CityStories / City Profiles / Medium Cities / Laredo, Texas
Population: 176,576
- Air quality
- Clean fleet school buses
- Official City of Laredo Website
Photo Galleries
Laredo, Texas
Laredo shares a metropolitan area with its neighbor across the Rio Grande, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and is dubbed the "Gateway to Mexico." With railroad expansion in the 1880s and the establishment of the free-trade zone between the two cities, Laredo was transformed from a small "villa" into the biggest inland port between the U.S. and Mexico.
Laredo currently has a relatively low-pollutant, satisfactory Air Quality Index, and it is a voluntary member of North America's SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., NASCO, a non-governmental agency that works between the public and private sectors to improve tri-national transportation, including addressing environmental issues such as air quality. In addition, the Laredo Independent School District, in conjunction with the Texas State Energy Conservation, obtained a grant from the federal government to transform its school buses into a clean fleet with lower emissions.
Ethnically, Laredo is 94.5 percent Latino, and the city planning and architecture reflect that with barrio neighborhoods based on street grids of the Spanish plaza settlement system—with central plazas—and Mexican–American historical building.
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Transportation: Bicycling
Cities for Cycling: National Association of City Transportation Officials project to catalog, promote and implement the world's best bicycle transportation practices in American municipalities. Includes several best practices sheets.
Cycling in the Netherlands: Guide to bicycling policies in the Netherlands (pdf)
Fietsberaad: Dutch cycling knowledge center
Bikeability: UK Cycling Proficiency Test
"At the Frontiers of Cycling: Policy Innovations in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany." World Transport Policy and Practice, Vol. 13, No. 3, December 2007, pp. 8-57
"How to Get More Bicyclists on the Road: To Boost Urban Bicycling, Figure Out What Women Want." Linda Baker. Scientific American, October 2009.
Bikes Belong: Research Resources
Designing Cities for Bicycle Transportation
Chicago Bike Lane Design Guide (pdf)
Los Angeles Bike Plan Draft, Chapter 5: Technical Design Handbook (pdf)
Minneapolis Bicycle Facility Manual (pdf)
New City York Street Design Manual
New York City's Ninth Avenue Bicycle Path and Complete Street, for ITE (pdf)
Portland Bikeway Design Best Practices, Appendix D
San Francisco Bicycle Plan Update: Supplemental Design Guidelines (pdf)
San Francisco Shared Markings Study (pdf)
London Cycling Design Standards, Transport for London (UK)
Cycling Guidelines and Practical Details Issue 2, Sustrans (UK)
Collection of Cycle Concepts, Danish Road Directorate (Denmark)
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