How a little-known rule could improve safety for bus riders. As severe drought continues in the West, a small town in Arizona struggles to adapt. How Chicago is adapting its electric bus infrastructure for cold weather.
An obscure transit rule could improve safety: In areas where bus stops are far apart, some transit agencies around the country have rules on the books that allow riders to request stops in between. Many bus operators and riders aren’t aware of these rules, and agencies are worried too many requests would slow down service. Agencies with the rule also limit stops on certain streets and corners but the idea would be to let people request stops late at night on less-traveled routes to increase riders’ safety on their trip between the bus stop and home. (H. Jiahong Pan | Next City)
Water cut off for 2,000 homes in Arizona: Rio Verde Hills, Arizona is dependent on trucks to bring water to homes without wells from nearby Scottsdale. But truck access to the supply from the Colorado River was cut off after Scottsdale began implementing more rules around shortages from the severe drought facing the region. A two-year solution from the city is on the table, but longer-term access needs to be addressed. (Wyatt Myskow | Fast Company)
Chicago is adapting electric bus infrastructure for cold weather: The Chicago Transit Authority has been experimenting with electric buses for almost nine years as they work towards total electrification of their buses by 2040. The CTA has been focused on figuring out how to make sure they work in colder winter weather. Heating the interior of the bus to 70 F takes up most of the battery charge, so recharges are necessary to keep the buses running reliably. The agency has found operating electric buses after capital costs is cheaper overall: About $2 per mile vs $3 per mile for a diesel bus. (Tom Krisher | Associated Press)
“We Buy Houses,” everyone else loses: Commercials or billboards saying “We Buy Houses” for cash are ubiquitous in cities all over the country. But a new report from Drexel Metro Finance in Philadelphia found that homes sold to investors were valued at 50% less than those sold to individuals outside the Multiple Listing Service. These findings call into question whether the “We Buy Houses” world is taking homeowners for a ride. (Bruce Katz, Ben Preis, Kevin Gillen | Philadelphia Citizen)
French cities banning billboards: Cities all over France are moving to ban large billboards and flashy advertising in an attempt to reduce visual blight and create a calm urban environment. The City of Nantes in western France has banned billboards and took down 110 over the course of one night. While advertisers are upset with the loss of space to market their goods and services, local residents are happy with the resulting lack of annoying pitches. (John Laurenson | Marketplace)
Quote of the Week
“If this project is built through the center of our city, this racist past will carry its racist impacts into our future.”
Ann Burruss whose complaint about a highway expansion in Lafayette, Louisiana led to a civil rights investigation by the Federal Highway Administration.
This week on the podcast, we’re going to the Rail~Volution (Now MPact) Conference in Miami. Daniel Gibson, Regional Vice President of Miami Dade Allegany Franciscan Ministries moderates a panel featuring LA Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins, Philadelphia’s SEPTA CEO Leslie Richards, and Diana Stanley, CEO of homeless services provider The Lord’s Place to talk about homelessness and public transportation.
Utah’s DOT proposes a gondola connecting Salt Lake City to nearby ski slopes to reduce traffic. Rebuttals to induced demand denial. How a community in Colorado is tackling the affordable housing crisis.
