A Train In The Sky: Fighting Sprawl With Rail

Puerto Rico's "Urban Train" is a bold experiment that is similar to efforts by other U.S. cities to fight sprawl with train systems. But there are some differences.

1 minute read

October 18, 2001, 7:00 AM PDT

By Abhijeet Chavan @http://twitter.com/legalaidtech


[Puerto Rico's] planners are attempting something extremely difficult: altering a landscape produced by one type of transportation, the highway, by introducing a different type of transportation, an elevated train line. The risk in this type of urban surgery is that the patient will reject the alien transplant. Parts of the line travel through older streetcar suburbs, which have remnants of a traditional urban fabric. But the bulk of the project goes through postwar highway-oriented development, which is the most difficult to adapt to mass transit."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan

Sunday, October 14, 2001 in MetropolisMag.com

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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