The dream of a Brooklyn-Queens light rail is quickly moving into the realm of reality. A non-profit advocacy group called Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector has officially formed to address the need for a more robust transportation system that could connect underserved, and now booming, areas of Brooklyn and Queens. They’ve just released a detailed proposal revealing the route and the potential design the modern streetcars could take on. — 6sqft.com

The newly opened portion is just 5km (3 miles)— but the completed highway is set to span over 100km and will connect 10 cities and four universities .... Almost two million people will live less than a mile from the new cycling autobahn [...]

the bicycle highway will be 13-feet wide—or almost double the width of normal cycle paths—and have no crossroads or traffic lights. [...]

it’ll also be greener. RVR estimates that the route will take 50,000 cars off the roads every day. — qz.com

For the first two weeks of the year, private cars with even-numbered license plates are allowed on the roads only on even-numbered dates, and those with odd-numbered plates on odd dates. The restrictions have noticeably reduced traffic in a city with 9 million cars, more than double that of a decade ago.

In 2014, the World Health Organization found New Delhi’s air to be the dirtiest of 1,600 cities it studied. Scientists blame the high levels of pollutants [...] for thousands of deaths a year. — latimes.com

[...] one year after announcing the concept of its game-changing MULTI elevator technology, ThyssenKrupp unveils a fully-functional 1:3 scale model at its Innovation Center in Gijn, Spain. The MULTI system uses linear motors instead of ropes, enabling horizontal movement and transforming conventional elevator transportation into vertical metro systems. — bloomberg.com

This is the work of Canadian architectural photographer Chris Forsyth who has been sharing his pictures on Instagram, looking to show how beautiful design is all around us. [...]

"What draws me to the architecture in the metro system is its variety from station to station. I love the colours, the architectural styles and influences, and above all its very bold graphic appearance." [...]

Forsyth uses long exposures to blur the motion and to remove traces of people passing through the shot. — bbc.com

The plateauing and decline in U.S. vehicle miles traveled per capita that occurred between [2005-2014] was described by some hopeful commentators as a dramatic shift that was indicative of the preferences of a new workforce...Marginal changes in the way a new generation behaves...cannot overcome the realities of a country where more than three-fourths of jobs are located more than three miles from downtowns and where only one-fourth of homes are in places that their residents refer to as urban. — The Transport Public

The same is happening in other UK cities, which have decided that signal junctions are better for traffic flow and safer for cyclists. [...]

After a century of resistance, US cities are finally learning to love the roundabout – the Bronx just got its first – believing them to be safer and better for traffic flow. [...]

“Traffic lights are so fascist and dictatorial, telling you when to stop and go,” says Beresford. “Roundabouts are quintessentially English and democratic in their etiquette.” — theguardian.com

The future of urban roads may be one where motorists, pedestrians and cyclists act as one. Spaces where these usually segregated members of the population live -- or move -- by the same rules. Most importantly, these rules would be social, not formal, to befit the increasingly popular trend of 'shared space'.

"Shared space breaks the principle of segregation," says Ben Hamilton-Baillie, a street designer who [...] brought these spaces to the U.K., which now hosts more than any other country. — cnn.com

even given that the Hyperloop whitepaper was a rough sketch, the most important elements of the plan—its speed and price—have been vastly oversold. [...]

But there’s a final reason to be skeptical, not just of the technical details of the Hyperloop, but of the supposedly utopian motives behind it: It may not even be Musk’s idea. — fortune.com

Ask a cyclist what it’s like to ride in Indonesia’s capital – a sprawling megalopolis of 10.2 million people...More than likely, they’ll tell you it’s outright dangerous...Car-free days may be popular, but there is almost no [cyclist] infrastructure... [However, there] is hope among cyclists that bike lanes will become a priority after the city’s [mass rapid transport] system is finished in 2019. In the meantime, several young innovators are taking matters into their own hands. — The Guardian

For those who assume Los Angeles has the worst traffic in the United States: Not so fast.

Drivers in Southern California spent a whopping 80 hours sitting in traffic in 2014, according to a new report by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and the traffic data company Inrix.

But the city with the dubious distinction of most time lost behind the wheel is Washington, D.C., researchers say, where commuters clocked 82 hours of delays in a single year.  — latimes.com

Kakutani is the main farmer behind "Tokyo Salad," the Metro’s new farming enterprise, farming that takes place underneath the Tozai Line. [...]

Tokyo Metro started hydroponic farming this past January. They’re currently selling the lettuce varieties to a local Italian restaurant and The Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel. Over the next couple years, they’re hoping to expand. Maybe they’ll start selling to grocery stores, and maybe Kakutani says, "we’ll make salads or smoothies.” — pri.org

The truth is that Los Angeles, once a pioneer in defining the freeway’s place in urban life, has fallen behind other cities. From Dallas to Paris to Seoul, the most innovative ideas about freeways and how they can be redesigned are coming from places far from Southern California. It’s time for L.A. to catch up... — Los Angeles Times

The project, called Underline, will include the underground’s first music commission and a plan by the Turner prize-nominated architectural collective Assemble to improve what is regarded as one of the most unloved station exits on the entire network, at Seven Sisters in north London. — theguardian.com