Utah’s gondola gambit: The Utah Department of Transportation proposes an eight mile-long gondola between the Salt Lake City basin and ski resorts in the Wasatch Mountains. Car traffic between the two locations in Little Cottonwood Canyon has become excruciating for outdoor enthusiasts, sometimes making what is a 40-minute trip into three hours. But not everyone is sold on the solution, with some opponents arguing that the traffic and congestion that limits access to the ski slopes acts as a natural limit on the capacity of the canyon. (Aaron Gordon | Motherboard)
More induced demand denial: In a recent piece for Planetizen, Steve Polzin of Arizona State University argues that highway expansion criticisms rooted in induced demand is unjustified which drew sharp rebukes from Todd Litman. Highway planners have been getting demand wrong for decades, always projecting massive increases in driving when travel has actually flat lined. But thier biggest folly might be continuing to plan for travel speeds and “mobility” rather than access. (Todd Litman | Planetizen)
Solving the housing problem locally: Like many other states, Colorado is taking action to make housing more affordable. But many communities worry about local control, so towns like Erie, Colorado are trying to prove that you don’t need state policies to change the housing outlook. With their Gateway development, town leaders in Erie hope to create a walkable main street without state intervention that could provide housing and businesses for the community. (Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics)
An update for Livable Streets: Donald Appleyard’s 1981 book, Livable Streets, is an influential text that explored the ecology of the street and how cars negatively impact residents and cities. Donald’s son, Bruce, updated the text and added to it, following in his father’s footsteps after a driver killed him in Greece in 1982 at age 54. (Bruce Appleyard | Planetizen)
Homeowners associations are an obstacle to water conservation: Homeowners associations are a big barrier to climate action, particularly in efforts to reduce the negative impact of water-thirsty lawns. As more water restrictions are enacted around the country, especially during the record-breaking drought affecting many western states, more rules and regulations about saving water abound. But homeowners associations are an unpredictable barrier to change, worrying more about property values and aesthetics than environmental impact. (Ellen Airhart | Wired Magazine)
Quote of the Week
“The 15-Hour City believes everything has its place. Houses go in one location, businesses in another, and in between is a dark sea of soul-crushing concrete and asphalt, a sea of inactivity mimicking the lifeless labyrinth we’ve constructed.”
Devin Wallace in McSweeny’s making fun of the 15-minute city controversy.
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by University of Iowa law professor Greg Shill and University of Michigan urban planning professor Jonathan Levine to talk about their new paper, “First Principles in Transportation Law and Policy.”
American railroads rail against electrification. New York City centralizes management of public spaces. Major Belgian cities find success in reducing car traffic.
AAR goes deep against railroad electrification: Many of the world’s railroads are electrified including in Europe and Asia, but the threat of climate change and the prospect of greater efficiency haven’t changed the minds of American railroad companies. In fact, the American Association of Railroads has written position papers lobbying against railroad electrification. Michael Barnard believes the railroads are woefully misrepresenting the facts and will cling to diesel in the age of climate change for as long as they can. (Michael Barnard | Clean Technica)
New York City gets a public realm czar: New York Mayor Eric Adams has appointed Ya-Ting Liu to be the city’s first public realm czar. Liu will be the central coordinator for anyone trying to make improvements or manage public spaces in the city. She will begin pulling together the myriad public spaces in the city managed by many different agencies and soon be responsible for the city’s coming outdoor dining guidelines. (Winnie Hu | New York Times)
Belgium’s downtowns are cutting out cars: Two cities in Belgium have seen success in reducing car usage in their downtowns. Brussels has seen a 19% reduction in cars and a 23% increase in cycling during the morning commute in just six months of enforcement of its Good Move Plan. Ghent’s mayor, who was threatened over his city’s active transportation scheme, has seen great success with a doubling of cycling and 12% increase in transit ridership. (Denis Balgaranov | The Mayor.eu and Tom Heap | Sky News)
Homes in flood zones are overvalued by billions: New research in the journal Nature Climate Change has found that homes in American cities in a flood zone are likely overvalued by billions of dollars. For years, the National Flood Insurance Program incentivized developers to build in low-lying areas. But as worsening climate change causes greater and more frequent flooding, more properties in impacted areas will be devalued. (Zoya Teirstein | Grist)
Quote of the Week
“It’s incredibly expensive to litigate these cases and owners of big box commercial properties who assert these theories unsupported by the law, like dark store, are trying to pressure local governments to reduce their tax assessments.”
Claire Silverman in Green Bay Press Gazette discussing a court case in which big box stores tried to get out of property taxes by using empty “dark stores” to compare rates.
This week on the podcast, Colin Parent, executive director of Circulate San Diego, comes on the program to talk about his new report, “Fast Bus! How San Diego Can Make Progress by Speeding Up the Bus.”
How Middle America can go car-free (or car-lite). The 15-minute city is the target of conspiracy theorists. Rethinking one-hour delivery.
