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A long sought train connection between Brooklyn and Queens may finally become a reality, as New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced she wants to "take an old, unused, 14-mile-long right-of-way and create what we're calling the Inter-Borough Express" during her State of the State address Wednesday. — Gothamist
The project would repurpose an existing freight rail line that runs through Brooklyn and Queens, starting in Bay Ridge and stretching to Astoria. The route would run through neighborhoods currently not served by rail transit, including Sunset Park, Borough Park, Kensington, Midwood, Flatbush... View full entry
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest U.S. mass-transit provider, is running on borrowed time, facing budget and revenue challenges as federal aid is set to tap out in 2025, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, said in a report Tuesday. — Bloomberg
The announcement comes on the heels of a rough summer for the MTA, which is only now seeing its ridership climb past 50% of pre-pandemic levels as it weighs a controversial congestion pricing plan that would add $1 billion in revenue a year beginning in 2023. Interim boss Sarah Feinberg... View full entry
A theatrical new subway station is gracing the Berlin stage after a dramatic opening Friday. The new Museumsinsel U-Bahn station is part of an expansion of the U5 that will connect the line into an area of the city called Museum Island. Swiss architect Max Dudler is behind the... View full entry
The City of Chicago, Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) revealed preliminary designs for a renovation of the city’s State/Lake elevated station. Located in the heart of downtown, this is the second busiest station in the CTA network, located at... View full entry
Los Angeles has moved a step closer to implementing free public transport, with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority approving a program that will give free bus and train travel to students and low-income users. The 23-month pilot program will begin in August 2021 for students, and for... View full entry
It’s been two years since Macy’s first floated the idea of building a 700-950 foot office tower atop its Herald Square flagship, and it looks like the plan is getting closer to reality thanks to a $325 million private investment in transit accessibility and public infrastructure. This includes upgraded subway access, improved transit connections, ADA-accessible elevators, and a modernized car-free Herald Square and Broadway Plaza. — 6sqft
Renderings by FXCollaborative View full entry
The National Landing Business Improvement District (BID) in Northern Virginia has outlined plans for creating what it says will be the most “well-connected downtown in the country,” following its selection as home to Amazon HQ2. — Smart Cities Dive
According to Smart Cities Dive, National Landing BID has presented "several public-private partnership projects, with costs totaling $4 billion, that will improve transit in National Landing, outside of Washington, D.C., which encompasses parts of Virginia’s Crystal City, Pentagon City... View full entry
Ridership declines across all of the MTA’s trains and buses is becoming “more severe” by the day, the agency’s latest statistics revealed, causing $87 million in weekly revenue losses and raising the specter of more debt and drastic cuts to much-needed long-term repairs. — Streetsblog NYC
Already dealing with financial pressure, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is being hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic, as new ridership data in the latest Annual Disclosure Statement reveals. "Recent substantial declines in ridership and traffic in response to the... View full entry
"I think the public needs to understand that as an agency, we are exploring what [a fareless system] could look like," [TriMet board member Kathy Wai] said. "These conversations are happening at a high level. … I think we are further along in 2019 on the conversation about the funding, what that could look like, and what those mechanisms could be." — Portland Mercury
Officials with the TriMet regional transit agency in Portland, Oregon have begun to discuss the possibility of embracing free public transit for area residents. The move comes after Kansas City, Missouri announced it would make its public transit free to ride. Running alongside the push... View full entry
The cracks discovered beneath the rooftop park were classic brittle fractures. The tapered 4-inch-thick steel beams—2.5 feet wide and 60 feet long, with a horizontal flange on the bottom—undergirded the 5.4-acre park on the building’s fourth level, and buttressed the roof of the bus deck on the second level. By themselves, the cracks formed a point of weakness with potentially hazardous consequences. But they also suggested the possibility of a larger crisis. — Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics offer a detailed recap of the events following the discovery of two cracked structural steel beams in the brand new $2.2 billion, Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco in 2018. View full entry
The California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) have reached a funding agreement that will bring $400 million in public funds to the Link Union Station project. Link US, as the project is widely known, aims to retrofit Los... View full entry
Voters in Phoenix have soundly rejected a proposal that would have halted the expansion of the city’s light rail system—a proposition that had the backing of dark money linked to the notorious anti-transit Koch brothers. — Streetsblog
The rejected initiative would have terminated "all construction, development, extension, and expansion of” light rail lines in the city in order to redirect funds appropriated for transit expansion to more auto-centric infrastructure. The result represents a set back for the dark... View full entry
Andres Sevtsuk’s Harvard Graduate School of Design studio—examined how LA might maximize the opportunities at stake. The studio sought strategies to creatively optimize investment in public transit in an increasingly hot market for private-sector services. How can technology complement, rather than compete with, public transit? And, as LA reshapes itself, can it improve equity, sustainability, and quality of life as it aggressively redevelops its transit systems? — Harvard GSD
Los Angeles's relationship to public transportation has grown to be a complicated affair. Between public and private organizations, local government, and private-sector technologies hoping to implement their "solutions" to the city's transit problem, where do we draw the line? With this... View full entry
San Diego approved new growth blueprints Thursday that allow for mid-rise housing and dense urban villages in neighborhoods near new trolley stops in Linda Vista and the northeast corner of Pacific Beach.
City Council members said the new zoning will simultaneously help solve San Diego’s housing crisis, reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change and revamp blighted areas where bicyclists and pedestrians face major challenges.
— The San Diego Union-Tribune
The YIMBY-inspired plan will more than quadruple the number of housing units allowed in areas surrounding a forthcoming $2 billion transit line slated to run through San Diego's northwest quadrant. Matt Adams, vice president of the local chapter of the Building Industry Association... View full entry
Proposition 105, a measure backed by a group called Building a Better Phoenix, would halt all future light rail expansions, directing already-earmarked tax dollars toward “other transportation improvements”—mostly road construction. Like a number of efforts to kill urban-rail plans around the U.S., the initiative to stop Phoenix’s transit development has ties to Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group funded by David H. Koch and Charles Koch. — CityLab
CityLab's Laura Bliss delves into the multi-faceted and contentious back-and-forth effort to build new light rail infrastructure in Phoenix, Arizona, where issues of urban equity, dark political money, and changing transportation needs have rankled residents of all stripes. View full entry
