#WalkBikeForward: Join us on our journey honoring key moments and people that have shaped our field as we celebrate 20 years of creating active, healthy communities. Earl Blumenauer was first elected to Congress in 1996, representing the Portland area. For 20 years he’s been a champion of biking, walking and livable communities, along with other […]
#WalkBikeForward: Join us on our journey honoring key moments and people that have shaped our field as we celebrate 20 years of creating active, healthy communities. Michael Jones is the founder of Alta Planning + Design. The Birth of Alta Nothing starts from scratch. The active communities movement came out of the 1970s bike resurgence, which […]
Alta and University of Washington Students Collaborate on a Health Impact Assessment By Chris Saleeba and Cailin Henley, Alta Planning + Design Wide lanes, fast cars, anxiety-inducing street noise, expansive parking lots and unsafe crossings afflict the 1.25 mile Commercial Avenue south of Anacortes, WA, a small coastal city north of Seattle. To improve safety […]
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recently released the Bike Network Mapping Idea Book, a resource that highlights ways communities of different sizes have mapped their existing and proposed bike networks. The book is intended to serve as a resource for communities working to identify, plan, and improve their bicycle networks. The mapping idea book shows […]
By Derek Hofbauer, TDM Specialist, Alta Planning + Design I work in Alta’s Programs Team. That means my job is to help people bike, walk, and take transit more often all around North America. But…what about our colleagues at Alta? Could they use some help too? This was the question that led us to create […]
“The City came into being to preserve life, it exists for the good life.” — Aristotle “Gotta Catch ’Em All” — Proverb By Michael Sampson and Marc Caswell, Alta Planning + Design Have you noticed that public plazas and sidewalks have been more busy lately — full of people wandering around looking at their phones (a little more than usual)? For […]
By Britt Storck, PLA, ASLA, with contributions from Kyle James, Chris Saleeba, and Derek Abe Trails and greenways provide significant and tangible economic, health, and quality‐of‐life benefits in communities across the country. Investments in trail infrastructure produce remarkable returns and have transformative effects in cities and towns. In a fiscally-challenging climate, quantifying these factors and […]
By Bryan Jones, PE, AICP, Principal, Alta Planning + Design As a young engineer and planner, I was trained to think these were the top transportation issues: level of service (LOS) C or D, on-going maintenance of roads, funding for expansion of freeways and roads to relieve congestion, perfecting the travel demand model forecasts for […]
By Phil Goff, LEED AP, Senior Associate, Alta Planning + Design While much focus has been placed on mid-sized, bicycle friendly cities such as Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Pittsburgh, Buffalo has also emerged as a national leader in bicycle-friendly programs and infrastructure. All-but-dismissed as a struggling Rust Belt city for decades, recent policies […]
By Katie Mangle, Principal, Alta Planning + Design The City of Portland’s newly adopted Comprehensive Plan includes the six-mile Green Loop as part of the armature for the tremendous growth the City anticipates in the next 20 years. In response to the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center for Architecture’s Loop PDX design competition, Alta […]
