Category Archives: Pedestrian infrastructure

I spent the third week of January in Doha, Qatar. I’d been there only once before, on a one-day trip from Dubai in 2010. On the earlier trip, I’d been extremely impressed by the Corniche—and wasn’t much taken by anything … Continue reading →

I recently spent nearly a week in Bordeaux, a city I had previously been in only briefly. I was particularly interested in looking at all the ways that Bordeaux has been attempting to push back against the hegemony of the … Continue reading →

Many—and probably most—French cities have engaged in large-scale urban renewal projects over the last thirty years or so. Obsolete industrial and port facilities have been replaced by offices and housing. Research centers, museums, and concert halls have been squeezed into … Continue reading →

Dubai is known as a very car-oriented place. Exhibit number one is Sheikh Zayed Road, a 16-to-24-lane limited-access highway that extends through nearly the whole length of Dubai’s post-1990s neighborhoods including those containing most of the city’s famous skyscrapers. Pedestrian … Continue reading →

Hong Kong has four quite distinct urban rail systems: [1] the MTR (Mass Transit Railway), which consists of approximately 231 km of modern urban rail lines that run throughout the special administrative region; it incorporates the formerly separate lines of … Continue reading →

When I was in Toronto, I also explored a much smaller project: the renovation of Queens Quay. Queens Quay is a short (3.3 km) street along Toronto’s “Harbourfront.” Over the last forty or so years most of its western 2 … Continue reading →

I spent a few days in Panama City at the end of January. I had been there only once before, in 2012, before the Metro opened. It’s a surprisingly distinctive place. Panama City’s most astonishing feature is surely its skyline, … Continue reading →

Hong Kong is perhaps best known in the world of urban studies for its extraordinarily high transit share. Public transit accounts for a larger percentage of journeys in Hong Kong than in any other city in the world. Something like 77.6% of … Continue reading →