With the pendulum of public opinion swinging in favor of transit, walking, and biking, highways have become the poster children for what is wrong with the transportation ideas of the past. It’s clear that there are many ways of dealing with highway blight, but its clear that cities aren’t interested in mere beautification or simply ignoring the problem. Most cities are looking at capping them or removing them entirely.
Jarrett Walker throws cold water on the idea of privately-funded transit The Atlantic recently promoted.
Zach Shaner compares Seattle and Vancouver’s transit and finds that Vancouver gets it right.
Jarrett Walker discusses the difference between transit types — stop spacing.
Link: Like to Text? Take Transit. I’m all for creative arguments to get people to swap cars for transit.
Link: How to Design Family-Friendly Transit 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 [...]
Link: Small Cities Should Have Fareless Transit 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 [...]
Link: 88% of Americans Are Open to High Speed Rail 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.
Fast Company posted this infographic, showing a snapshot of how $1.5 billion in infrastructure money will be spent.
Link: Pittsburgh Hopes for Privately Funded Transit Connection to Oakland Pittsburgh officials hope to get private developers to create a transit link between downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland, a second large commercial zone in the area. In return, the developers will get rights to build along the route. Nobody has stepped up yet, but it will [...]