What are some urban design or urban planning plans or documents you often revisit or find particularly successful? Are there specific elements or approaches within these plans that stand out to you as particularly innovative or impactful?

LA Metro: Around $40 billion spent for only 200k daily riders

Since the mid 1980s LA County has embraced an aggressive rail expansion operation. Based on my very rough, inflation adjusted math, the transit agency has spent to date roughly $40 billion. For this, the entire rail network gets an embarrassing daily ridership of just 200k.

For comparison, the last major road construction operation in the county was the Century Freeway. This handles roughly 200k vehicles per day in each direction. And it cost less than $5 billion in current dollars.

I'm struggling to see how Metro can justify the exorbitant spending on rail projects. They haven't worked for 40 years.

For an urban planning project during my BA Architecture im developing a concept to have develop a neighborhood (80ha) in a smaller city in Switzerland. The brief consists in making a compact city, that provides a biodiverse living space for people and nature. (This is an oversimplification of the brief, just to give a general idea)

Part of the concept I developed is to use large parts of the vacant lots in the neighborhood that already belong to the state and transform them into a network of forests using the Miyawaki method. It should become a relatively densely populated neighborhood (94p/ha), with direct access to the forest.

It’s been difficult to find examples of cities that have something similar. Usually there are utopic visions of giant building in a forest or simply having vertical greenery on the facades of the buildings. Do you know of references that combine “regular” cities with functioning forests intergrated into it?

Is there ever a reason for a stop line to be on the far side of a crosswalk? That is:

https://preview.redd.it/ez79i18bb61e1.png?width=348&format=png&auto=webp&s=48ccbbbb23d95dba0bdd0534460edc037afcb4ef

I've seen this pattern a few places around the city I live, and it seems like it's inviting a driver to collide with a pedestrian.

Hello everyone,

I recently graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning and Development in May and have been accepted into the Master of Urban Design (MUD) program. I’m looking for career advice and guidance as I move forward.

What are some jobs you’ve held in the field, and are there any you would recommend avoiding? Additionally, what roles would you suggest for someone interested in the design side of urban planning?

Thank you in advance for your insights!

For reference, the red is rail lines, the lime is where containers would be stored, the yellow lines are for cranes, the blue circles are tanks for gas and oil, and the orange lines in the water are breakwaters. Would love advice on what to change to make it more realistic!

This might be a strange question and idk if this is the right place to do it but y'all know any city like this?

The drawing is pretty crude but basically the thick lines are main roads (still not highways), while the other thinnwr single-stroke ones the local streets. The dark blue are supposed to be some type of small park, although the triangular ones I did wrong and it would probably be better for them to be just irregular-shaped blocks. The drawing is no to scale.

The mains idea would be to discourage throu driving, since you would need to make a lot of curves. As well as possible making a bigger sense of enclosure by not having super long streets.

I did a simple cross in the middle of the big blocks but some other type of subdivision would probably be better

I’ve been working on an app called Pointz that’s all about helping riders find safer, low-stress routes to feel confident and comfy on the roads. Right now, it has emergency roadside assistance, plus a color-coded road safety map (from red to dark green for safety ratings), a slider to help choose the optimal balance of safety vs. speed, and options for specific preferences, like avoiding hills, selecting routes for different bike types and scooters, avoiding multi-use paths, and more. It has a bunch of other things like a way to record your ride (like Strava), GPX exporting, and even crowdsourcing (like Waze).But I'm curious—what features would you all actually use? Especially folks who are new/intermediate to riding in cities and suburbs. Would love to hear your thoughts

I recently decided I wanted to go into urban design but my college doesn’t offer any urban design or architecture degree programs :(. They do have urban planning program but I know that would be more focused on policy. Would there be any other bachelor degrees that would suffice? Thanks!

I love the idea of walkable cities and suburbs with well connected public transit, but one thing I'm always told in response is "would it be safe though? whats stopping someone from getting on the train and sticking a knife in you?". thats why cars are "safer" is what im told, because no one is going to assault you because you're not in a public space. if the US was to introduce good public transport (consistent and wide reaching), how would you fix this issue that many people have about safety?

Hi all,

As the title suggests, I am wondering if my "dream" career is too niche. I am faced with 2 problems:

1. I don't exactly know the specific path I should follow to get myself into the position I want

2. I don't know if what I want is even a viable career in terms of actually making enough money to live a comfortable life.

I have a bachelors degree in Visual/Spatial design. I plan to do my masters in Landscape Architecture (if it aligns with what I want to achieve)

My career goals lie within landscape architecture, however I want my career to be about more. My passions include landscape architecture, reclaiming old/abandoned buildings and turning them into community hubs/markets/art museums/residential spaces/cafes/restaurants, and indoor & outdoor garden spaces using native plant life (public and private). The two key things for me is the reclamation of old buildings and landscape architecture.

I like the idea of being able to be apart of both processes. First being designing and planning, second being actually getting involved physically whether that be demolishing, tiling, cement rendering, planting, etc. I understand these physical skills are that of a landscaper, which is something I am thinking about, but another HUGE goal of mine is to be able to travel the world working in this industry, understanding the local area and activating a space for an area in need. I don' believe this is possible as a landscaper.

An example of the kind of work I am talking about is seen in Kuala Lumpur. "Rex KL" was an abandoned theatre now turned book store/market space.

I have spent the past 2 years of my life travelling the world, I have seen plenty of inspiration and I know that this is what I want to do.

Any help, guidance or advice (even directing me to a more appropriate subreddit) is appreciated. Thank you.

according to official from local government these pedestrian crossings are necessary because there's a bus stop, otherwise that bike lane cannot exist

https://www.unzoomed.com/en/regions/us This game might be interesting to this community, you guess the city from its layout seen from above.

There's a US and world version.

Let me know how fast you find today's?

I made this booklet for an organization I work with here in New York City. It's a fun look at how the city's streets, and cities in general, might adapt to cope with climate change and food insecurity. Hope it might give you some inspiration. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_io7bUEAfY1y1A5I9yTphHmTXW171BEs/view?usp=sharing

I graduated with a Bachelor's in Urban Design recently, but I am not sure exactly what jobs to search for to apply to. In university we worked a lot with AutoCAD, Sketchup, and Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, but a lot of jobs I look for require some other software such as CIvil3D which I've never even heard of, and/or certifications like AICP (which come up even after searching for entry-level). I just need some advice on what exactly I should be looking for. I'm in Florida, USA and am open to relocation within the country. Sorry if this is the wrong place to post and thanks in advance.

I'm a high schooler and I'm starting a research project this year centered around urban design. Currently, the plan is to find the most dangerous intersections/streets for bicyclists in Philadelphia and then propose safer redesigns. I have taken some online courses on urban design and also have read some books on the subject, but I still feel out of my depth. I was wondering if anyone here is willing to give some advice on some questions I had.

1. I'm already reaching out to some professors in the area and a bike advocacy group, but who else would you all recommend contacting?

2. What other resources(book, articles, online courses, etc.) would best help me to propose actually feasible redesigns?

3. What software for the redesigns do you all suggest using? I'm currently leaning more towards the Adobe suite, more similar to the style of channels like Streetcaft.

4. Any other tips/things I should know?

Thanks so much for your time if you've read this far.