Going car-free in Middle America: In many car-dominated communites around the country, some residents have eschewed the automobile for a different lifestyle free of car payments and gas fillups. Angie Schmitt shares how they do it including choosing carefully where you live so you can walk and bike most places though safety is still a big concern. The e-bike has also been a game changer for mobility, allowing further travel with less effort with the potential to replace short car trips. (Angie Schmitt | Vox)
The 15-minute conspiracy theory: The 15-Minute City, a development and design idea first proposed by Carlos Moreno, has been caught up recently in the conspiracy theory spin cycle. British writer Jonn Elledge believes that if you mix worries about large global organizations with unfounded fears someone will take away your car and ban you from leaving your neighborhood, this is what you get. (Jonn Elledge | New Statesman)
Rethinking one-hour delivery: Hazel O’Neil suggests levying a same-day delivery tax to incentivize consumers to make more sustainable choices while directing this revenue to improve transit that could reduce emissions and congestion. If municipalities optimize their delivery systems through concious curb management, centralized neighborhood delivery nodes, and alternative last-mile mobility solutions, then the negative impact on our cities, labor, and climate can be mitigated. (Hazel O’Neil | Streetsblog USA)
Wales rethinks road expansion in climate change era: 35 of 50 road projects in Wales were halted after they were tested for climate impacts as part of a larger strategy to think long-term about the environment and mobility futures. Wales was also forced to rethink investments after funding from the UK government dwindled. It’s likely the cancellations will lead to more active transportation and longer-term thinking on climate change. (Steven Morris | The Guardian)
Despite opposition, Texas DOT pushes massive highway expansion: Amid a worsening housing supply shortage, the Texas Department of Transportation is pushing ahead with an $85 billion highway expansion project that would demolish hundreds of transit-accessible homes and numerous businesses, community centers, and churches. Local residents and activists alike mobilized against the state DOT’s plans, to little success. (Asia Mieleszko | Strong Towns)
Quote of the Week
“Water fountains have long embodied enduring tensions around public things and their politics and ecologies, around promises of purity and fears of contamination. Fountains can tell us much about a society’s attitudes towards health, hygiene, wealth, virtue, and taste, and about its understandings of municipal and epidemiological responsibilities.”
Shannon Mattern in Places Journal discussing water fountains and their place in society.
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Dorina Pojani, associate professor of Urban Planning at the University of Queensland, to talk about her book, “Planning for Sustainable Transport in Southeast Asia: Policy Transfer, Diffusion, and Mobility.”
Dissecting the causes of high transit project costs. Why has construction productivity fallen in the last 70 years? How cities can be a haven for biodiversity.
Transit Costs Project releases executive summary: The Transit Costs Project at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at NYU has released an executive summary of their findings looking at over 900 construction projects around the world. The authors argue that it’s important to study the costs of rapid transit projects because lowering costs would translate to more construction of transit and increased economic prosperity for cities and the country as a whole. (Eric Goldwyn et al. | Transit Costs Project)
Why has construction not had productivity gains?: Ezra Klein ponders why construction productivity is down compared to 1970 when other major sectors have seen massive productivity gains. There isn’t any single issue he can point to about the disparity but notes that it’s getting more troubling that it’s harder to build things, which in turn makes it harder to address our most pressing national issues. (Ezra Klein | New York Times)
Cutting-edge cities in biodiversity: Human settlements reshape the environment to the benefit of residents, but often to the detriment of biodiversity. But new findings suggest that there are ways that cities can foster nature and have it grow alongside urban life. From Mexico City, Mexico to Kanazawa, Japan, cities around the world are now embracing this and finding ways to enhance biodiversity to support climate goals, well-being, and tourism. (Eric Margolis | The New Republic)
Lessons from a successful e-bike rebate pilot: E-Bike rebate vouchers offered by Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency were so popular that they were gone within 20 minutes of the program launching. Program officials talked about lessons learned from the successful launch so that they can be replicated elsewhere, highlighting the need to scale up and the role of budget flexibility. (Maria Rachal | Smart Cities Dive)
Quote of the Week
“Participation in The Line—an indoor, climate-controlled mall only conceivable in a state absolutely drunk off oil money that will almost certainly never get built and, if it does get built, will come at the cost of massive human suffering—is not just an embarrassment; it should nullify the progressive reputations of all firms involved.”
Kate Wagner in The Baffler discusses The Line, a proposed Saudi Arabian city in the desert.
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Nadia Anderson, former director of federal affairs at INRIX to talk about what lobbyists actually do.
