If you have ever felt compelled to confront the importance of planning in your daily life, try biking on the rumble strip of a highway. The discomfort of being distinctly out of place reveals underlying structures in the way things are built. In the summer of 2015, I biked across the country 4,295 miles from Portland, M.E., to Seattle, W.A., with the organization Bike the … Continue reading The Future of Biking Across the United States
This piece was originally written by Tory Gibler for Planning Methods (PLAN 720) in November 2018. Have you purchased a product online and had it shipped to your home in the last year? It’s a good bet you have, given that online shopping is a large and growing portion of all US retails sales. It’s always a challenge for planners to predict the countless events … Continue reading Urban Freight Challenges with the Rise of E-Commerce
Somewhere in the relief of cooler weather, the urgency of shortening days, and the beauty of the coming fall, is the drive to find a gradual slope and smooth descent. The only thing left to do is plan the ride. As a regular cyclist and a new North Carolinian, I looked through some of the tools I’ve previously used to plan new routes to see … Continue reading Finding Your New Favorite Bike Route
Fall is in the air, and it’s time for municipal elections! On November 7, Chapel Hill registered voters will cast their ballots for candidates seeking four available Town Council seats. The Chapel Hill Town Council is comprised of eight members who serve four-year terms. Recently, the local political blog OrangePolitics hosted a live online forum for the seven Town Council candidates. Participants included Allen Buansi, … Continue reading Chapel Hill Town Council Candidates Speak on Issues of Affordable Housing and Transportation
Long-haul travel between small communities One of the rarely talked-about benefits of living in a major city is that transport between that city and other major metropolitan areas is relatively easy. Not always cheap, but usually easy. Take traveling between Washington, D.C. and New York City: an online search reveals multiple bus companies such as Megabus and Greyhound, both the Amtrak Northeast Regional and Acela … Continue reading Can You Get There from Here?
Living in the U.S., we don’t often imagine recycling to be a privilege. After meeting Johnson Desauguste, a Haitian immigrant living in the U.S., I’ve begun to see it that way. As a junior environmental science major at UNC, I’ve been involved in many environmental organizations, and had some exposure to urban planning. Somehow, meeting Johnson (or “Blada,” as his Haitian family calls him) has … Continue reading Kay Blada Recycling: Tackling Infrastructure Problems in Haiti One Bottle at a Time
This summer, James Farrell and Alyson West, UNC City and Regional Planning master’s students, traveled to the Netherlands for a two-week study abroad program. Over these two weeks, they saw some of the world’s best bicycle infrastructure, some of which has been captured in the following photos from their trip. Most major cities in the Netherlands are part of the Randstad, a ring including Amsterdam, … Continue reading Photo Essay: Bicycling Infrastructure in the Netherlands
