Transportation

For many immigrants in Los Angeles, bicycling is the only viable way to get around. A group of activists is trying to make that transportation reality safer and more reliable.

January 14, 2011 - Good

January 13, 2011 - Tim Halbur

The city still known for its smog will not have its buses to blame - the last of its diesel-fueled ones retired Jan. 12 in a celebration. All but 7 of the 2,221 buses will be compressed-natural-gas powered; electric and gas-electric the remainder.

January 13, 2011 - Los Angeles Times: Environment

One of columnist Steve Berg's New Year's resolutions is to explain to how supporting urbanist ideas like using cars less and retrofitting suburbs come from sound principles and aren't based in elitism.

January 12, 2011 - The Minneapolis Post

In a review of the new bike sharing program in London, The Economist raises the question of whether the city wrongly predicted the existing demand for the service.

January 11, 2011 - The Economist

Metro stations, train stations and streetcar systems have distinct ways of showing how to get from one area to another. TheCityFix's Jonna McKone looks at mass transit systems from Mexico City to Paris and the visual representations used in each one.

January 11, 2011 - TheCityFix

The state of Detroit is alarming, particularly in its continued dependence on cars, but there is hope that the city could reinvent itself as an ecological metropolis, says Jeffrey Kenworthy of the Curtin University of Technology.

January 10, 2011 - Jeff Kenworthy

Lawrence Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Square ballooned over the years to 4 lanes. Putting the street on a "road diet" will make it friendlier to pedestrians.

January 10, 2011 - The Chicago Tribune

Sounding very much like the new OH and WI Republican governors, a key state Republican legislator wants to avoid the ongoing state subsidy for Iowa City to Chicago trains. At stake is $230 million in a Federal rail grant to build 110 mph trains.

January 10, 2011 - Des Moines Register

Contracts have been signed on a tunnel project to replace the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. But opponents are still trying to stop the project.

January 9, 2011 - The Seattle Times

Mayors of some of the biggest cities in the U.S. talk about what makes a city smart, and how cities can become smarter.

January 9, 2011 - Time

Anthony Flint offers this list of the top ten reasons to be nice to pedestrians in 2011.

January 8, 2011 - The Boston Globe

California's high-speed rail project is in fact going to be built despite the state's looming budget crisis, but many are beginning to question what kind of impact the project will have if the right development around train stations is not met.

January 7, 2011 - The Bay Citizen

As San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom prepares to leave for Sacramento to become Lt. Governor, he praises the latest road diet plan - reducing busy Cesar Chavez St. from 6-4 lanes with landscaped median and bike lanes and views it as part of his legacy

January 7, 2011 - San Francisco Chronicle

It's not just the High Speed Rail project making news these days in California. The three 79 mph, state-subsidized inter-city lines: Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin, and Pacific Surfliner (nation's second busiest), all registered riderships gains.

January 7, 2011 - San Francisco Chronicle

In this op-ed, Daniel Shoer Roth says that fast roads are still the be-all and end-all of transportation planning in South Florida.

January 7, 2011 - The Miami Herald

By charging drivers for each mile they travel, rather than a fixed amount, pay-as-you-drive insurance could cut driving by eight percent nationally, or more than eleven percent in New York State, says a Brookings Institution report.

January 7, 2011 - Streetsblog

Jonna McKone of TheCityFix looks at Copenhagen's recently added rail cars that are specifically for bicyclists and other passengers with special needs.

January 7, 2011 - TheCityFix

In his annual state-of-the-city speech, Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker highlighted what he sees as his most important accomplishment: a streetcar.

January 6, 2011 - Deseret News

Prevailing wisdom is that transit mode and frequency of service is dependent on residential density, which leaves low density, outer suburbs in a lurch, instilling an auto-dependent lifestyle. Not so, says Australian researcher and author Paul Mees.

January 5, 2011 - The Age: Victoria