Germany had a cold winter that has busted up 40 percent of its roads. One cash-strapped town, Niederzimmern, will stamp your name on the pothole patch after you pay 50 Euros to have it fixed.

This is an important issue. If we want families living in cities, the transit needs to accommodate them. I also liked this point:

Children who grow up comfortable with transit are more likely to use it as adults; those who grow up in the suburbs—and whose main exposure to “transit” is an uncomfortable yellow school bus—are more likely to continue an auto-centric lifestyle when they grow up.

This is a repeat from The Urbanophile, but he makes a great point that should be repeated:

Why have a fare in the first place? It is odd that we pay per use on transit. We don’t pay to check books out of a library. We don’t pay to visit most city parks. We don’t pay when the police or fire department come to our house for a legitimate emergency. Most non-utility municipal services are provided for free to users and funded by taxes. So why is transit different?

An inspiring profile of the former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa.

I really like the idea of cities hosting the Olympics, but it never seems to pencil out financially. For the sake of urban budgets, I’d have to say having the Olympics in one or a few permanent sites makes a lot of sense.

I’m glad that city officials in Savannah realize how great their historic core is.

Rail is good politics. And there’s this bit, too:

More than four in five (83 percent) Americans agree public transit and high-speed rail infrastructure should receive a larger share of federal funding than they do now.