Turlock is a rural city of about 70,000 residents in California’s Central Valley. The temperate climate and short rainy season make walking and bicycling an attractive option for much of the year. Most destinations in Turlock are within reach by bicycle — the town is roughly a square about 5 miles across. Its gridded street system makes […]
By Katie Mangle, Principal, Alta Planning + Design There are many reasons we do what we do here at Alta Planning + Design. Most of our staff love to bike. We love to walk. We have fond memories wandering trails with our friends and family. But Alta’s mission — to create active communities — is part of a much, […]
by Ryan Johnson, Planner, Alta Planning + Design During my seven years in Los Angeles living car-free, I’ve often surprised friends or new acquaintances when I show up for a conference, happy hour, or another social event without a personal automobile. “Wait, you didn’t take the I-10 to get out to the Westside?!” they’ll ask. […]
by Victoria Kovacs, Designer, and Fred Young, Senior Landscape Architect, Alta Planning + Design Like our Portland headquarters, the Alta Seattle office is proud to announce the opening of our Bike Secure Parking Area, or Bike SPA for short. Located in the basement of the Vance Building in the heart of downtown Seattle, the SPA […]
by Joe Gilpin, Principal, and David Foster, Senior Designer What if it were possible to travel by bike through nearly 180 miles of the most scenic terrain in the Rocky Mountains on a completely separated trail with the vast majority at easy railroad grades? What if this trail provided a diversity of experiences through three […]
by Ryan Johnson, Planner, Alta Planning + Design I recently returned from a two-week trip to Europe, and I obviously spent a lot of time observing pedestrian and bicycle culture and infrastructure. Rather than simply envy our neighbors across the pond for their walkable and bike-friendly cities and believe that we Yanks could never match […]
by Brad Davis, Senior Planner, Alta Planning + Design During our work on planning projects in Atlanta, such as Cycle Atlanta, we dusted off some great old plans from Atlanta transportation planning history. It wasn’t all highways back in the day. With so much cycling growth in recent years tied to projects like the Atlanta […]
by Tom Millar, Planner, Alta Planning + Design If you’ve been in the business of pedestrian and bicycle planning for very long, chances are you’ve seen a really great plan “sit on the shelf” and languish without implementation. Momentum is usually built in a community during plan development. Often, a finite window of opportunity exists […]
by Beth Flanagan, Marketing Coordinator, Alta Planning + Design I mean BIG props — like maps that are 40’ x 25’ that people can walk and draw on. Maps that allow people to easily identify their favorite neighborhood destinations, their closest light rail stop, their homes, and the sidewalk and streets they regularly travel. Next, locate the […]
by Nick Falbo, Former Planner at Alta Planning + Design It feels like we’re in a golden age of bikeway design and engineering with the constantly evolving NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, the People for Bikes Green Lane Project, the recent FHWA approval of bicycle signal heads and the new protected bike lanes being implemented […]