Ranking the best new bike lanes in the US. Hedge funds are the big housing scapegoat. Pittsburgh pioneers a climate-focused budget process.
The best new bike lanes in the United States: More and more bike lanes and low-stress bike networks were built around the country in 2022, but PeopleForBikes wanted to pick the best executed that were worth copying. They found wonderfully designed protected lanes from Jersey City to Spartanburg South Carolina. They, however, saved the top spot for car-free streets implemented in cities around the country. (Martina Haggerty | People for Bikes)
Hedge funds are the big housing scapegoat: As housing prices and costs around the country have skyrocketed in recent years, people are looking for someone to blame. There are plenty of conspiracy theories and leads as to what the issue might be, but Jerusalem Demsas writes that institutional investors like hedge funds are not the boogeyman many made them out to be, buying up just 3% of homes on the market. Even if hedge funds and AirBnB are generally bad actors, the problem, she states, is persistent undersupply. (Jerusalem Demsas | The Atlantic)
Pittsburgh rethinks its budget process for climate and equity: Pittsburgh is redesigning its budget to fund climate and equity priorities that previously had little money available. By rethinking the whole budget through a priority-based process, the city is able to make sure its spending was supporting its priorities. The program, however, isn’t meant to remove departments that aren’t focused on climate, but to realize how changes can be made over time to align with city climate and equity goals. (Claire Elise Thompson | Grist)
Changing thinking on gender mobility: Language about ‘vulnerable users’ in gender mobility discourse needs to be rethought. By placing women into a ‘vulnerable user’ category, even though they make up half the population, male transit habits become the norm while keeping women on the fringe. Women also need to be in leadership positions in the transit sector so they can shape conversations around important transit-related decisions. (Isobel Duxfield | Eltis)
What should rent control accomplish?: As housing gets more expensive for renters, governments are looking for ways to protect tenants through regulations like rent control. But how rent control should be used and implemented is a bone of contention between government officials and activists. In Boston, activists are upset about a 10% rent control proposal from the Mayor’s office, saying it doesn’t go far enough to keep people from being displaced. (Jared Brey | Governing)
Quote of the Week
“The privilege of vetoing virtually any housing in rich neighborhoods is so ingrained in American culture that many people believe it is one of their inalienable rights. However, new state laws and the willingness of housing activists to pursue legal remedies have changed the game.”
Jeremy Levine, Sonja Trauss, and Jordan Grimes in the San Francisco Chronicle discuss the ways communities in California reject housing and the reckoning that might come soon.
This week on the podcast, Michiel Huijsman, the managing director of Soundtrackcity in the Netherlands joins to talk about how to think about the positive aspect of urban soundscapes.
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A bike lane mindset shift is needed. Low-traffic neighborhoods reduce cars. Is NextDoor a breeding ground for housing fights?
A bike lane mindset shift is needed: According to numerous studies, bike lanes tend to boost business sales, contrary to the beliefs of many shop owners. So why do so many of them oppose street improvements? Many business owners get complaints when drivers can’t find parking, and many are long-time members of the community who worry about change. But until customers or something else changes their minds, it will be hard for advocates to push forward. (Clive Thompson | Wired Magazine)
Low-traffic neighborhoods reduce cars: A comprehensive study of low-traffic neighborhood schemes in London has found that the program doesn’t push lots of traffic onto boundary roads and reduces vehicles in neighborhoods. The research took a look at traffic counts before and after the implementation of low-traffic neighborhoods in 46 London neighborhoods. The substantial reduction in traffic internally is seen as a huge benefit to safety. (Peter Walker | The Guardian)
Is NextDoor a breeding ground for housing fights?: The social network NextDoor was initially created to be a neighborhood space where people could get a recommendation for a plumber or find missing animals. But it has morphed into a central space in housing fights happening all over the country between those who don’t want more neighbors and those that do. Activists on both sides use the site to recruit others to their side. (Aaron Gordon | Motherboard)
Loneliness an individual and city design issue: Loneliness is not only a mental health issue but can also lead to more physical impacts as well. But while many health systems treat loneliness as an individual issue, it is also part of a systemic disconnection from society that can be improved through better city planning and design. A systemic review of research on the subject found a complex but informative relationship between urban design and loneliness. (Jennifer Kent, Emily J. Rugel, and Marlee Bower | The Conversation)
Achieving zero emissions with less environmental impact: A new report from the Climate and Community Project aims to rethink how we get to zero emissions while also reducing environmental damage from mining lithium, the material used to make batteries. They suggest making vehicles smaller, extensively recycling lithium batteries, and creating more transit service. By reducing battery sizes for cars to that of a Nissan Leaf, the research says lithium mining could be reduced 42%. (Blanca Begert & Lylla Younes | Grist)
Quote of the Week
“Sharrows do, however, accomplish something pernicious which I did not anticipate. They allow officials to take credit for doing something for bicycle safety without impacting car traffic, even though that something is next to nothing. It’s just pretending, and it’s worse than being honest about priorities.”
