Highway 101 in Menlo Park, California by Peter Thoeny licensed under Creative Commons.

Caltrans allegedly retaliated against a whistleblower flagging improper highway expansions. Why Japan has affordable and abundant housing, and the United States doesn’t. How traffic speeds around the world differ.

Caltrans highway building exposed: Jeanie Ward-Waller, former deputy director of planning and modal programs at Caltrans, says she was demoted last month for speaking up about how the agency was using money earmarked for road maintenance to expand highways and splitting highway projects up into sections to avoid environmental reviews. She is considering how to move forward with a whistleblower retaliation complaint. (Debra Khan | Politico)

Follow Tokyo’s lead: After World War II, Japan faced a rapidly growing population and a huge housing shortage. So the national government stepped in and created a simple zoning regime and permitting system that allowed developers to build a lot more housing. From the 1960s, Tokyo has tripled its housing supply while New York has only increased by one-third. Median rent for tenants in Japan is just 20% of disposable income. (Eliza Relman | Business Insider)

Traffic speeds around the world: According to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research looking at 1,200 large cities in 152 countries, travel times by driving in cities around the world aren’t just influenced by traffic or congestion. Factors such as layout, geographic features, and the quality of roads can be taken into account. In the end, the biggest predictor of travel time was the wealth of the country in which the city was located. (Oliver Staley | Time Magazine)

Houston amends residential development requirements: New building code regulations in Houston will prohibit front-loaded “snout house” garages in some neighborhoods to increase pedestrian safety and allow more types of missing middle buildings to be built. The regulations would increase allowable accessory dwelling unit sizes to 1,500 square feet and more three to eight-unit buildings. Parking requirements will be reduced or disappear as they make it easier to build some of the units as well. (Adam Zuvanich | Houston Public Media)

Abandoned lands are a hidden resource: Abandoned farmland has been increasing all over the world. In a country like Bulgaria which has lost 28% of its population, rewilded land gives researchers an opportunity to study the biodiversity benefits of leaving former farmland to nature. Scientists say that this rewilding has benefits currently measured at 40 million tons of carbon being sequestered annually by vegetation in these areas, but there might also be increased danger of wildfires and the spread of invasive species. (Fred Pearce | Yale e360)

Quote of the Week

“It’s the same feeling as the one I had when I was younger, with my parents driving their car, and it was like traffic jams all over the place. So now it’s really a bike traffic jam. But it’s kind of a good difficulty to have. Especially when we think about what Paris used to be.”

Thibault Quéré, a spokesperson for the Federation of Bicycle Users in the Associated Press discussing Paris’ bike traffic jams.

This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Bob Searns to talk about his book, Beyond Greenways: The Next Step for City Trails and Walking Routes.