(faq.) Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is a high-capacity mode of transit that employs many train-like features to improve service efficiency and passenger experience. These include traffic signal priority, off-board fare collection, multiple-door boarding, platform-level boarding, and stations that are similar to light-rail. BRT systems typically, but not always, operate within […]
(ideas.) Here’s the TED talk I did in New York in October 2016. > “When we look today in wonder and disgust at the metropolis sprawled before us, we wonder […]
(work.) We’re counting down the days. After many years, “Where We Want to Live – Reclaiming Infrastructure for a New Generation of Cities,” launches March 15! Your first chance to get a signed copy is at the launch event the very next day. On MARCH 16 at 7:00 pm, A […]
(research.) Deb Eddy came to town in the summer of 2015 just to check out the Atlanta Beltline. By her account she was inspired – and she went home to […]
(research.) It took me a little while to figure out what I was looking at when I took a short trip to Denver and saw the 130-year-old High Line Canal. […]
(research.) The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy asked me to meet them in Baltimore to share our Atlanta Beltline story. Also inspired by similar projects across the country, RTC and some civic leaders there are looking at a 35-mile loop around the city. Starting right at the Inner Harbor in the heart of […]
(research.) Some of the controversy in Miami around real estate development in the railroad that might one day carry the Ludlam Trail reminded me of an early challenge we had on the Atlanta Beltline, but I hadn’t seen it for myself. I finally made it out there on a borrowed […]
(research.) I went to share our story in Milwaukee as part of Newaukee’s YP Week and while I was there, I met with some people working on a reclaimed section of the old “Milwaukee Road” railroad just north of downtown. Roughly half its 1.2-mile length has already been converted into […]
(press.) Leading into Newaukee’s 2015 YP Week, Urban Milwaukee published “How the Beltline Project Is Changing Atlanta” by Andrew McCann. Excerpt: “As a public space, the Beltline is already performing a variety of functions. The first and most significant is its rapidly developing role as a connective structure between Atlanta’s […]
(press.) In its December 2014 cover story, “Unbroken Circle” by Susan Percy, the case is made for the Atlanta Beltline as “a unifying force, built on the very railroads that […]
(ideas.) With the undeniable success of the Atlanta Beltline’s Eastside Trail and this November’s groundbreaking of the long-anticipated Westside Trail, we have much to be thankful for. Of course behind […]
(research.) I’ve been to Austin a few times in the last year or so, and I love exploring the trails around Lady Bird Lake. The coolest part of the 10-mile […]
(press.) Nice perspective on the role of the Atlanta Beltline in rethinking the relationship between our health and the world around us. Author Michael Eriksen is the Dean of the School of Public Health at Georgia State University. He wrote this for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Atlanta Forward blog, “Project provides civic […]
(research.) Not only am I from Louisiana and therefore somehow obligated to check in on the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans, but this project is getting built fast, so I […]
(research.) It was a big honor to be sponsored by MailChimp to go to Indianapolis and speak at the third and final We Are City Summit. Between breaks with local popsicles, gourmet fortune cookies, and craft beer, we learned about cool things going on in the world of cities and […]
(press.) Cool coverage by Jeff Chu in international design and business journal, Monocle titled, “On the Right Path.” Excerpt: “In 1999, Ryan Gravel – then an urban planning student at Georgia […]
(press.) Awesome, unexpected first headline to include the working title for my book after speaking to this group in Indy. The Indianapolis Star reports, “We Are City seeks to build ‘Infra-Culture.’” […]
(press.) Here’s a follow-up Q&A to the first story – an interview with Claire Nelischer of the Centre for City Ecology and Anna Hill with Park People, “Infrastructure and our way of life: lessons from the Atlanta BeltLine.” Excerpt: “AH: From what you’ve seen and heard during your time in […]
(research.) While visiting Toronto to speak at the 10th World Congress on Design & Health, I felt an electromagnetic pull toward a power transmission corridor outside the central city. Canadians […]
(press.) Insightful story by Claire Nelischer of the Centre for City Ecology in Spacing. Link: “The Atlanta BeltLine: Catalyst infrastructure and city systems.” Excerpt: “The positive impact of parks investments […]
(research.videos.) I was in Salt Lake City to speak at the Public Interest Design Institute and took a couple of hours to check out a section of the old Denver […]
(ideas.) Gravelblog original. “Planning a More Forward Southland.” Atlanta will open its arms this Saturday for a national gathering of over 5,000 city planners, elected officials, students, consultants, and various […]
(research.) I got to know Debra Edelson after she moved to Atlanta and was working on the Atlanta Beltline for the Trust for Public Land. In a previous life she worked for CSX as a partner in the effort to build the High Line in New York. In December 2013, […]
(research.) I was in New York in October 2013 and tested out CitiBike, the city’s new bikeshare system. It’s easy and convenient, but the most surprising thing was how much smaller it made the city feel. I used it to zip from my hotel to our office at Union Square, […]
(research.) When I first heard about the Harsimus Stem Embankment in Jersey City, also known simply as “the Embankment,” it was caught in legal disputes about its ownership. I’m not […]
(research.) After welcoming the 2013 National Brownfields Conference to Atlanta and highlighting our city’s signature brownfields project, Lena Young introduced herself to me. She was excited by its similarity to an idea she has been working on in Tampa called the Green Artery, a 20-mile loop greenway that for over […]
(research.) I had been following the QueensWay online but when I had a chance to see it in March of 2013, I was surprised by the variety of its physical […]
(research.) Houston was born on the bayou – a lucky confluence of water, land, and two determined brothers. The earth in Houston is very flat, making even light rains a […]
(research.) I like to talk to people working the ground game on infrastructure projects that seem to be reconnecting communities with their city’s history and spinning off new cultural life […]
(research.) The 3-mile 606 in Chicago was an elevated freight railroad and is now a public greenway. It’s original condition was basically a concrete box filled with earth that used steel and […]
(research.) Since the Midtown Greenway is an early conversion of a railroad corridor that has reserved space for a future transit line, we used it a lot in the early days of the Atlanta Beltline’s grassroots effort as our most relevant case study. Crossing below nearly 40 streets as it […]
