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San Francisco's policies encourage the design and development of 'Better Streets,' sometimes referred to as 'Complete Streets,' that work for all users. The San Francisco Better Streets Plan, adopted in December 2010, states: Better Streets are designed and built to strike a balance between all users regardless of physical abilities or mode of travel. A Better Street attends to the needs of people first, considering pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, street trees, stormwater management, utilities, and livability as well as vehicular circulation and parking.

The Street Plans Collaborative is an urban planning, design, and research-advocacy firm. We strive to create high-quality public spaces, and believe that the key to reversing the harmfulmn effects of suburban sprawl is to promote compact, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. We thrive on working with our clients, partners, and other likeminded organizations to improve the quality and function of the built environment. We seek to increase the effectiveness of multi-modal transportation as a means to creating more competitive and sustainable 21st century towns and cities.

The closing keynote at the Economist Conferences Event, "Creating tomorrow's liveable cities", presented byProfessor Jan Gehl, founding partner of Gehl Architects,Copenhagen. This video provides a good deal of information on the benefits bicycling and walking have on a livable community when integrated into the community landscape.

Three basic principles Empowerment. SeeClickFix allows anyone to report and track non-emergency issues anywhere in the world via the internet. This empowers citizens, community groups, media organizations and governments to take care of and improve their neighborhoods. Efficiency. Two heads are better than one and 300 heads are better than two. In computer terminology, distributed sensing is particularly powerful at recognizing patterns, such as those that gradually take shape on a street. Besides, the government can't be in all places at all times. We make it easy and fun for everyone to see, click and fix. Engagement. Citizens who take the time to report even minor issues and see them fixed are likely to get more engaged in their local communities. It's called a self-reinforcing loop. This also makes people happy and everyone benefits from that.

Bike lanes help define road space, decrease the stress level of bicyclists riding in traffic, encourage bicyclists to ride in the correct direction of travel, and signal motorists that cyclists have a right to the road. Bike lanes help to better organize the flow of traffic and reduce the chance that motorists will stray into cyclists' path of travel.1, 2 Bicyclists have stated their preference for marked on-street bicycle lanes in numerous surveys.3 In addition, several real-time studies (where cyclists of varying abilities and backgrounds ride and assess actual routes and street conditions) have found that cyclists are more comfortable and assess a street as having a better level of service for them where there are marked bike lanes present.4

The Institute's vision is to create healthy, connected communities that support active living and that advance opportunities for all people through walkable streets, livable cities and better built environments.

AMERICAN employment put in a respectable performance in July. Non-farm payrolls rose 117,000, or 0.1%, and the unemployment rate edged lower to 9.1% from 9.2%, both better, but not dramatically so, than Wall Street had expected.