Wired

Tom Vanderbilt writes about the current crop of self-driving cars in Wired. "After almost a hundred years in which driving has remained essentially unchanged, it has been completely transformed in just the past half decade."

Transportation is increasingly a major civil rights issue, according to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which argues that federal funding disproportionally serves car drivers.

San Francisco urban design critic John King has a new book out looking at how the built environment influences culture, and how the culture influenced the buildings in return.

Under House Resolution 995, six cities would be selected as test pilots for advanced ITS technology. Rep. Russ Carnahan, who introduced the bill, says the technologies exist today, they just need to be integrated and deployed.

A new proposal in front of the European Commission would put speed limits on the autobahn to reduce carbon emissions, and ban gasoline and diesel powered vehicles by the year 2050.

A new gondola cable car system is opening in a Rio de Janeiro slum to improve accessibility.

A new video features urban explorer Steve Duncan as he adventures in the abandoned subway tunnels beneath New York City.

Steven Johnson examines how officials in New York and other cities can leverage information collected from public call centers to build better cities.

Most of the bullets made for WWI and II came out of the ground under Picher, Oklahoma. The minerals ran out in 1970, and the OK government bought out residents of the city to get them to leave. A handful of people stayed.

Park(ing) Day, the worldwide event where artists, activists and architects take over parking spaces and transform them into public spaces, happened this week. Wired has pictures from this year's festivities.

Wired presents a slideshow of photography exploring the booming Chinese city of Chongqing -- the fastest growing urban center in the world.

Reducing the speed limit to 50 mph, say researchers, would create the tipping point where taking transit or modes other than driving will become more attractive and therefore save CO2 emissions.

Wired profiles Charles Komanoff, who's hoping to use his immense spreadsheet of New York City traffic data to clear the city's congestion.

The 1939 New York World's Fair painted a picture for Americans of what they future would look like that continues to influence how the country develops. Wired has a photo-essay.

Trains across the former Soviet Union have peculiar staff: kids. Wired's Autopia blog explains.

As urban growth continues, the role of public transit systems will escalate. Though some cities already have the infrastructure in place to adapt to this expected growth, many cities are starting to worry about what they'll do when the people come.

Some planners are warning that high speed rail could spur exurban growth and sprawl.

This post from Wired's Autopia blog looks at the history and potential of an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS).

Despite the downward trend in public services like transit, the city of Baltimore in opening a free transit line.

Thorium is much cleaner, more efficient and safe than uranium, and doesn't leave any waste that can be weaponized. Could a thorium-based nuclear power industry save the U.S.?