Sneak Peek: Wed May 15, 2024

I still can't get over this picture I found of Route 66 (now Central Avenue) through the Nob Hill neighborhood of my current hometown, Albuquerque. I mean I'm kind of aware that, at the height of the highway building era (1950s-1970s), much, much more of our built environment used to look like Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where the entire landscape is filled with structures and signage that's designed to catch the attention of drivers. This image is bordering on the vertiginous, though. (But I kind of love the picture, what kind of lens was this??)

Anyway, today is all about how the city transformed old Route 66 into what's really a pretty impressive bus rapid transit corridor, with calmer traffic and improvements to the pedestrian realm. But it's also about all the potential there is to build on these improvements with housing infill close in to the corridor, and the challenges the city has had doing that. (The city estimates a shortage of 20,000-30,000 housing units, which has led to increasing affordability issues and larger numbers of unhoused people. In other words, it's a city in the western U.S.) So, similar to last week's Twin Cities video, I'm putting a particular metro area and corridor under the spotlight, but as always I hope there's a lot people can take from the case study, no matter where they live. Albuquerque has done so many things right with their BRT, and it's a great tool for cities in that size range (think Richmond, Madison, Eugene) where rail may never pencil out.

Anyway, here's a question. I MAY have a gap in my calendar later this year where I can self-fund (i.e. Patreon-fund) a city visit, instead of some organization or another paying my way (which has been the case with everything else on my calendar this year). Give me a city (not YOUR city!!) that you're interested in learning more about -- maybe a city where you're aware of some interesting infrastructure / event / policy innovation that could make for good YouTube content. I have my own ideas...but I always have blind spots!

Happy Wednesday.