Dave Snyder of People for Bikes in Streetsblog SF on his admission that sharrows don’t really work.
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Johanna Hoffman to talk about her book, “Speculative Futures: Design Approaches to Navigate Change, Foster Resilience, and Co-Create the Cities We Need.”
America’s transportation engineers need better education. The misery of being a big city mayor. Annual list of transit projects opening or under construction released.
America’s transportation engineers need better education: As more and more cities continue to announce vision zero efforts, traffic fatalities remain the same. Steffen Berr writes in Next City that he believes this is because of a lack of knowledge taught to civil engineers on topics outside of highway engineering. And the limited instruction doesn’t set them up for changing the status quo when they do learn more either. He believes better transportation education can change these outcomes. (Steffen Berr | Next City)
The misery of being a big city mayor: Big city mayors across the country are becoming very unpopular, each in their own way. But it’s a trend that seems to be increasing as residents become more fed up with issues in cities that are reaching a boil including homelessness, housing costs, and the pandemic which induced many mayoral retirements from burnout. And it’s unlikely to get better over the next few years either unless mayors can take control of housing production or other macro issues that leave them and residents frustrated. (Annie Lowry | The Atlantic)
Annual list of transit projects opening or under construction released: Using a large database of transit projects, Yonah Freemark has released his annual list of transit project openings and construction starts for projects from around the world. Predicted openings for this year include 1,100 miles of fixed guideway transit. (Yonah Freemark | Transport Politic)
Should cities use cool pavements?: There have been a lot of discussions during extreme weather events over the last few years about how cities can do urban cooling. Some suggest more trees or solutions like reflective pavement. But sometimes the solutions such as reflective pavements could be worse than the initial problem, creating environments that feel hot to humans even if temperatures are measured to be lower. (V. Kelly Turner, Ruth Engel, Adam Millard-Ball | Transfers Magazine)
A car-free neighborhood for Houston: A development company has bought 17 acres in Houston’s East End hoping to build a car-free neighborhood. The developers lament the lack of walkable spaces in the Houston area, pointing to a few blocks here and there around the urban core. They also plan to integrate any new buildings into the existing built environment and value the street grid that exists. (Ariel Worthy | Houston Public Media)
Quote of the Week
“Asking individuals to spend money on helmets, lights, and reflective gear without investing in better transit culture ignores the fact that the real danger to cyclists comes from behind the wheel, not from behind handlebars.”
Marion Renault in Slate discussing the history and cult of bike helmets.
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Jacob Graham, a program manager for MoGo Bike Share in Detroit.
Why do transportation leaders keep widening highways if it doesn’t work? Colorado governor to tackle housing affordability by reducing sprawl. Car culture leaves Britons in transport poverty.
