StreetNEWS (July 21)

Vélib bike rental station, Paris (Photo courtesy New York Times)

• Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square Redesign Project Community Process Begins (BTD: Press Release, Public Meeting Announcement)
  Mayor Thomas M. Menino today [July 11] announced the start of the community process for the project to redesign Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square in Charlestown.  To launch the initiative, the Boston Transportation Department is sponsoring a public meeting on Thursday, July 24th at 7:00 PM at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 75 West School Street in Charlestown.
  
  
• $15M curb revamp planned to aid handicapped (Boston Herald)
  BOSTON -- Mayor Thomas M. Menino plans to spend $15 million over the next five years to make about 4,000 of Boston’s roughly 20,000 sidewalk curbs handicapped-accessible. But the city already has its work cut out, after a recent survey of 28 sidewalks and curb ramps already worked on by contractors for the city found that nearly half - 44 percent - don’t comply with federal law and may have to be redone.
  
  
• Feet give the best, cheapest mileage (Boston Globe)
  BOSTON -- Could this be a seminal moment in the history of walking, the dawning of a gas-price-inspired walking renaissance? I mulled the question as I ambled along a crumbling sidewalk on Massachusetts Avenue Friday morning, breathing humid air and listening to the screeches of frisky drivers, with Boston's biggest walking advocate.
  
  
• In North Brighton, uneasy passage to river (Boston Globe)
  BRIGHTON -- Though tantalizingly close, the recreational activities along the Charles River feel far out of reach for tipster Lisa D'Souza and many in her North Brighton neighborhood. D'Souza tells GlobeWatch that in order to get to the river,  she has to navigate across the congested, sprawling intersection at Leo M. Birmingham Parkway and Soldiers Field Road between the Arsenal Street Bridge and Western Avenue.
  
  
• A New Two-Wheeled Course? (Post Writers Group)
  Anne Lusk of Harvard's School of Public Health has a startling -- many would say quixotic -- ambition for America's cities. She'd like to equip them all with cycle tracks. Cycle tracks? Does she mean the painted buffer lane for bikes you see on some streets? No! Those lanes are easily blocked by vehicles attempting to park. And they leave cyclists within inches of fast cars and monster trucks; if there's any error, you know who get hurts, often badly.
  
  
• A New Fashion Catches On in Paris: Cheap Bicycle Rentals (New York Times)
  PARIS — They’re clunky, heavy and ugly, but they have become modish — and they are not this season’s platform shoes. A year after the introduction of the sturdy gray bicycles known as Vélib’s, they are being used all over Paris. The bikes are cheap to rent because they are subsidized by advertising, and other major cities, including American ones, are exploring similar projects.
  Related: Happy Birthday Velib (Streetsblog)

• Rutherford Avenue and Sullivan Square Redesign Project Community Process Begins (BTD: Press Release, Public Meeting Announcement)
• BRA eyes Downtown 'Meeting Place' (Boston Herald)
• Smile, You're In Downtown Crossing (WCVB)
• Letter: Commuting across the Longfellow Bridge with a sense of unease (Boston Globe)
• Storrow's tunnel set for more repairs (Boston Metro)
• Fall festival to illuminate Hub landmarks (Boston Herald, Boston Globe)
• Before you run that light, stop: A camera might be coming (Boston Globe)
• Letter: Poor design is behind many red-light infractions (Boston Globe)
• Letters: Don't dump Mass. Ave. reconstruction plan; Don’t turn Mass. Ave. into a highway; Consider Chester Park (South End News)
• $15M curb revamp planned to aid handicapped (Boston Herald)
• In North Brighton, uneasy passage to river (Boston Globe)
• Billboard ignites fury, and Quincy blames state (Boston Globe)
• Walnut Stripes (Newton Streets and Sidewalks)

• Feet give the best, cheapest mileage (Boston Globe)
• LPI - Leading Pedestrian Interval (Streetfilms)

• A New Two-Wheeled Course? (Post Writers Group)
• Safety is a two-way street (Milford Daily News)
• The Myth of the Scofflaw Cyclist (TheWashCycle)
• Built for Two (Boston Globe)

• Violent crime down, theft up on T (Boston Metro)
• T faces more money woes (Boston Metro)
• Sen. John F. Kerry rails at Acela (Boston Metro)
• Business bigwigs all aboard with Kerry's Acela plan (Boston Herald)
• Economic forum targets potential of Concord-to-Boston line (Nashua Telegraph)
• Emerson: Silver Line construction will hurt (Boston Herald, Switchback, The Third Decade)
• Summer of discontent on the Red Line (Boston Globe)
• Green Line construction updates -- more of the same (Switchback)
• Group studies possible Green Line effects in east Somerville (Somerville News)
• Brickbottom transit may hit rock bottom (Somerville News)
• Failure to inspect concrete prompted MBTA delays (Boston Herald, Boston Globe)
• Diversity office at T accused of bias (Boston Globe)
• N.H., Mass. passenger rail service would be an 'economic engine' (Boston Globe)

