Transportation Policy
Streetsblog Basics
Is America Finally Getting Interested in Passenger Rail?
Despite fierce and prevalent Amtrak hating, and although I have yet to hear any presidential candidate discuss it, nationally syndicated columnist Neal Peirce suggests that "the stars are finally coming into alignment" for improvements of America's passenger rail system. He writes:
December 10, 2007
Replace Penn Station Rats’ Warren With a Pedestrian Boulevard
Penn Station concourse under West 33rd Street
December 7, 2007
Good Streets Include Streetcars
Last stop for Brooklyn's trolley dodgers at Fairway Market in Red Hook.
December 4, 2007
Its Showtime for the DOT Parking Team
As usual, traffic was heavy on 125th Street outside the Alhambra Ballroom in central Harlem, Wednesday evening, where the Department of Transportation held its fourth of seven planned workshops to discuss parking strategies in neighborhoods bordering the City's proposed congestion pricing zone.
November 30, 2007
Paris Wins the ITDP Sustainable Transport Award
The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy has chosen Paris for its 2008 Sustainable Transportation Award. In a letter from the ITDP Board of Directors to Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, the Institute praises the French capitol's recent transportation policies, most notably the Vélib project:
November 30, 2007
Eliminate the Parking Requirement
I've long bristled at the word "subsidies" that is applied so frequently to subways, buses and trains, and so infrequently to driving, even when the latter is "subsidized" much more lavishly than the former.
November 27, 2007
Mayor Norman Mailer: Free Bikes, Clean Air and No Private Cars
Michael Frumin, who worked with the Regional Plan Association to develop the intriguing Triboro RX concept a while back, has a vintage 1969 Mailer-Breslin mayoral campaign poster up on his Frumination blog today. The artwork was squirreled away by Frumin's grandfather for 30 years. It's worth a look.
November 26, 2007
TSTC.org Would Be More Thankful If…
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign's new Mobilizing the Region blog is really starting to come alive. If you haven't added it to your daily news feed yet, it's probably time to do it.
November 26, 2007
Alan Durning’s “Year of Living Carlessly” and “Bicycle Neglect”
Alan Durning, executive director of the Seattle-based Sightline Institute has been doing some great writing on Livable Streets and sustainable transport issues over the last year. If you haven't run across his work, he is writing a pair of ongoing series that I think will be of particular interest to Streetsblog readers.
November 19, 2007
Peters Revisits Her Bikes “Are Not Transportation” Comment
Courtesy of commenter Steve, we have an update on U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and her anti-bike comments from this past summer.
November 13, 2007