a radial pattern, along the paths of mass transit and major thoroughfares. But the majority of work is no longer downtown: the suburbs contain 60% of current metropolitan jobs and 67% of all new ones, according to the Transportation Department. As a result, many workers commute from...
...matters that often cross a President's desk. But to campaign consultants, they are "hot buttons," the so-called valence issues that help voters define a candidate's character and values. So last week, while the national debt was topping $2.5 trillion, while a growing army of beggars wandered urban streets and America's overburdened school systems prepared for the return of classes, the electorate was treated to the spectacle of George Bush forcing Michael Dukakis to debate whether elementary-school children should be compelled to recite a loyalty oath before they rattle off their ABCs...