• Editorial: Fuel for thought (Boston Globe)
• Gas prices have teens applying brakes to car ownership (Springfield Republican)
• Mopeds' uncharted ground (Boston Globe, Boston Metro)
• Editorial: Running on empty and spreading the blame (Boston Globe)
• Anybody Want a Ride? [Carpooling] (Boston Globe)
• No quarter for the meter? Make a call on your cellphone (Boston Globe)
• Micros come back to the future (Boston Globe)

• Editorial: A private power grab on the public's Greenway (Boston Globe)
• Letters in response --
• Learning from Post Office Square (Boston Globe)
• Expanse still has a long way to go (Boston Globe)
• Conservancy seeks beauty, not power (Boston Globe)
• Critical of group's stewardship (Boston Globe)
• The old nonswimming hole [Jamaica Pond] (Boston Globe)
• Letters in response --
  
• An appeal from one of the elves how helps keep the site pristine (Bosotn Globe)
• You could kiss urban serenity goodbye (Boston Globe)
• Our oneness with nature demands dip in the pond (Boston Globe)
• Where conservancy fits in (Boston Globe)
• State puts on hold funding for Assabet, Bruce Freeman rail trails (Acton Beacon)
• Plaza Betances officially opens (South End News)
• Riding a new wave [Wollaston Beach] (Boston Globe)

• New beer 'garden' sailing to Seaport (Boston Herald)
• South Boston convention hall could double in size (Boston Herald)
• Firm has gig plans for the Government Center Garage (Beacon Hill Times)
• Mandarin developers eye Pike parcels for project (Boston Herald)
• Chancellor wants dorms at UMass-Boston (Boston Herald)
• BC resists push to move housing to main campus (Allston-Brighton TAB)
• Bayside developers to public with site plans (Dorchester Reporter)
• Porter Sq. hotel could get green light in September (Cambridge Chronicle)
• Planning the City (Boston Globe)
• Housing planned for YWCA pool site (Boston Globe)
• At Faces club site, a big makeover eyed (Boston Globe)

• State tries to rescue Pike from huge debt (Boston Globe, NECN)
  
• Big Dig's red ink engulfs state (Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Forbes, NECN, WBZ)
  
• Treasurer accused on inaction on Pike (Boston Globe)
  
• State may bail Pike out; what about T? (Boston Metro)
  
• Cahill calls for turnpike overhaul (Boston Globe)
  
• Pike extracts toll for $100 gift (Boston Herald)
  
• Letter: Let state engineers oversee public construction projects (Salem News)
  
• Galluccio, Jehlen tout money for Somerville in Transportation Bond Bill (Somerville Journal)
  
• Editorial: State to Pike: Don't drop dead (Boston Globe)
  

• Parking Rules Return; Cleaner Streets to Follow (New York Times)
  
• Editorial: Give Amtrak a Fighting Chance (New York Times)
  
• In search of parking perfection: San Francisco turns to wireless sensors (Boston Globe, New York Times)
  
• Dulles Rail May Finally Be in Virginia's Future (The Ground Floor)
  
• Bastille Day: Games, Sand & Car-free fun in Brooklyn (Streetfilms)
  
• Union Station Bicycle Transit Center: Green Lighted (TheWashCycle)
  
• Driver arrested after alleged road-rage incident against cyclist (The Oregonian)
  
• Downeaster has big uptick in riders (Fosters Daily Democrat)
  
• In Decade of Unlimited Rides, MetroCard Has Transformed How the City Travels (New York Times)
  
• Damn the Gas Prices, Full Road Widenings Ahead (Streetsblog LA)
  
• A 640-Ton Machine drills a Long Island Railroad Tunnel to Grand Central (New York Times)
  

• What Works: Bicycling (3 Part Series) (NBC News via Bike Jax)
  
• Energy-addicted U.S. can learn a lot from Europe (Christian Science Monitor)
  
• Bus rapid transit vs express bus service (Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space)
  
• Pickens stuns with attack on oil 'addiction' (Boston Herald)
  
• Rising Fuel Costs and Ridership Strain Local Transit Systems Nationwide (Streetsblog)
  
• U.S. cities scrambling to meet rising mass transit demands (CNN)
  
• Bike, Meet the City. City, This is the Bike (WorldChanging)
  
• Deadly tension on the roads -- cars vs. bikes (MSNBC)
  
• Hop back on that bike (TODAY)
• Dream of gas-tax holiday dies (Boston Globe)
  

• Europe's rail renaissance on track (The Guardian)
• A New Fashion Catches On in Paris: Cheap Bicycle Rentals (New York Times)
  
• French Trains Turn $1.75B Profit, Leave American Rail in the Dust (Streetsblog)
  
• Happy Birthday Velib (Streetsblog)
  
• Sao Paulo Traffic James Mean Lost Businesses, Stress, Helicopters (Bloomberg)
  
• Reader Report from the World Cities Summit (WorldChanging)
  
• 117 Safer Intersections in Copenhagen (Copenhagenize.com)
  
• Beijing opens three new subways ahead of Olympics (China Daily)