Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Streetcars and urban renewal: Rolling blunder

LATE and over budget, streetcars are finally rumbling to life in Washington, DC. The long-awaited service, which has cost at least $135m to build,...

The Economist explains: Why trams are a waste of money

STREETCARS—otherwise known as trolleys or trams—had their golden age around 100 years ago, carrying urban workers to nascent suburbs around Europe and America. But...

Bob Crow: Union man

SOME people would resent being treated as the pantomime villain of London politics. Not Bob Crow, who died early this morning. The leader of...

New York: The subway, after Sandy

NEW YORK was warned. In 2011, a year before Superstorm Sandy hit the city, Klaus Jacob, a scientist at Columbia University, warned in a report that...

Fares: Maybe buses should be free

AFTER riding a tram in Strasbourg, Matt Yglesias, a blogger with Slate, has decided that proof-of-payment fare-collection systems—in which fares are enforced by inspectors who...

Latest articles

Local jurisdictions can apply for federal safe streets funds until June 26

USDOT has released its Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the FY2025 round of the Safe Streets and Roads (SS4A) competitive grant program. Almost...

How This Chinese City Is Improving Governance of E-Bikes and Two-Wheelers

Nanning, located in Southern China and home to more than 8.5 million people, is often known as the country’s “Green City” because of its...

Centering priorities: A new framework on project selection for transportation agencies

From transportation agencies tasked with long-range transportation plans (LRTP) to Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) developing Transportation Improvement Plans (TIP), we constantly see agencies struggle...

With A Global Spotlight on Brazil, It’s Time to Embrace Electric Mobility

Earlier this year, large Brazilian cities like Brasília and São Paulo were shrouded in visible layers of smoke and air pollution for days on...