Why do transportation leaders keep widening highways if it doesn’t work: After widening the 405 Freeway, Los Angeles transportation leaders learned the hard way that widening highways only leads to more traffic and congestion. Same with the Katy Freeway in Houston. A new 710 expansion in LA would have widened another highway in the region but was canceled in part because the Environmental Protection Agency said it would violate the Clean Air Act. With so much funding coming to states from the infrastructure bill, it is hoped that these lessons are realized and money is spent not on highway widening, but transportation access. (Eden Weingart | New York Times)
Colorado governor to tackle housing affordability by reducing sprawl: Speaking at a legislative policy breakfast, Colorado governor Jared Polis said that he wants to focus on the state’s housing affordability issue by changing the way cities in the state grow. By moving away from sprawling development that creates longer commutes and lowered quality of life, the governor hopes to focus on more compact development and access to transit. (Nathaniel Minor | Colorado Public Radio)
Car culture leaves Britons in transport poverty: An extreme focus on automobility doesn’t just affect people in the United States. In other countries like Great Britain where car infrastructure has been emphasized, many are suffering from transport poverty. Those who own a car spend 13% of their gross income on it. And because of those car investments, biking is seen as an unsafe alternative. (Peter Walker | The Guardian)
Copenhagen’s controversial climate change project: To protect the City of Copenhagen in Denmark from rising seas, officials have started construction on a wide 271-acre artificial island that would absorb waves and storms. Architects hope an adaptive design will be much more resilient than a seawall and will become a natural part of the environment. However, environmentalists in opposition believe that the project is already messing with wildlife habitat and saline balance in the area. (Leah Dolan | CNN)
Quote of the Week
“The more I thought about it and looked at the grades going into the structure and going out, and how much land would actually be opened up and the way you could reduce the freeway impacts downtown, it started to seem so obvious that yes, this is the right thing to do.”
Christian Lenhart in Salt Lake Weekly discusses his 60-page proposal for rethinking the Rio Grande district.
This week on the podcast, we’re joined by Sarah Kaufman of the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation.
Yes, the sounds your neighbors make are annoying you. The future of cities is underground? Commute distance never changes.
Yes, the sounds your neighbors make are annoying you: If you ever wondered why you dislike the sound of a child doing jumping jacks on the floor above your apartment, this story is for you. Noises from neighbors illicit fight or flight responses which is why they are so disturbing to us as humans and make us so grumpy. Researchers studying these effects aim to shape design guidance on soundproofing. (Lina Zeldovich | Nautilus)
The future of cities is underground?: Singapore is embarking on a massive underground project to collect wastewater for reclamation. The first phase completed in 2008 cost $2.5B while a second phase will be completed in 2026. The project was envisioned to create more space on the surface, which is limited in the city-state. Given the limited amount of land, the city has also been studying other ways to use space underground as other cities around the world consider it as well. (Samantha Bresnahan | CNN)
Commute distance never changes: MIT’s Sensible City Lab has created commute maps of several Chinese cities using cell phone data from 50 million people in 234 cities. What they found was that average commute times and distances everywhere are essentially locked at 30 minutes and 5 miles despite the huge differences in city sizes and urbanized areas. Another interesting finding was that central employment centers are only attractive to workers until commutes get too long. (Niall Patrick Walsh | Archinect)
Bills for bus rapid transit and light rail expansion?: MO Representative Cori Bush announced with IL Representative Chuy Garcia in late December, that they and 60 co-sponsors filed bus rapid transit and light rail bills to support transit expansion with dedicated lanes. According to language in the legislation, bus rapid transit lines must have at least two miles of dedicated lanes and be center running for 75% of the route. The bill also focuses on displacement and fare policy. No word on if or when they would re-introduce this bill in the upcoming 118th Congress. (Jake Johnson | Common Dreams) (Full BRT Bill)
Los Angeles will get hotter, needs cooling solutions: By 2050 the number of days over 95 degrees Fahrenheit in Los Angeles will double to 22 per year. Half the surface of the city is impervious and communities of concern are impacted significantly more by the region’s intense heat island effect. Solutions including creating more shade and painting streets and roofs to reflect more light are potential solutions, but not without potential drawbacks as well. (Katharine Gammon | The Guardian)
Quote of the Week
“The pandemic changed the labor market and the attractiveness of transit jobs. One interviewee told us that he had been hiring for over 10 years and hiring had never been as hard as the last two years. The inability to compete on compensation was a common experience. Some interviewees also reported that limited or no remote work policies at their agencies made it a challenge to recruit for office-based positions.”
Laurel Paget-Seekins for TransitCenter discussing the coming jobs cliff at transit agencies.
This week on the podcast we’re joined by Jarred Johnson, executive director of TransitMatters in Boston, who talks about making the case for the MBTA, the Orange Line shutdown, regional rail and electrification, overhead wires versus batteries, fare policy, and much much more!